Femme à l'Éventail
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Femme à l'Éventail'' (also known as ''L'Éventail vert'', ''Woman with a Fan'', and ''The Lady'') is an oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist and theorist
Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...
(1883–1956). The painting was exhibited at the
Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The ...
, 1912, Paris (hung in the decorative arts section inside the ''Salon Bourgeois'' of ''
La Maison Cubiste ''La Maison Cubiste'' (''The Cubist House''), also called ''Projet d'hôtel'', was an architectural installation in the ''Art Décoratif'' section of the 1912 Paris ''Salon d'Automne'' which presented a Cubist vision of architecture and design. Cr ...
'', the ''Cubist House''), and ''De
Moderne Kunstkring Moderne Kunstkring (Modern Art Circle) was a progressive artists' club and society of Dutch artists founded in 1910 by the painter and critic with Jan Sluijters.Chilvers, Ian and John Glaves-Smith. ''A Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art''. ...
'', 1912, Amsterdam (''L'éventail vert'', no. 153). It was also exhibited at the
Musée Rath The Musée Rath is an art museum in Geneva, used exclusively for temporary exhibitions. Its building is the oldest purpose-built art museum in Switzerland, and the original home of Geneva's Musée d'Art et d'Histoire. It is located on Place Neu ...
, Geneva, ''Exposition de cubistes français et d'un groupe d'artistes indépendants'', 3–15 June 1913 (''L'éventail vert'', no. 22). A 1912 photograph of ''Femme à l'Éventail'' hanging on a wall inside the ''Salon Bourgeois'' was published in ''The Sun'' (New York, N.Y.), 10 November 1912. The same photograph was reproduced in ''
The Literary Digest ''The Literary Digest'' was an influential American general interest weekly magazine published by Funk & Wagnalls. Founded by Isaac Kaufmann Funk in 1890, it eventually merged with two similar weekly magazines, ''Public Opinion'' and '' Current O ...
'', 30 November 1912. Metzinger's Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the
Chambre des Députés Chamber of Deputies (french: Chambre des députés) was a parliamentary body in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: * 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the lower house ...
about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such 'barbaric' art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist politician,
Marcel Sembat Marcel Sembat (, 19 October 1862 – 5 September 1922) was a French Socialist politician. He served as a member of the National Assembly of France from 1893 to 1922, and as Minister of Public Works from August 26, 1914, to December 12, 1916. B ...
.Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, ''Histoire & Mesure'', no. XXII -1 (2007), Guerre et statistiques, ''L'art de la mesure, Le Salon d'Automne (1903-1914), l'avant-garde, ses étranger et la nation française''
(The Art of Measure: The Salon d'Automne Exhibition (1903-1914), the Avant-Garde, its Foreigners and the French Nation), electronic distribution Caim for Éditions de l'EHESS (in French)
This painting was realized as Jean Metzinger and
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
, in preparation for the Salon de la
Section d'Or The Section d'Or ("Golden Section"), also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of Painting, painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism (art), Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs, the grou ...
, published a major defence of
Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...
, resulting in the first theoretical essay on the new movement, ''
Du "Cubisme" ''Du "Cubisme"'', also written ''Du Cubisme'', or ''Du « Cubisme »'' (and in English, ''On Cubism'' or ''Cubism''), is a book written in 1912 by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. This was the first major text on Cubism, predating ''The Cubist P ...
''. A photograph of ''Femme à l'Éventail'' appears among the
Léonce Rosenberg Léonce Rosenberg (12 September 1879 in Paris – 31 July 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was an art collector, writer, publisher, and one of the most influential French art dealers of the 20th century. His greatest impact was as a supporter and promote ...
archives in Paris, but there is no indication of when he acquired the painting.''Guggenheim Museum Collection Paintings, 1880-1945'', Published June 1976 by Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation
/ref> A Rosenberg label on the reverse bears the information "No.25112 J.Metzinger, 1913." By 1918 Rosenberg was buying Metzinger's paintings and may have acquired the picture around this time or soon afterwards. In 1937 ''Femme à l'Éventail'' was exhibited at
Musée du Petit Palais The Petit Palais (; en, Small Palace) is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle ("universal exhibition"), it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts (''Musée des beaux-arts ...
, ''Les Maitres de l'art indépendant, 1895-1937'', no. 12 (dated 1912). Mlle. Gamier des Garets probably acquired the painting after the 1937 exhibition. By 1938
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
had purchased the painting. It was gifted to the museum (gift 38.531) by Guggenheim in 1938 (the year after the formation of the foundation). Metzinger's ''Femme à l'Éventail'' forms part of the Founding Collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. ''Femme à l'Éventail'' was showcased in an exhibition entitled ''The Great Upheaval: Masterpieces from the Guggenheim Collection, 1910-1918'', from 30 November 2013 to 1 June 2014.


