| La danse, Bacchante | |
|---|---|
%2c_oil_on_canvas%2c_73_x_54_cm_DSC05359...jpg) | |
| Artist | Jean Metzinger |
| Year | c. 1906 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 73 cm × 54 cm (28.75 in × 21.25 in) |
| Location | Kröller-Müller Museum,Otterlo |
La danse (also known asBacchante) is an oil painting created circa 1906 by the French artist and theoristJean Metzinger (1883–1956).Bacchante is a pre-Cubist orProto-Cubist work executed in a highly personalDivisionist style during the height of theFauve period.Bacchante was painted in Paris at a time when Metzinger andRobert Delaunay painted portraits of one another, exhibiting together at theSalon d'Automne and theBerthe Weill gallery.Bacchante was exhibited in Paris during the spring of 1907 at theSalon des Indépendants (No. 3460), along withCoucher de soleil and four other works by Metzinger.[1]
The painting was purchased by the art historian and collectorWilhelm Uhde and formed part of his collection until it was sequestered by the French government just beforeWorld War I. By 30 May 1921Bacchante was owned by the French painterAndré Lhote. The painting appeared at the auction houseHôtel Drouot where it was presumably purchased by Kröller-Müller, and published inCatalogue of the paintings in the collection ofHelene Kröller-Müller.[2] The painting forms part of the permanent collection of theKröller-Müller Museum.[3][4]
La danse (Bacchante) is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 73 cm × 54 cm (29 in × 21 in). The work represents a nude woman in a composition that contains a wide variety of exotic geometrized elements. Metzinger's bold use of color characteristic of his work between 1904 and 1907 is highly noticeable inBacchante. His brushstrokes are practically all the same size but their directions and colors vary giving rhythm to the overall work. Thedepth of field is flattened; the foreground blending in with background components. The subject matter is classical—reminiscent ofJean Auguste Dominique Ingres (an artist Metzinger greatly admired)—yet its treatment is everything but classical.
This early work in the Divisionist style represents a Bacchante (ormaenads). InGreek mythology,maenads were the female followers ofDionysus (Bacchus in the Roman pantheon), the most significant members of theThiasus. Their name literally translates as "raving ones". Often the maenads were portrayed as inspired by Dionysus (also known as Bacchus) into a state of ecstatic frenzy, through a combination of dancing and drunkenintoxication.[5] In this state they would lose all self-control, begin shouting excitedly, and engage in uncontrolled sexual behavior. Many artists chose this subject over the centuries, probably due to these dramatic characteristics.
Her body is depicted nude, seen from the front, with yellow and white highlights and turquoise reflections, the mythological reference serving as pretext for the nude. She is the primary subject of the work and is framed in an exotic setting that accentuates the arching curve of her back. She has a "deep voluptuousness," as in the works of Ingres (to use the term of Baudelaire), yet her timeless immobility makes her somehow chaste. The scene is seemingly calm and luxurious simultaneously.
Metzinger's early quest for a 'total image' explains the lack of illusory depth, the profuse light, and the refusal to depict a marked difference between the foreground, background and the woman's frame. Metzinger added a conspicuously tropical setting presumably under the influence ofPaul Gauguin'sMahana no atua, Day of the Gods (1894) orHenri (lLe Douanier) Rousseau'sLe Rêve (two more painters the artist greatly admired).Bacchante is already typical of Metzinger's style, with its sumptuous textures, sinuous harmony of line (for example the arching trees and foliage), and depiction of the serene attitude and chaste sensuality of the Bacchante's body—all enlisted in Metzinger's quest for absolute perfection.[6]
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In 1903 Jean Metzinger arrived in Paris (Montmartre) where he would reside until 1912. At this time he exhibited at theSalon des Indépendants and shortly after at the gallery ofBerthe Weill, withRaoul Dufy (1903–1904), withRobert Delaunay (early 1907), withMarie Laurencin (1908) and later withAndré Derain,Georges Rouault,Kees van Dongen (1910). At Weill's gallery he metMax Jacob (1907), who introduced him toPablo PicassoJuan Gris, and Guillaume Krotowsky, who already signed his worksGuillaume Apollinaire.[7] In 1908 Metzinger participated in a group exhibition atWilhelm Uhde's gallery on rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs withGeorges Braque,Sonia Delaunay,André Derain,Raoul Dufy,Auguste Herbin,Jules Pascin andPablo Picasso.
In the spring of 1906Georges Braque exhibited his works for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants. At the exhibition of 1907 six paintings by Braque were exhibited. Five were purchased byWilhelm Uhde. The sixth work was presumably bought by the art dealerKahnweiler.[8] It was around this time that Braque first met Kahnweiler and was introduced toPicasso by Guillaume Apollinaire. Braques works were still Fauve in nature. It wasn't until the autumn of 1907 at L’Estaque that Braque began his transition away from bright hues to more subdued colors, possibly as a result of the memorial exhibition of Cézanne's work at theSalon d'Automne of 1907.[9]
It is unclear exactly when Uhde purchasedBacchante, but it is probable that Metzinger and Uhde first met circa 1906, around the time Delaunay painted a portrait of Uhde in the same style as Metzinger'sBacchante.
