ANDRÉ MASSON (1896-1987)

In 1935, Masson and his wife found themselves stranded at the top of Montserrat in Spain. The event resulted in an epiphany that became a key part of his personal mythology and in his perception linked him to the wider destiny of the universe. 'The sky itself, I thought, appeared an abyss….The vertigo of heights and the vertigo of depths both at once. I found myself in a kind of maelstrom... there were shooting stars the whole time... The whole world was entirely under a cover of clouds. The only place clear was the place where we were. And the sun rose. It was sublime. We were on our summit like Moses awaiting the arrival of the Lord' (Andre Masson, quoted in W. Rubin & C. Lanchner, André Masson, exh. cat., New York, 1976, p. 141). Six years later, in the hectic first few months of his exile in America during the dark and tremulous years of the Second World War, Masson seems to tone his experience with the sublime with apprehension and ominous premonition. Richly coloured and mythical in quality, this exquisite painting is both evocative of his earlier interest with elemental nature and the occult, and represents the upheaval of his life at the time.