Description

''Femme à l'Éventail'' is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 90.7 x 64.2 cm (35.75 x 25.25 in). As the title indicates, the painting represents a woman holding a fan. She is shown in half-length sitting on what appears to be a green bench. She is wearing an elaborate gown with a
Polka dot Red polka dots on a yellow background Girl wearing polka dot dress Polish ceramics German ceramics Polka dot is a pattern consisting of an array of large filled circles of the same size. Polka dots are commonly seen on children's clothing, ...
pattern consisting of an array of blue-filled circles, and holds in her right hand a folded fan. The left hand of the woman holds a paper that bares the artists signature (lower left). She wears a hat with feathers or plumes of fashionable dressed Parisian women.Daniel Robbins, Jean Metzinger: ''At the Center of Cubism'', 1985, exhibition catalogue: ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art She is placed in an outdoor setting with buildings, windows and green shutters in the 'background'. The work is similar stylistically with another work exhibited at the same Salon d'Automne, '' Dancer in a café'' (
Albright-Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
, Buffalo New York). As in other works by Metzinger of the same period, there are elements to be found of the real world, e.g., a fan, windows, and feathers. The rest of the canvas consists of a series of geometric forms of greater or lesser abstraction, of convex and concave gradations that stem from the teachings of
Georges Seurat Georges Pierre Seurat ( , , ; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French post-Impressionist artist. He devised the painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism and used conté crayon for drawings on paper with a rough su ...
and
Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...
. The
Divisionist Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically..Homer, William I. ''Seurat and the Science of ...
brushwork, mosaic-like 'cubes', present in Metzinger's Neo-Impressionist phase (circa 1903 through 1907) have returned giving texture and rhythm to vast areas of the canvas, visible both in the figures and background. ''Femme à l'Éventail'' portrays a strikingly fashionable woman at the height of Parisian fashion in 1912. The artist depicts the figure and background as a series of subdivided facets and planes, presenting multiple aspects of the scene simultaneously. This can be seen in the deliberate positioning of light, shadow, the nonconventional use of
chiaroscuro Chiaroscuro ( , ; ), in art, is the use of strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for the use of contrasts of light to achi ...
, of form and color, and the way in which Metzinger assimilates the fusion of the background with the figures. The manifold surface has a complex geometry of reticulations with intricate series of (almost mathematical looking) black lines that appear in sections as underdrawing and in others as overdrawing.
"The style of the clothes is meticulously up-to-the-minute" writes Cottington of Metzinger's three entries at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, "the cut of the dresses, and the relatively uncorseted silhouettes they permitted their weavers to display, owe much more to Poiret than to Worth—indeed the check of one figure in the ''Dancer'' and the polka dots of the ''Woman with a Fan'' anticipate the post-war geometries, if not the colour harmonies, of
Sonia Delaunay Sonia Delaunay (13 November 1885 – 5 December 1979) was a French artist, who spent most of her working life in Paris. She was born in Odessa (then part of Russian Empire), and formally trained in Russian Empire and Germany before moving to Fr ...
's fabrics, while the open-collared sportiness of the dress and cloche-style hat in ''The Yellow Feather'' look forward to the 1920s."David Cottington, 2004, Cubism and its Histories
Manchester University Press


