It's a good bet that when we look back at any country history, the arsenave soon

a long way toward defining its national identity. Most politicians and statesmen are soon forgotten, wars blur into memory and inventions long outlive even the most renowned inventors. When we consider Italy aren't Dante Alighieri, Antonio Vivaldi and Leonardo da Vinci longest remembered? Who better typifies Scandinavia than Edvard Munch, Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Grieg? England reveres Shakespeare; the Netherlands - van Gogh; France - The impressionists. Influences of art and culture are indispensable elements of historical perspective.

Though it grew from an ancient culture, Lebanon is a relatively new nation; one founded only after World War I when the Ottoman Empire was formally split by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. And perhaps no artist today better reflects Beirut's proud international heritage than Huguette Caland. Caland was born the daughter of Lebanon's first president. Following her education in Beirut, Caland lived for two decades in Paris, and since 1986, has called America her home.

Caland has long enjoyed a distinguished reputation. Since 2007 alone, her work has been exhibited in Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Beirut, New York Los Angeles and a major auction in London and Dubai. Her art is as uniquely individual as her themes are universal. The boldly abstracted forms that underlie her canvases open dialogues with intricacy reminiscent of lace - like Arabesque architecture. Her art is often suggestive of the magical, frequently musical, spirit of Paul Klee or the gem like quality of Gustav Klimt.

Her vision challenges rational perspective; suggestions of a distant landscape or cityscape seen from above might be seamlessly juxtaposed with the immediacy of a garden. Not unlike the simultaneity of cubism, her themes are expressed from multiple perspectives on a single canvas. Though imposing scale can contradict intimacy, Caland unerringly creates harmony and lyricism from such diversity.

Only as Lebanon creates and recreates its own legacy will history define whatever enduring contributions to the arts it might make. Will Huguette Caland ultimately take a place as a progenitor of Lebanon's artistic heritage? Only the test of time will answer that question...

But I wouldn't bet against it.

 

Aldis Browne

President

Fine Arts, Inc., Venice Ca.