Victor Brauner (1903-1966)

Samy Kinge has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

Filled by an array of biomorphic forms which seem to coalesce and converge on one another to create a mysterious creature, Dénombrement II exemplifies Victor Brauner’s distinctive brand of Surrealism, rooted in his own highly personal lexicon of mystical, primitive symbols and images. The sinuously curving forms appear held together by a strange internal gravity, as if they may decompose and recompose themselves into new fantastical beings at any moment, while at the top of the canvas a single eye stares unflinchingly at the viewer, drawn wide, perhaps in terror or shock. While eyes had long occupied a special position in Brauner’s work, they acquired new significance in the wake of the devastating accident which resulted in the irreparable damage of the artist’s own left eye in August 1938. When an argument between Oscar Domínguez and Esteban Francès suddenly erupted in violence during a casual get together at the former’s studio, Brauner became caught in the fray and was hit in the face by a flying glass that Domínguez had intended for Francès. Describing the accident as a ‘Cyclopean breach,’ Brauner would later proclaim that the loss of his eye opened his mind to a new form of vision: ‘The hunter, the better to aim, closes his left eye for a moment. The soldier, the better to shoot and kill, closes the left eye […] As for me, I have closed my left eye forever; it was probably by chance that I was given the opportunity to see the centre of life’ (Brauner, quoted in D. Semin, ‘Victor Brauner and the Surrealist Movement,’ in Victor Brauner: Surrealist Hieroglyphs, exh. cat., Houston, 2001, p. 31).