True nomads of the avant-garde, Auguste Herbin and Serge Charchoune present two parallel and contrasting roads in the art history of the last century. Both artists have careers spanning multiple mouvements and decades of the first half of the 20th century: Herbin from Fauvism to Cubism, and then towards creating his own abstract pictorial language. Meanwhile, Charchoune too starts with Cubism, only to rebel against the movement and turn towards the Dada revolt, signing Picabia's "L'Oeil cacodylate" in 1921. He then reintegrates Cubism in a more decorative manner, just like Herbin during his turn in Rosenberg's gallery, to then turn to Purism and finally to create lyrical, colourful abstract works inspired by music.
Herbin's "Dieu" in 1957, and Charchoune's "La Chute de l'ange" show abstract, yet lyrical depictions of concepts. If Herbin, in his Plastic Alphabet era, uses highly precise colours and forms to denote concepts, there is something none the less spiritual about his works. Here, the artist uses the circle, the form generally considered to be most perfect, as a representation of God. The gouache, elaborated with a compass, could be a reference to William Blake's Demiurge, who too created the universe using a goden compass.
During the 50s, Charchoune went through his "musicalist" period, inspired by music and mysticism. "La Chute de l'ange", with its alternate title "Le Vaiseau fantôme" (the Flying Dutchman), from the Wagner opera, is a vibration of coloured and energetic lines.
The two works ask the viewer to reflect upon the abstract form of symbolism. Here, figuration becomes transformed into pure lines and coloured rythm, without loosing its deep metaphoric charge.
