Le monde flottant – 1957
[The Floating World]

Oil on canvas
140 x 160 cm
Signed lower right
Signed, dated, and titled on verso: VIII 1957

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

Published:
Anouck Clissen & Camille Brasseur, Connexions one, Antwerpen, Pandora Publishers, 2015, p.79
Christophe Duvivier & Camille Brasseur, Abstractions. Arts non figuratifs belges après 1945, Paris, Selena Éditions, 2016, p.111
Michel Draguet, Hanna Alkema, Camille Brasseur e.a., Belgitudes. 50 ans de passion du collectionneur Maurice Verbaet [exhibition catalog], MVEditions, 2022, pp.25, 167

Exhibited:
Dunkerque, LAAC, Belgitudes. 50 ans de passion du collectionneur Maurice Verbaet, 2 April - 9 October 2022

Painted shortly after his transformative journey to Japan, Le monde flottant from 1957 captures the fertile intersection between Western abstraction and Eastern philosophy. The work serves as a visual bridge between the raw, instinctive energy of the CoBrA movement and the disciplined fluidity of traditional calligraphy. The title itself, referencing the Ukiyo or "floating world", signals a departure from heavy European materiality toward a more rhythmic, atmospheric language, making it a vital document of the artist's evolving aesthetic identity.
The canvas is characterized by a sprawling, organic topography of line and form that anticipates the sweeping compositions of his later career. Unlike the denser impasto of his peers, Alechinsky here achieves a sense of weightless movement, where each gesture feels both spontaneous and deliberate.