Georges Rouault. 1871-1958.
Le Christ et Mammon. 1936. Sugar aquatint printed in colors. Chapon/Rouault 271. 12 x 8 1/2(sheet 17 1/8 x 13 1/4). Series: Passion. Edited by Vollard in 1939. Text by André Suarès. Printed by Henri Jourde; published Georges Aubert in an edition of 245. Printed on Montval laid paper with full margins. Signed and dated in the plate lower right. $2,000.
François Chapon, writes of this print in the Rouault catalogue raisonné, p. 58:
Emotional and intellectual assiciations are generated in the beholder, according to his sensibilities, by the contrast established by these vividly perceived impressions conveyed by these chromatic explosions and developments. The colour itself becomes, by the choice of juxtapositioning, the key to the mystery. More than the base on which it reposes, colour is the very tissue of that access to the Creation in which the artist reinvents the laws of existence. The artist conjures modulations from this colour which seem to radiate an impalable light. It emanates from what he describes as "a tormented substance like molten lava", it endows from within flesh, walls, earth and sky. It gives a strange illumination to thescene known as Christ et Mammon, its pure rays emanating from the white silhouette of the holy child, and in his bright robe, becoming the "light of lights".
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