Robert Detheux (1932-2010) - Rêve de chat - 2007

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Catalog entry for the work

Artist: Robert Detheux (1932-2010)
* Title: Cat's Dream
2007
* Technique: crayon, wash and white chalk highlights on paper
* Dimensions: 45.5 cm × 34 cm
* Signature and date: Signed and dated at the bottom right

* Condition: Very good condition. The stains, veils, surface irregularities and diffusion effects are deliberately sought after by the artist and constitute essential elements of the composition.

Framing: Sold unframed
* Shipping: Artwork shipped flat, with appropriate professional protection.

* Series: The Cats

Description of the work

The drawing reveals a barely formed cat's face, its eyes slowly emerging from a background largely built up with washes and patches of diffuse texture. The outlines are fragmented, sometimes nonexistent, giving the impression that the figure floats in an undefined substance, akin to fog or memory.

The gaze, slightly asymmetrical, serves as the visual anchor of the artwork. Around it, the material seems to vibrate, condense, and then dissolve, as if the image were in the process of forming or, conversely, of fading away. The cat's body is merely suggested, absorbed by the background, reinforcing the mental and introspective character of the composition.

Thematic lecture: The Dream

In Dream of a Cat, the figure does not stem from observation, but from inner vision. The cat appears as a dreamed image, unstable, subject to the fluctuations of memory and the unconscious. The absence of defined contours and the dominance of shaded values establish a climate of silence and slowness, characteristic of a state of half-sleep. The motif seems to arise from an inner space, without defined temporality.

The cat, an animal linked to vigilance and to the passage between states, becomes here the conduit of a dreamlike experience, both gentle and enigmatic.

Artistic context

At this period, Robert Detheux favors works where the figure is reduced to a fragile sign, sometimes to a mere gaze. The drawing becomes a space of mental projection rather than a place of description. Rêve de chat fully aligns with this approach, where the texture of the paper and the wash effects play an active role in the construction of the image.

Aesthetic approach

The work embodies an interiorized and pared-down surrealism, stripped of any explicit narration. The transformation of the figure does not seek strangeness, but a form of poetic clarity. The treatment of the surface, comprising superimpositions, traces, and erased areas, gives the drawing an atmospheric depth that invites prolonged contemplation.

Provenance
* The artist's family collection

Original and unique work, Dream of a Cat, stands as a particularly accomplished example of Robert Detheux's late-period production. Through its economy of means, the richness of its material, and its dreamlike atmosphere, this drawing offers an interior, silent and enduring image, intended for an attentive and contemplative gaze.