Notes

Christo Coetzee’s neo-Baroque works (1962–1974) are characterized by a playful arabesque line that curls and twirls about on the picture plane amidst a profusion of circle shapes, creating flower-like shapes in its wake. These shapes are in the form of a boteh, Persian for ‘flower’. The flower motif is redolent of the petal-shaped, teardrop or pear-shaped paisley designs characteristic of eastern decorative arts. At times Coetzee uses a circle as the central structural element around which the petal-like shapes of the flower might be discerned. Coetzee refers to his neo-Baroque phase as that of a metaphoric flower, revealing its mysterious secrets that are entirely concealed in a perfect circle as the petals unfold in due course.