Ruine du temple (aka: La destruction du Temple)

 

Roger Vieillard

  1907 - 1989 (biography)

1975  

engraving 

14 11/16 x 10 5/16" platemark 

pencil, lower left 

54 of 200  

pencil titled and editioned 

Guerin & Rault 590 

ivory wove Rives 

viii/viii 

artist 

22375 

$1,200.00 

Roger Vieillard's engravings were represented in the important 1944 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art in New York titled "Hayter and Studio 17" which included 60 prints by 32 artists from 12 nations. Vieillard revisited some of his early architectural engravings in the mid 1970s, essentially recreating them with subtle differences. The composition for "Ruine du Temple" is based on "Chute du temple", a 1937 Atelier 17 engraving depicting the blinded Samson destroying the temple of the Philistines. In 1975 Vieillard engraved this version of that image, the major difference being the addition of an abstracted running female figure (Delilah??) in the bottom right of the composition, replacing a figurative female nude, seated and turned away from Samson. There is also a revised, simplified image of the god Dagon above the altar. Vieillard next engraved another version, a reprise linéaire, of this composition titled 'Moment architectural' using only the exterior linear elements.