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Lot Essay
This season Christie's is pleased to present two outstanding works of one of the most significant artists within the canon of 20th Century Southeast Asian art, Indonesian master Affandi. During the 1950s the artist developed the expressionistic technique of painting straight from the tube. He strongly relied on the use of thick, unguent pastels which created the charactestic three-dimensional impasto we nowadays identify with his work. Affandi, who most often painted plein-air, found inspiration in the world around him.
'The Apples that fall down are just left there. I think of the price of Apples in Indonesia. If this tree belonged to me, I would lay down beneath the tree, and eat the falling apples. This is the expression I use while painting'
(Affandi's words about the Pohon Apel (Apple Tree). ?Affandi in Europe ? in Affandi Volume III, Bina Lestari Foundation, Jakarta &Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2007, p. 131)
The present artwork, Pohon Apel (Apple Tree) (Lot 3336) was created at the beginning of Affandi's European journey during his travels from 1951 to 1954. It depicts the trunk of an apple tree standing in the middle of a fruit orchard. This scene was most probably experienced during the autumn, as the trees slowly lose their leaves and unharvested fruit fall to the ground. The leafless branches of the trees and the thick, obscure oil lines remind the viewer of the dcor of an enchanted forest. It has been observed that Affandi was deeply interested in trees as the symbols of earthly life force and therefore portraying various species of fruit and flowering trees has become a recurrent subject in his oeuvre, such as the orange trees from Tawangmangu, the olive tree in Italy or the banyan tree in Bali.
'The Apples that fall down are just left there. I think of the price of Apples in Indonesia. If this tree belonged to me, I would lay down beneath the tree, and eat the falling apples. This is the expression I use while painting'
(Affandi's words about the Pohon Apel (Apple Tree). ?Affandi in Europe ? in Affandi Volume III, Bina Lestari Foundation, Jakarta &Singapore Art Museum, Singapore, 2007, p. 131)
The present artwork, Pohon Apel (Apple Tree) (Lot 3336) was created at the beginning of Affandi's European journey during his travels from 1951 to 1954. It depicts the trunk of an apple tree standing in the middle of a fruit orchard. This scene was most probably experienced during the autumn, as the trees slowly lose their leaves and unharvested fruit fall to the ground. The leafless branches of the trees and the thick, obscure oil lines remind the viewer of the dcor of an enchanted forest. It has been observed that Affandi was deeply interested in trees as the symbols of earthly life force and therefore portraying various species of fruit and flowering trees has become a recurrent subject in his oeuvre, such as the orange trees from Tawangmangu, the olive tree in Italy or the banyan tree in Bali.