“My instrument is not black, but light reflected in it,” said French artist Pierre Soulages, who died yesterday at the age of 102.

Born in 1919 and choosing instead to study at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in order to visit art galleries, the artist is regarded as one of the most important post-war abstract painters in Europe, with over $7 million in sales.

The black color, which he himself considered “not a color, for me it’s a different country,” fascinated him from an early age.

His black, brown and ocher-colored lines were repulsive at the beginning of his career, but were later recognized, and experts saw in his work the birth of life from darkness and the nature of the human soul. It is no coincidence that the Louvre celebrated its 100th anniversary with a major retrospective, a “gift” meant only for Picasso and Sandal while they were alive.