Amédée Ozenfant

The fortified town of Sisteron, in Southern France, first captured Ozenfant's imagination in August 1914. There, "the admirable juxatposition of considered Vauban fortress architecture and the natural architecture of geology" appealed strongly to his taste for geometry (A. Ozenfant, Mémoires 1886-1962, Paris, 1968, p. 78).

From 1918 onwards, the numerous drawings Ozenfant executed in Sisteron served as the basis for a series of major oils that recreate the city in puriste terms (see: Amédée Ozenfant (exhibition catalogue) Musée Antoine Lécuyer, Saint Quentin (and travelling), 1985-86, pp. 88 & 108, nos. 22 & 82). This series offers a fascinating counterpoint to the still lifes more typical of Ozenfant's output (Fig. 1).

Of the Sisteron views, the present example is the most advanced and radical in its purity. Abstracted into flat zones of colour, each of which is given a different textural handling, the site is reconfigured as an exquisite dance of visual rhymes. Limiting his palette to earthy tones faithful to the region, Ozenfant floats the town against a pure white background.