Basilique St-Marc au cercle rouge, VI (Venise)

(Saint Mark’s Basilica with red circle, XVI – Venice)

1972, aquarelle et tempera sur pur chiffon, 49.5 x 65.2 cm
Coll. privée, Bruxelles
N° inv. 1260

Gaston Bertrand already wanted to visit Venice when he undertook his first journey through Italy in 1953 but he had to wait up until 1966 to eventually discover the City of the Doges at the age of fifty-five. He was the Belgian painter invited that year to exhibit his works in the Belgian pavilion at the 33rd Venice Biennial.
Among all the architectural wonders of the city, the artist was particularly charmed by the Saint-Mark’s Basilica. He made thirty-four ink drawings representing the building and, five years later, he produced fourteen airy watercolours, one dry point as well as a unique series of twenty-three large coloured drawings in 1979. The artist, who was as usual attracted to the intense design of some architectural elements, was fascinated by the five domes and the elegant cut-out of the bell-turrets as well as by the finely worked Byzantine crosses which truly thrill the city. The artist stepped back and captured the Basilica’s shape rising beyond the Saint-Mark’s Square and its elegant geometric patterns. As usual, in the final work, some elements of the preliminary sketches have been erased while others have been emphasized by the artist. Indeed, the painting only shows four domes and the façade has been erased in order to amalgamate the domes’ rounded shapes with the angular patterns of the paving which gives the impression of vertically supporting the columns. As always, Bertrand’s arbitrary representation is balanced by the artist’s invention and cleverness.