Vente anonyme ; Brest, selon un cachet au verso ;

Collection particulière, France

Cette œuvre sera incluse au catalogue raisonné actuellement en préparation par le Comité Paul Sérusier sous le n°C-173.Fig

A certificate from the Comité Paul Sérusier will be issued to the buyer.

‘How do you see these trees? They are yellow. Well, paint them yellow; this rather blue shadow, paint it with pure ultramarine; these red leaves? paint them vermilion.’ When, in 1888, guided by the sting of Gauguin's famous words, Paul Sérusier painted what was to become Le Talisman at Le Bois d'amour, he became the instrument of the emergence of post-impressionist modernity. The synthetic simplification of the landscape and the pure colours of his painting swept away the illusionist dogma of his elders with a few brushstrokes. By bringing this radical pictorial manifesto and the legend of its conception to Paris, the 23-year-old painter established himself as the first of the founding members of the Nabi movement (the Hebrew word for “prophets”).

With his accomplices from the Académie Julian, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, soon joined by Edouard Vuillard, Sérusier set out to free painting from the straitjacket of realism, daring to draw inspiration from new sources. The collective adventure of the Nabi was essential but short-lived. Sérusier would isolate himself in Brittany from 1896 onwards, pursuing extensive theoretical research into chromatic harmony that distanced him from the instinctive impulses that had governed the creation of the Talisman. But le Nabi à la barbe rutilante and his former companions shared a taste for decoration and ornament that freed them from the rigidity of the pictorial framework.

From 1912 onwards, Sérusier set about the task of decorating his home in Chateauneuf-du-Faou, a major work that blends techniques and influences, the culmination of the artist's artistic and spiritual journey. Like Les Fées aux Balles d'Or in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Brest, our work is probably part of this major group, which was partially dispersed after the painter's death. Unfortunately, documentation from the period is sparse, but the format suggests that it could have been placed above a door. An Egyptian-inspired frieze, a tribute to his mentor's Polynesian experiences, or the predella of an imaginary altarpiece, the composition elicits connections and sets the scene for a dialogue between the arts and the spiritual. In this Edenic floral universe, the mysterious gestures of the Métis priestesses also evoke the dance of the Apsaras of the Bayon. The abundant richness of this intimate, hermetic yet universal syncretism plunges us into Paul Sérusier's marvellous dream.