André Evard’s “Construction red/yellow” from 1930 belongs to a series of concrete-constructive still life compositions in which the artist subjects everyday objects—in this case a wine bottle, a wine glass, and a fanned-out napkin—to a consistent process of geometric abstraction. Some of these works bear the title Le Couvert, which translated from French means “the place setting” and refers simultaneously to the courtly and everyday ritual of setting the table.
The present work shows a full-frame, strictly structured arrangement whose elements condense into a pyramid-like overall shape. Numerous diagonals run from the lower corners of the image to the upper center, creating a clear constructive framework. This linear structure is characteristic of Evard’s position between Late Cubism, Constructivism, and the Concrete Art that established itself in the 1920s and 1930s. While many of his contemporaries sought a complete detachment from the object, Evard preserves a subtle representationalism here and combines it with the strict order of geometric forms.
The lower edge of the painting, where the table can be assumed to be, is kept in restrained brown and gray tones and forms a calm base for the colorful still life. The bottle, glass, and napkin appear in intense tones—ultramarine blue, red, brown, black, green, and orange—and stand out clearly from the background. In the upper half of the image, the background is characterized by light yellow and orange nuances, which visually pushes the constructive structure into the foreground and creates a clear spatial layering.