Donated to the museum by the Friends of the Museums, Danse Zen I (Zen Dance I) is a work by Jean-Michel Atlan, an artist of Judeo-Berber origin who grew up in Algeria. After studying philosophy at the Sorbonne, the autodidact began painting in 1941 and later exhibited with COBRA.

Since his early Expressionist period, his oeuvre, in which he searches for his own identity, displays an impressive unity and a barbaric character. His pictorial technique seeks to create matt effects. From 1948 onwards, the surfaces of his works start resembling frescos and dominant blue colours have a darkening effect. Around 1950, dark undulating lines based on the creative rhythm of signs and forms become his definitive art form.

Our painting dates from the artist’s most important period, beginning around 1955. By 1958-59, living on a farm in the country, Atlan regained his fervour, his profoundness as well as the totemism that lit up his oeuvre in 1956.

Matt like pastels, the paintings of this period have broad black sinuous outlines that surround flat colour surfaces. They form signs and rhythms that are particularly reminiscent of African, Pre-Columbian and Oceanian art. His work evokes a kind of cosmic poetry that is perceptible in Zen dance I.

Described in his day as an abstract visionary, Atlan said of his art in 1959: “Painting goes much further than we imagine. Primitive humans thought they were doing magic when they created works of art. And we, who believe that we are creating art, also conjure up infinitely formidable magical forces. Above all, this magic is rhythm, because it is rhythm that is at the origin of breath and life, it is rhythm that invents forms, it is rhythm that instils this sacred element in dance which also animates painting.” (Jean Luc Koltz, Un Atlan au Musée, in: Musée-Info. Bulletin d’Information du Musée national d’histoire et d’art, Luxembourg, no. 9, June 1995, p. 23).

Text | CC BY-NC | Malgorzata Nowara