Gustavo COCHET (1894-1979) - Lot 200

Gustavo COCHET (1894-1979) Republican Victory Allegory, circa 1936 Oil on canvas H. 153 cm - L. 103 cm Lack of material and traces of folding due to the former packaging of the canvas, folded in four and kept torn. Modern stretcher An ambitious, large-scale work, this canvas is a purely militant allegory, testifying to Cochet's involvement in anarchist and republican circles. The artist constructs his painting around this expressive, screaming woman with raised fists, emerging from a cloud of gray smoke and protected by a rampart of armed men. Dressed in a mono azul, the working dress of the Republican militia, she embodies the fusion of social and political struggle. The choice of a female figure, beyond its symbolic value as a unifying reminiscence, can also be seen as a tribute to the many female combatants of this appalling civil war, during which many of them distinguished themselves. This portrait could be read as that of Dolores Ibàrruri (1895-1989), La Pasionaria, author of the famous slogan No Pasaran! and whose motto was: "Better to die on your feet than to live on your knees". The sculpture by Arthur Dooley (1929-1994) in homage to this heroine, unveiled in Glasgow in 1980, also adopts the same attitude as our painting. The stability of this figure, which acts as the vertical axis of a rigorously symmetrical composition, contrasts with the flames devouring the city in the background, adding to the sense of chaos and underlining the bitterness of a terrible, bloody struggle. Like Eugène Delacroix's La liberté guidant le peuple (1830), it embodies his deep conviction that art should accompany human struggles.