Avni ARBAS (1919-2003) Lot n° 15

BOUQUET DE FLEURS, 1955 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower left 65 × 45,5 cm - 25.5 × 17.9 in. Signed and dated lower left, oil on canvas "If painting were a simple combination of line, shape, colour and rhythm, what an easy judgment. Arbas would already be a painter. Lines and shapes. It is enough to look at The Fishermen, The Fishing and The Boat to see that he has them perfectly. The rhythm itself is very particular to him. His way of rounding up his subject, so visible in The Boats, reminds us of the movement of the miniatures of the Middle East and shows the way Arbas has found to bring together in his art the national contribution and the western culture. There remains the colour. The richness of the material seems to me to be precisely one of the master qualities of the painter [...] What is then no longer the bridge to the donkeys of painting. It requires something other than technique. Solving a problem that has no solution in the anecdote, if you want to avoid breaking your back and do it without betraying the story, is no small matter. And since Arbas achieves this, he is truly a painter. Georges Tabaraud in Clotilde Scordia, Istanbul-Montparnasse, Les Peintres turcs de l'Ecole de Paris, Editions Déclinaison, Paris, 2021.