83 - Jean BAZAINE (Paris 1904 – Clamart 2001)

Jean BAZAINE (Paris 1904 – Clamart 2001) The Difficulty of Being, 1977 Oil on canvas 115 x 165 cm Signed and dated lower right: Bazaine 77 We thank Mr. Jean-Baptiste Bazaine for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work. Provenance: Jacques and Lydie Bazaine Collection Private collection Steering clear of the overly narrow categories of art history, Jean Bazaine defined himself as a “non-figurative” painter, constantly grounding his artistic exploration in a profound experience of the sensory world. For him, nature—its rhythms, forces, and structures—is not a set of motifs to be reproduced, but rather a source of painting with profound evocative power. This commitment permeates a body of work in which color is one of the founding principles. Drawing inspiration from the landscapes of Brittany, Zeeland, and Spain, his painting conveys not so much the appearance of reality as it captures its movements, in a quest for equivalence between the perceived world and the emotion it evokes. Beginning in the late 1960s, and more markedly during the following decade, Bazaine’s artistic language underwent a profound renewal. His compositions opened up, his brushwork gained freedom, and the whiteness of the canvas became an active element of the pictorial space. Painted in 1977, *Difficulté d’être* belongs squarely to this mature period. The broad brushstrokes, fiery reds, luminous whites, and deep purples interact in a tension of rare intensity. The painting becomes a dialogue between gesture, color, and space. The title, with its restrained gravity, introduces an inner dimension without ever reducing the work to a literal interpretation: rather, it suggests that fruitful confrontation between being and the world from which Bazaine’s entire pictorial thought springs. The fact that this work comes from the collection of Jacques and Lydie Bazaine lends it particular significance. Having built a career in advertising, Jacques Bazaine turned his passion for art into a true vocation. Thus, despite the difficult times, he founded the Galerie Friedland. With remarkable discernment, he recognized artists as diverse as Tal Coat, Gruber, Lapicque, Marchand, Pignon, and Olivier Debré—united less by a shared aesthetic than by a common commitment to painting and a deeply engaged conception of art. In the vicinity of the Galerie Louis Carré and the Galerie Friedland, a whole network of friendships, loyalties, and artistic affinities thus took shape. *Difficulté d’être*, preserved within this familiar and attentive world, bears witness in its own way to the collector’s discerning eye, which was able to recognize—beyond schools and styles—the coherence of a body of work and the enduring power of a vision.