At the outbreak ofWorld War I, the possessions of many German nationals living in France were sequestered by the French state. Uhde's collection in 1914 included works byGeorges Braque,Raoul Dufy,Juan Gris,Auguste Herbin,Marie Laurencin,Fernand Léger,Jean Metzinger (of whichBacchante),Pablo Picasso,Jean Puy andHenri Rousseau. These works were confiscated by the French state and sold seven years later at the auction houseHôtel Drouot in Paris 30 May 1921.[10]
The Kröller-Müller Museum listedAndré Lhote in the provenance of this painting (Paris, 30 May 1921).[11]
Jean Metzinger's 1905–06Fauvist-divisionist technique had its parallel in literature. For him, there was an emblematic alliance between theSymbolist writers andNeo-Impressionism. Each brushstroke of color was equivalent to a word or 'syllable'. Together the cubes of pigments formed sentences or 'phrases', translating various emotions. This is an important aspect of Metzinger's work of this period, hisproto-Cubist work, and an important aspect of Metzinger's entire artistic output (as a painter, writer, poet, and theorist). Prior to the advent of Cubism Metzinger coupled Symbolist/Neo-Impressionist color theory withCézannian perspective, beyond the preoccupations ofPaul Signac andHenri-Edmond Cross, and beyond too the preoccupations of his immediate entourage.[12]
"I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescence and certain aspects of color still foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature." (Metzinger, 1907)
"What Metzinger meant" writes art historian Robert L. Herbert, "is that each little tile of pigment has two lives: it exists as a plane where mere size and direction are fundamental to the rhythm of the painting and, secondly, it also has color which can vary independently of size and placement." (Herbert, 1968)[3][13]
Furthermore, each individual square of pigment associated with another of similar shape and color to form a group; each grouping of color juxtaposed with an adjacent collection of differing colors; just as syllables combine to form sentences, and sentences combine to form paragraphs, and so on. Now, the same concept formerly related to color has been adapted to form. Each individual facet associated with another adjacent shape form a group; each grouping juxtaposed with an adjacent collection of facets connect or become associated with a larger organization—just as the association of syllables combine to form sentences, and sentences combine to form paragraphs, and so on—forming what Metzinger described as the 'total image'.[7][12]
"Artists of the years 1910-1914, including Mondrian and Kandinsky as well as the Cubists", writes Robert Herbert, "took support from one of its central principles: that line and color have the ability to communicate certain emotions to the observer, independently of natural form." He continues, "Neo-Impressionist color theory had an important heir in the person of Robert Delaunay. He had been a Neo-Impressionist in the Fauve period, and knew intimately the writings of Signac and Henry. His famous solar discs of 1912 and 1913 are descended from the Neo-Impressionists' concentration upon the decomposition of spectral light."[12]
The height of Metzinger's Neo-Impressionist work was in 1906 and 1907, when he and Delaunay painted portraits of one another in prominent rectangles of pigment. In the sky of Metzinger'sCoucher de soleil no. 1, 1906–1907 (Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller), is the solar disk which Delaunay was later (during his Cubist and Orphist phases) to make into a personal emblem.[12]
The vibrating image of the sun in Metzinger's painting, and so too of Delaunay'sPaysage au disque, "is an homage to the decomposition of spectral light that lay at the heart of Neo-Impressionist color theory..." (Herbert, 1968) (See, Jean Metzinger, Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo)[14]
Metzinger, followed closely by Delaunay—the two often painting together in 1906 and 1907—would develop a new style of Neo-Impressionism incorporating large cubic brushstrokes within highly geometrized compositions that had great significance shortly thereafter within the context of their Cubist works. BothGino Severini andPiet Mondrian developed a similar mosaic-like Cubo-Divisionist technique between 1909 and 1911. TheFuturists later (1911–1916) would incorporate the style, under the influence ofGino Severini's Parisian works, into their 'dynamic' paintings and sculpture.[12]
At theSalon des Indépendants of 1906 the elected members of the hanging committee included Matisse, Signac and Metzinger. Following the Salon d'Automne of 1905 which marked the beginning of Fauvism, the Salon des Indépendants of 1906 marked the first time all the Fauves would exhibit together. The centerpiece of the exhibition was Matisse's monumentalLe Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life).[15] The triangular composition is closely related to Cézanne's Bathers; a series that would soon become a source of inspiration for Picasso'sLes Demoiselles d'Avignon. Critics were horrified by the flatness, bright colors, eclectic style and mixed technique ofLe Bonheur de Vivre.
BothRobert Delaunay andJean Metzinger between 1905 and 1907 painted in a Divisionist style with large squares or rectangular planes of color (see alsoTwo Nudes in an Exotic Landscape). Writing about the 1906 Salon des Indépendants, the art critic Louis Chassevent set the two apart from other Fauves and Neo-Impressionists. His use of the term "cube" to describe their work would later be taken up byLouis Vauxcelles to baptize Cubism. Chassevent writes:
The following year, Metzinger and Delaunay, with whom he shared an exhibition atBerthe Weill's gallery in 1907, were singled out byLouis Vauxcelles as Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions.[12][17][18]
One and a half years later, November 1908, Vauxcelles, in his brief review of Georges Braque's exhibition atKahnweiler's gallery, called Braque a daring man who despises form, "reducing everything, places and a figures and houses, to geometric schemas, to cubes.[19]
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