ROSE SERIES 1923 – 1924

The paintings of the Rose Series are among Evard’s key works. They vividly illustrate the successive abstraction process of modernism, which leads from figurative representation to a largely abstract depiction of pictorial subjects. In “Roses blanches,” the classical subject of painting still features a rather plastic pictorial design, although the monochrome use of grey and earth tones already indicates initial steps towards abstraction. With “Roses rouges,” one can observe for the first time a consistent dissolution of the objective towards a geometric shaping. The rose petals are depicted as rotating circles on a hemisphere, and the background is structured into geometric planes. This abstraction process continues in the compositions of “Roses bleues.” The plasticity of the foreground, previously suggested by shading, is now abandoned in favor of a purely geometric, planar construct. The symmetrical arrangement around the central axis creates a spatially detached structure of forms and colors – an independent pictorial solution that impresses primarily with the precision of its drawing and its finely tuned color scheme.

Artwork Discussion – André Evard’s Rose Series © messmer foundation