Multiple perspective

The reflexive function of complex geometry, juxtaposed multiple perspectives, planar fragmentation suggesting motion and rhythmic play with various symmetry types. Though very subtle, there does manifest itself in ''Femme à l'Éventail'' a spatial depth or perspective reminiscent of the optical illusion of space of the Renaissance; in the way, for example, windows appear of varying dimension depending on distance from the observer. This shows that
non-Euclidean geometry In mathematics, non-Euclidean geometry consists of two geometries based on axioms closely related to those that specify Euclidean geometry. As Euclidean geometry lies at the intersection of metric geometry and affine geometry, non-Euclidean geo ...
does not imply the destruction of classical perspective, or that the breakdown of classical perspective need not be complete. Unlike the flattening of space associated with the Cubist paintings of Picasso and Braque of the same period, Metzinger had no intention of abolishing depth of field. Of course here perspectival space is only alluded to by changes of scale, not by co-ordinated linear convergence, resulting in a complex space perfectly adapted to a stage-set. This feature is observed not only in Metzinger's Cubist paintings, but also in his
Divisionist Divisionism, also called chromoluminarism, was the characteristic style in Neo-Impressionist painting defined by the separation of colors into individual dots or patches which interacted optically..Homer, William I. ''Seurat and the Science of ...
and proto-Cubist works between 1905 and 1909, as well as in his more figurative works of the 1920s (during the
Return to order The return to order ( French: ''retour à l'ordre'') was a European art movement that followed the First World War, rejecting the extreme avant-garde art of the years up to 1918 and taking its inspiration from classical art instead. The movement ...
phase). The painting, as Metzinger's enchanting '' Dancer in a café'', inscribes an ambivalence in that it expresses both contemporary and classical, modern and traditional, avant-garde and academic connotations, simultaneously. The "busy geometry of planar fragmentation and juxtaposed perspectives has a more than reflexive function," notes Cottington, "for the symmetrical patterning of its reticulations (as in the dancer's ''décolletage'') and their rhythmic parallel repetitions suggest not only movement and diagrams but also, metonymically, the mechanised object-world of modernity." "The works of Jean Metzinger"
Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...
writes in 1912 "have purity. His meditations take on beautiful forms whose harmony tends to approach sublimity. The new structures he is composing are stripped of everything that was known before him." Apollinaire, possibly with the work of
Eadweard Muybridge Eadweard Muybridge (; 9 April 1830 – 8 May 1904, born Edward James Muggeridge) was an English photographer known for his pioneering work in photographic studies of motion, and early work in motion-picture projection. He adopted the first ...
in mind, wrote a year later of this ''state of motion'' present in the Cubist paintings of Metzinger and others, as akin to ''cinematic'' movement around an object, revealing a ''plastic truth'' compatible with reality by showing the spectator "all its facets."
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
in 1911 remarks Metzinger is "haunted by the desire to inscribe a total image": :He will put down the greatest number of possible planes: to purely objective truth he wishes to add a new truth, born from what his intelligence permits him to know. Thus—and he said himself: to space he will join time. ..he wishes to develop the visual field by multiplying it, to inscribe them all in the space of the same canvas: it is then that the cube will play a role, for Metzinger will utilize this means to reestablish the equilibrium that these audacious inscriptions will have momentarily broken. (Gleizes) Now liberated from the one-to-one relationship between a fixed coordinate in space captured at a single moment in time assumed by classical vanishing-point perspective, the artist became free to explore notions of ''simultaneity'', whereby several positions in space captured at successive time intervals could be depicted within the bounds of a single painting.Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, ''Cubism and Culture'', Thames & Hudson, 2001 This picture plane, write Metzinger and Gleizes (in ''
Du "Cubisme" ''Du "Cubisme"'', also written ''Du Cubisme'', or ''Du « Cubisme »'' (and in English, ''On Cubism'' or ''Cubism''), is a book written in 1912 by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. This was the first major text on Cubism, predating ''The Cubist P ...
'', 1912), "reflects the viewer's personality back upon his understanding, pictorial space may be defined as a sensible passage between two subjective spaces." The forms situated within this space, they continue, "spring from a dynamism which we profess to command. In order that our intelligence may possess it, let us first exercise our sensibility."Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes, ''Du "Cubisme"'', Paris, 1912, in Robert L. Herbert, ''Modern Artists on Art'', Englewood Cliffs, 1964. There are two methods of regarding the division of the canvas, according to Metzinger and Gleizes, (1) "all the parts are connected by a rhythmic convention", giving the painting a centre from which the gradations of colour proceed (or towards which they tend), creating spaces of maximum or minimum intensity. (2) "The spectator, himself free to establish unity, may apprehend all the elements in the order assigned to them by creative intuition, the properties of each portion must be left independent, and the plastic continuum must be broken into a thousand surprises of light and shade."
"There is nothing real outside ourselves; there is nothing real except the coincidence of a sensation and an individual mental direction. Far be it from us to throw any doubts upon the existence of the objects which strike our senses; but, rationally speaking, we can only have certitude with regard to the images which they produce in the mind." (Metzinger and Gleizes, 1912)
According to the founders of Cubist theory, objects possess no absolute or essential form. "There are as many images of an object as there are eyes which look at it; there are as many essential images of it as there are minds which comprehend it."


