Abstract. Vegetation in black, green yellow and red, c.1944
Oil on paper. 20½ x 26in. (52 x 66cm.)
Unsigned.
Provenance
John Nicholsons, Haslemere, Surrey, 16th June 2004, lot 711.
Rosebery’s, 15th March 2005, lot 944 as Surrealist Composition.
The auctioneers’ titles are clearly not the artist’s, which has been lost. Rosebery’s title of Surrealist Composition is a misreading of 'Dance of the Nine Opals' which appears in faded pencil, along with the signature and Fairfax Road address, on the reverse of the frame.
The date of c.1944 is suggested by the decalcomania technique and the use of a glazed geometric background that is similar to An Eclipse (1944).
This is an image that links the world of nature with the world of the spirit. It contains within its forms an outline of theosophical illumination.
There is a circular, clockwise movement of the forms that is both visual and metaphorical. From the sky realm, the domain of the spirits, where we see cosmic flashes of creation and illumination the movement takes us to the earth, the domain of the living, and thence to the dark underworld. The movement then breaks through to the surface at the left of the painting where a growing plant form reaches for the sky. The flashes of creation are painted in yellow, the colour of divine light. Before coming together in the flower form, two sinuous lines, painted red and blue, the colours of the female and male principles, trace their journey across the landscape.
Spiritually, the painting demonstrates a growth in consciousness from darkness to earthly life, and beyond into the illumination of transcendence. It depicts the three worlds of theosophy: the dark world, the light world of paradise and the intermediate world of nature.
The translucent glaze that covers part of the sky suggests a veil hanging over reality that has to be penetrated in the search for truth.