Figure vert-jaune 

Olivier Debre made this painting, Figure vert-jaune, sometime in the middle of the 20th century with an unknown medium. The art world in France was still recovering from the second world war and artists tried to forge new ways forward. Debre came of age as an artist in Paris. He was one of many who abandoned figurative painting for abstraction. It wasn't just a change of style, it was a reflection of social change. This painting, with its grid-like appearance, is a landscape but one that's barely recognizable. It presents fields, rivers, and trees as sensations or feelings. The way the image creates meaning through visual codes, cultural references, and historical associations can only be speculated upon. It is possible that the grid-like composition represents a landscape, or, rather, a memory of a landscape. This work critiques the institutions of art by abandoning familiar ways of seeing. As an art historian, I seek to understand these kinds of shifts and the social conditions that made them possible.