Theoretical underpinnings

The idea of moving around an object in order to see it from different view-points is treated in ''
Du "Cubisme" ''Du "Cubisme"'', also written ''Du Cubisme'', or ''Du « Cubisme »'' (and in English, ''On Cubism'' or ''Cubism''), is a book written in 1912 by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. This was the first major text on Cubism, predating ''The Cubist P ...
'' (1912). It was also a central idea of Jean Metzinger's ''Note sur la Peinture'', 1910; Indeed, prior to Cubism painters worked from the limiting factor of a single view-point. And it was Metzinger for the first time in ''Note sur la peinture'' who enunciated the stimulating interest in representing objects as remembered from successive and subjective experiences within the context of both space and time. It was then that Metzinger discarded traditional perspective and granted himself the liberty of moving around objects. This is the concept of "mobile perspective" that would tend towards the representation of the "total image." Though at first the idea would shock the general public some eventually came to accept it, as they came to accept the '
atomist Atomism (from Ancient Greek, Greek , ''atomon'', i.e. "uncuttable, indivisible") is a natural philosophy proposing that the physical universe is composed of fundamental indivisible components known as atoms. References to the concept of atomism ...
' representation of the universe as a multitude of dots consisting of primary colors. Just as each color is modified by its relation to adjacent colors within the context of Neo-Impressionist color theory, so too the object is modified by the geometric forms adjacent to it within the context of Cubism. The concept of 'mobile perspective' is essentially an extension of a similar principle stated in
Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Biography Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. H ...
's ''D'Eugène Delacroix au néo-impressionisme'', with respect to color. Only now, the idea is extended to deal with questions of form within the context of both space and time.


