David 1948

Alfred Manessier, painted David at an unknown date with an unknown medium. Check out the colour! It’s like a stained glass window. It gives this ‘David’ a kind of holy vibe. The painting has these flat planes, like someone learning to draw. You can see the orange-red background pushing through. Notice how everything is edged in black, that acts like the lead in a stained glass window. Then look at the horizontal brushstrokes. There’s a real tension between these planes and the way they are put together. It brings artists like Georges Rouault to mind. It seems that Manessier found this interesting tension between abstraction and representation. That’s what painting is all about, right? A constant exchange of ideas.