Fuite d'Actéon 1984

Jean Rene Bazaine, born in Paris in 1904, created "Fuite d'Actéon," an abstract piece, with an unknown medium. Bazaine lived through both World Wars and his work exists in the historical context of France’s cultural and political upheaval. Bazaine's work often explores themes of metamorphosis and transformation, drawing from classical mythology. Here, the subject of Actéon, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, becomes a story of a person transformed into an animal. Actéon, having seen Diana naked, is punished by being turned into a stag and devoured by his own hounds. Bazaine transforms Actéon's story into something more modern, more psychological. What does it mean to be seen, and then punished for what one has seen? Bazaine once said, “Painting is not the representation of a subject, but its presence." The two brushstrokes, in red and yellow, suggest this drama without ever depicting it. This work exists as a meditation on the cost of seeing, the violence of transformation, and the burden of visibility.