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Description: signed and dated 1922 gouache and pastel on paper

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Dimensions: 51 by 74 cm.

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Provenance: Sale Christie's Amsterdam,10 October 2000, lot 70, thence to the present owner

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Notes: To be included in the catalogue raisonné on the artist's work
Léon Spilliaert's birthplace Ostend, with the North Sea as the most present element inspired Spilliaert endlessly. The seascapes of the 1920?s each reflect their own natural state of mind which can be easily recognized by the viewer. The single mood in endless perspectives and swallowing depths has reduced the figurative elements to their essence. While discernible from one another, sea and sky are presented as an organic, inseparable whole. The fluid and bewildered clarity between the various horizontal lines are stretched to a sense of infinity.
As we can see in this work Seascape the forsaken breakwater and the ever-expanding sea are reduced to lines and blocks, they become stripes of colour that carry in them the seeds of geometric abstraction. The various bright colours of blue achieve a rich finish to the constituent parts of the composition.