LAKE LANDSCAPE AT SUNSET 1965 Oil on hardboard 32 x 46 cm

The landscape painting of André Evard captivates not only by its originality, but above all by its versatile and impressive colourfulness. Thus, the art critic Jean-Marie Nussbaum not only praised Evard’s “open-minded spirit”, but also described the artist as a “jeweller of painting” due to his sense of colour. Landscape painting runs through the entire œuvre of the Swiss artist André Evard and is thus an important part of his artistic expression.

The picture is divided into two levels. While in the foreground one sees a dark but flowered shore with four bare, thin tree trunks on it, the background is dominated by the representation of the sky. Behind the blue lake a mountain range stretches over the entire horizon. It is highly probable that this is the mountain range of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, which Evard often painted, as well as Lake Thun below, which could also be shown here. The silhouette of the mountain scenery marks the horizon while Lake Thun shimmers in a variety of shades of blue.

In this work one can clearly recognise Evard’s concrete-constructive style, which the artist discovered for himself as early as the 1930s. Because of his early concrete-constructive works, André Evard is considered the forerunner of Swiss modernism.

The painting shows an axially symmetrical composition. This is particularly evident in the two tree trunks placed on either side, as well as in the two small blue clouds floating in the red-yellow sky in the centre of the picture axis. The distances to the two inner tree trunks are identical.