Lot 580 D

Emil Schumacher painted “Belua” in 1960, and it was presented two years later at the XXXI. Venice Biennial - an event that marked an international breakthrough for the artist. One particularly eye-catching feature is the rich shade of blue with which the artist worked in the top right-hand part of the painting and which is in contrast with the colours in the rest of the painting. Schumacher used this blue quite frequently, and - according to Werner Schmalenbach - it can be traced to a key experience in 1955: “A paint dealer had sent him a box of dry blue paint. In its dry state the blue colour of this paint presented the artist with a special appeal, as it had a wonderful sheen which reminded him, as he said later, of the wings of many butterflies. It turned out, however, that as soon as the paint came into contact with an adhesive, it simply seeped in and its glaze-like quality was dissipated. It was only after several attempts that Schumacher managed to preserve the colour of the paint in the state when it was still dry. This led him to the conclusion that, when using paint, the most important step is its application to the canvas [...]. What makes this process so interesting for art historians is that Emil Schumacher's 'real' art started with an experience similar to the colour explorations of Yves Klein. These took place at about the same time, although the two artists were separated by a generation gap and had proceeded along diametrically opposed paths. Yves Klein had moved towards immateriality and spirituality, and Schumacher had opted for materiality and expressiveness.” (Werner Schmalenbach, Emil Schumacher, Cologne 1981, p.49/50)