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Michel TESTARD
France
Related collection
Static
25 pieces
Artist highlights
- Featured in gallery curations
Discover the creation in interiors
Other artworks by Michel TESTARD
Artwork details
- Medium : Oil on Linen
- Other details : Artwork on cardboard. Artwork framed.
- Dimensions : 19.7x25.6in
About this artwork
‘Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark, for the straightforward pathway had been lost.’
— Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto I (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).
I painted this imaginary forest in April 2008. At the time, I was going through a harsh period in my life, trying to find a new beginning in India. Yet the forest itself is not sombre. It is rather a peaceful, meditative clearing, surrounded… by tall trees, with light filtering through the foliage. The composition is simple, with subtle shades of green, brown and ochre, and a quiet interplay of light and shadow.
I experimented here with a technique of small touches of colour, building up the vegetation and the atmosphere without strong outlines. I later used a similar technique in my painting of the Benares ghats. Looking back, I find in this early work a softness of colour and light that I should perhaps come back to more often.
— Dante, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto I (translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow).
I painted this imaginary forest in April 2008. At the time, I was going through a harsh period in my life, trying to find a new beginning in India. Yet the forest itself is not sombre. It is rather a peaceful, meditative clearing, surrounded… by tall trees, with light filtering through the foliage. The composition is simple, with subtle shades of green, brown and ochre, and a quiet interplay of light and shadow.
I experimented here with a technique of small touches of colour, building up the vegetation and the atmosphere without strong outlines. I later used a similar technique in my painting of the Benares ghats. Looking back, I find in this early work a softness of colour and light that I should perhaps come back to more often.
Michel TESTARD
France
Michel Testard
wandering painter of faraway worlds
Born in Tokyo and raised in Japan and Vietnam, I later lived in Africa, the UK and for twenty years in India. These places were not stops on a journey but temporary homelands, each leaving their own colour and rhythm within me. I paint what has marked me: a bend of the Ganges at dawn, the mineral light of Ladakh, Icelandic wilderness, the twilight of Rajasthani bazaars, the meditative atmosphere of Indian classical music. At times the real shifts into the imaginary — Goan rooms opening onto the sea, murmuring jungles, humorous portraits of musicians, rajas and yogis. My style is spontaneous and expressionist, guided by intuition and shaped by colour, emotion and memory. I paint to honour the faraway worlds that continue to inhabit me.
You can also check out my Indian Chronicles, written under the pen name François-Xavier Croisy:
https://asialyst.com/fr/?s=Fran%C3%A7ois+Xavier+Croisy
wandering painter of faraway worlds
Born in Tokyo and raised in Japan and Vietnam, I later lived in Africa, the UK and for twenty years in India. These places were not stops on a journey but temporary homelands, each leaving their own colour and rhythm within me. I paint what has marked me: a bend of the Ganges at dawn, the mineral light of Ladakh, Icelandic wilderness, the twilight of Rajasthani bazaars, the meditative atmosphere of Indian classical music. At times the real shifts into the imaginary — Goan rooms opening onto the sea, murmuring jungles, humorous portraits of musicians, rajas and yogis. My style is spontaneous and expressionist, guided by intuition and shaped by colour, emotion and memory. I paint to honour the faraway worlds that continue to inhabit me.
You can also check out my Indian Chronicles, written under the pen name François-Xavier Croisy:
https://asialyst.com/fr/?s=Fran%C3%A7ois+Xavier+Croisy
Credentials
- Featured in gallery curations
Michel TESTARD
Forest Clearing
$2,380
