Nicolas De Stael
Nicolas DE Stael was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1914 and died at an early age in 1955. He was a French painter of Russian origin. He studied art in Brussels and Paris, graduated from the Brussels Academy of Fine Arts and majored in architecture.
Parc des Princes (Les grands footballeurs) (1952)
At that time, the rise of abstract art promoted his works to transform from concrete to abstract, but still retained the concept of concrete. He used palette knife to daub thick color blocks and superb color mixing, focusing on the expression of light and shadow and color, and full of harmony in brightness. The collision between color blocks of different sizes contains huge energy and intricate emotions. "I don't paint what you see or what you think," Stael says. "I paint things that really stirring you." Communication with the French art world broadened Stael's horizons, and post-Impressionist, cubist, and faux-ist influences of the time made Stael not entirely abstract, while he refused to be defined as a purely abstract artist. He still paid attention to perspective and completed it through the composition and color of the picture, and gradually formed his own art theory and system. His subtle aversion to the pre-abstract school was against the crude division of painting into "abstract and concrete", and he thought such a self-righteous simple division was harmful to art.
Stael, who had a huge influence in The French and European art world, believed that a creation should have passion and substance, and that trivial details were of no value. He attended the Venice Biennale in 1954 and became a leading figure in abstract expressionist art of his day. In 1955, under the influence of depression, Nicolas DE Stael jumped into the river from his balcony and ended his young life. In 2014, on the 100th anniversary of his birth, France held nationwide commemorations for the talented artist. Script: Will Wang
Paysage (1951-1952)
Fleurs 1952