53 × 38 cm
(20 ⅞ × 15 inches)
Signed with initials lower right
No. 177
Paris and its companion Helen form an exceptional pair, painted around 1937 and exhibited together at the Lefevre Gallery in December 1938. Paris, the Trojan prince whose elopement with Helen begins the chain of events leading to the destruction of Troy, is presented here with extraordinary simplicity and restraint.
Armstrong reduces the figure almost to an archaic emblem. The long neck, tilted head and broad, geometric body are defined by delicate lines incised directly through the painted surface. Against the roughened ground these scratched lines possess an unusual luminosity, making the image appear at once ancient and emphatically modern.
Armstrong was not alone in exploring the physical possibilities of the painted surface at this date. Ben Nicholson, among others, was using scratched and incised lines during the 1930s. Yet Armstrong turns the device to an entirely personal purpose, using it to make classical myth feel immediate, mysterious and unmistakably of his own time.
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