Salon d'Automne, 1912

The Salon d'Automne of 1912, held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 1 October to 8 November, saw the Cubists (listed below) regrouped into the same room XI. The history of the Salon d'Automne is marked by two important dates: 1905, bore witness to the birth of
Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...
(with the participation of Metzinger), and 1912, the xenophobe and anti-modernist quarrel. The 1912 polemic leveled against both the French and non-French avant-garde artists originated in ''Salle XI'' where the Cubists exhibited their works. The resistance to foreigners (dubbed "apaches") and avant-garde artists was just the visible face of a more profound crises: that of defining modern French art, and the dwindling of an artistic system crystallized around the heritage of
Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...
centered in Paris. Burgeoning was a new avant-garde system, the international logic of which—''mercantile'' and ''médiatique''—put into question the modern ideology elaborated upon since the late 19th century. What had begun as a question of ''aesthetics'' quickly turned ''political'', and as in the 1905 Salon d'Automne, with his infamous "Donatello chez les fauves",Louis Vauxcelles, ''Le Salon d'Automne'', Gil Blas, 17 October 1905. Screen 5 and 6. Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France
the critic
Louis Vauxcelles Louis Vauxcelles (born Louis Meyer; 1 January 187021 July 1943) was a French art critic. He is credited with coining the terms '' Fauvism'' (1905) and ''Cubism'' (1908). He used several pseudonyms in various publications: Pinturrichio, Vasari, ...
(Les Arts, 1912) was most implicated in the deliberations. Recall too, it was Vauxcelles who, on the occasion of the 1910 Salon des Indépendants, wrote disparagingly of 'pallid cubes' with reference to the paintings of Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Léger and Delaunay. On 3 December 1912 the polemic reached the
Chambre des députés Chamber of Deputies (french: Chambre des députés) was a parliamentary body in France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: * 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the lower house ...
(and was debated at the Assemblée Nationale in Paris). * Jean Metzinger entered three works: '' Dancer in a café'' (entitled ''Danseuse''), ''La Plume Jaune'' (''The Yellow Feather''), and ''Femme à l'Éventail'' (''Woman with a Fan'') which hung in the decorative arts section inside ''La Maison Cubiste'' (the ''Cubist House''). *
Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...
exhibited ''La Femme en Bleu'' (''Woman in Blue''), 1912 (Kunstmuseum, Basel) and ''Le passage à niveau'' (''The Level Crossing''), 1912 (Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland) *
Roger de La Fresnaye Roger de La Fresnaye (; 11 July 1885 – 27 November 1925) was a French Cubist painter. Early years and education La Fresnaye was born in Le Mans where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed. The La Fresnayes were ...
, ''Les Baigneuse'' (''The bathers'') 1912 (The National Gallery, Washington) and ''Les joueurs de cartes'' (Card Players) *
Henri Le Fauconnier Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier (July 5, 1881 – December 25, 1946) was a French Cubist painter born in Hesdin. Le Fauconnier was seen as one of the leading figures among the Montparnasse Cubists. At the 1911 Salon des Indépendants Le Fauco ...
, ''The Huntsman'' (Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands) and ''Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours'' (''Mountaineers Attacked by Bears'') 1912 (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). *
Albert Gleizes Albert Gleizes (; 8 December 1881 – 23 June 1953) was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on ...
, '' l'Homme au Balcon (Man on a Balcony), (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud)'', 1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), also exhibited at the
Armory show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was a show organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors in 1913. It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of ...
, New York, Chicago, Boston, 1913. *
André Lhote André Lhote (5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962) was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also active and influential as a teacher and writer on art. Early life and education Lhote was born ...
, ''Le jugement de Paris'', 1912 (Private collection) *
František Kupka František Kupka (23 September 1871 – 24 June 1957), also known as ''Frank Kupka'' or ''François Kupka,'' was a Czech painter and graphic artist. He was a pioneer and co-founder of the early phases of the abstract art movement and Orphic C ...
, ''Amorpha, Fugue à deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912 (Narodni Galerie, Prague), and ''Amorpha Chromatique Chaude''. *
Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism ...
, 1912, ''La Source'' (''The Spring'') (Museum of Modern Art, New York) *
Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...
, ''Family Life'', 1912, sculpture *
Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and ...
, exhibited four elongated and highly stylized heads), sculptures *
Joseph Csaky Joseph Csaky (also written Josef Csàky, Csáky József, József Csáky and Joseph Alexandre Czaky) (18 March 1888 – 1 May 1971) was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, best known for his early participation in the ...
exhibited the sculptures '' Groupe de femmes'', 1911-1912 (location unknown), ''Portrait de M.S.H.'', no. 91 (location unknown), and '' Danseuse (Femme à l'éventail, Femme à la cruche)'', no. 405 (location unknown)


La Maison Cubiste

In the decorative arts section of the 1912 Salon d'Automne an architectural installation was exhibited that became known as ''Maison Cubiste'' (''Cubist House''), signed
Raymond Duchamp-Villon Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor. Life and art Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duch ...
and
André Mare Charles André Mare (1885–1932), or André-Charles Mare, was a French painter and textile designer, and co-founder of the Company of French Art (''la Compagnie des Arts Français'') in 1919. He was a designer of colorful textiles, and was one o ...
, along with a group of collaborators. ''La Maison Cubiste'' was a fully furnished house, or ''Projet d'Hôtel'', with a staircase, wrought iron banisters, and a bedroom, and a living room—the ''Salon Bourgeois'', where paintings by Marcel Duchamp, Gleizes, Laurencin, Léger and Metzinger's ''Woman with a Fan'' were hung. It was an example of ''L'art décoratif'', a home within which Cubist art could be displayed in the comfort and style of modern, bourgeois life. Spectators at the Salon d'Automne passed through the full-scale 10-by-3-meter plaster model of the ground floor of the ''Façade architecturale'', designed by Duchamp-Villon. "Mare's ensembles were accepted as frames for Cubist works because they allowed paintings and sculptures their independence", writes Christopher Green, "creating a play of contrasts, hence the involvement not only of Gleizes and Metzinger themselves, but of Marie Laurencin, the Duchamp brothers and Mare's old friends Léger and Roger La Fresnaye".Christopher Green, ''Art in France: 1900-1940,'' Chapter 8, Modern Spaces; Modern Objects; Modern People, 2000
/ref> Reviewing the Salon d'Automne Roger Allard commended Metzinger's 'finesse and distinction of palette'. Maurice Raynal noted the seductive charm and sureness of execution of Metzinger's entries, the refined sensibility of Metzinger himself, the playfulness and grace of whom he compares to
Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "R ...
, while singling out Metzinger as 'certainly ... the man of our time who knows best how to paint'.


