Gaston Hoffmann (1883-1977) Disintegration - Science Fiction

Gaston HOFFMANN
(Paris 1883 - Nice 1977)
Disintegration
Oil on canvas
H. 54 cm; W. 81 cm
Signed lower right

Provenance: Descendant of the artist.

Gaston Hoffmann's paintings are rarely encountered, but never forgotten. Whether they exude a kind of burlesque poetry from everyday life, or whether they reintroduce the surrealist spirit of Bosch or Brueghel in the midst of the modern period, they always emanate a euphoria, a humor, a unique inventiveness which gives who watches them for a moment of happiness. Jean Veber, his predecessor at the Salon des Humoristes, was obviously one of his models. But his huge paintings, teeming with dozens of small comic characters, also evoke Devambez who went from miniature to gigantic... It is all the more surprising to discover, in this Lorraine master inclined to gaiety, such dark allegories than the one we present. To be surprised would be to forget that Hoffmann is part of that generation which, in its flesh and soul, was branded by the monstrous absurdity of the First World War. A time that we ourselves naively hoped would finally be over! Our table, which can certainly be dated to the conflict or its immediate aftermath, is sufficiently eloquent to make it unnecessary to explain it. Note only that the artist does not resort to war reporting, like many of his contemporaries. In this painting which he titles “Disintegration”, Hoffmann chooses the path of the fantastic and is part of the thousand-year-old tradition of visions of the Apocalypse. But this Death howling the end of the world, at the same time as it emerges from a medieval danse macabre, foreshadows the most modern means of destruction - with these fire-spitting globes which seem to be endowed with nuclear force. These disturbing works, - because their aim is to remind us of the madness inherent in History, not to please us -, deserve to figure in a timeless imagery of the War, following that other Lorrain who is Jacques Callot. . Perhaps the most extraordinary thing is that after witnessing this darkness, after having extracted its pictorial essence, Gaston Hoffmann was able throughout his career to create the most joyous images possible!