Jeanne Mathieu (1913-1976) - In Memory Of Pyotr Ilyich

Oil on canvas. Original canvas. Signed by hand. Dated on the back.

The violin lies exhausted on the table, like a castaway of precious wood amidst the bourgeois order of porcelain and the languorous scent of flowers, still vibrating with the echo of that shameless sentimentality that is Tchaikovsky's concerto. There's something almost kitschy, an emotional obscenity, in the way the instrument rests after having been the receptacle of a pain so unbearable it borders on pathology; it's the residue of a passion that screams at the top of its lungs, a lament that, in the hands of a suicidal spirit - in the manner of a feverish Szimanowski - ceases to be music and becomes a visceral cry. Deep within this object lurks an abyss of unfathomable anguish, the memory of a rope stretched to the extreme to translate the unspeakable, reminding us that beauty, when genuine, is always somewhat unbearable and cruel.

- Image size unframed: 59 x 72 cm / 70 x 83 cm with exclusive custom frame.