Chaim Soutine
Fundamental Paintings to Understand the History of Painting
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Red Stairway at Cagnes (1923). Chaim Soutine
Oil on canvas. 73 cm x 54 cm
Private Collection
Soutine is considered to be part of the School of Paris, a group of artists very different among them. It is difficult to classify or identify them with only one avant-garde movement in particular.
He said he did not like Van Gogh, but his work influenced him greatly. Also, as any painter of modernity Cézanne and his distortion of perspective influenced him.
Soutine shows many perspectives at the same time, not in a fragmented plane as Cubism, but distorted, with which he achieves a dramatic effect: reality twisting under things. It is a great contribution to the history of painting, but not the only one. The other one is the amazing talent with which he uses colors (vibrant, explosive, wild) to transmit —instead of joy— tearing, desperation, anguish, death.
That is why, although his work is very personal, he cannot be classified according to any movement, we may provocatively say he is “most Expressionist than the most Expressionist artists.”
His paintings can be defined as a “ride through hell.” They reflect the nightmare life he led and the reason why he is considered as one of the damned painters together with Modigliani and Utrillo.
Recommended links:
Soutine’s Expressionist Landscape.
Fundamental Painters of The School of Paris.
The Scream (1893), Edvard Munch.
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