See also

* List of works by Jean Metzinger


Literature

* ''La vie artistique. Le Salon d'Automne, les ensembles décoratifs'', Roger Allard, La Cote, 14 October 1912 * The Sun (New York N.Y.), 10 Nov. 1912 * ''Exposition de cubistes français et d'un groupe d'artistes indépendants'', Musée Rath, Geneva, 3–15 June 1913 (no. 22) * ''Art of Tomorrow'', 1939, p. 174 ("The Lady, 1915") * ''La Peinture cubiste, Art d'aujourd'hui'', L. Degand, ser. 4, May–June 1953, repr. p. 14 * ''The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum: A Selection from the Museum Collection'', 1954 * ''An Exhibition of Cubism: On the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Arts Club of Chicago'', October 3 to November 4, 1955 * ''An Exhibition of Paintings from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York: At the Tate Gallery, London'', 16 April-26 May 1957 * Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Handbook, 1959, p. 118, repr. * ''Fauves and Cubists'', Umbro Apollonio, 1960 * ''Cubism 1907-1908: An Early Account'', Edward F. Fry, Art Bulletin 48, March, 1966 * ''Painters of the Section D'Or: The Alternatives to Cubism'', xhibitionSeptember 27-October 22, 1967, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, 1967 * ''Picasso and the Cubists'', Fabbri, 1970, no. 65 * ''Cubism: A History and an Analysis, 1907-1914'', John Golding, Faber & Faber, 1971 * ''Le cubisme: Actes du premier Colloque d'histoire de l'art contemporain tenu au Musée d'art et d'industrie, Saint-Étienne'', les 19, 20, 21 novembre 1971, Centre de documentation et d'études d'histoire de l'art contemporain, Université de Saint-Etienne, 1973 * ''The Guggenheim Museum collection: paintings, 1880-1945'', Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Angelica Zander Rudenstine, 1976 * ''André Mare and the 1912 Maison cubiste'', Margaret Mary Malone, University of Texas at Austin, 1980 * ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', Joann Moser, Daniel Robbins, University of Iowa. Museum of Art, 1985 * ''Art de France'', Nancy J. Troy, Modernism and the decorative arts in France: Art Nouveaux to Le Corbusier, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1991, 79-102 * ''The Maison Cubiste and the meaning of modernism in pre-1914 France'', David Cottington, in Eve Blau and Nancy J. Troy, Architecture and Cubism, Montreal, Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1998, 17-40 * ''Art in France'', 1900-1940, Christopher Green, Yale University Press, 2003, p. 162


Exhibitions

* Paris, Salon d'Automne, 1912 * De Moderne Kunstkring, 1912, Amsterdam (L'éventail vert, no. 153) * Musée Rath, Geneva, ''Exposition de cubistes français et d'un groupe d'artistes indépendants'', 3 – 15 June 1913 (L'éventail vert, no. 22) * Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, ''Les Maitres de l'art indépendant, 1895-1937'', June - Oct. 1937, no. 12 (dated 1912) * New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 78 (checklist; dated 1912?); 79 (checklist; dated 1913; so dated in all subsequent Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum publications) * Vancouver, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 88-T, no. 60, repr. * Boston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 90-T (no cat.) * Montreal, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 93-T, no. 41 * New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 95 (checklist; withdrawn Sept. 12) * The Arts Club of Chicago, ''An Exhibition of Cubism on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of the Arts Club of Chicago'', Oct. 3 - Nov. 4, 1955, no. 43 * London, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 104-T, no. 5,0; * Boston, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 119-T, no. 40; Lexington, KY., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 122-T, no. 20 * New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 144 (checklist) * Worcester, Mass., Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum 148-T, no. 28 * The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, ''The Heroic Years: Paris 1908-1914'', Oct. 21 - Dec. 8, 1965 (no cat.) * Buffalo, N.Y., Albright-Knox Art Gallery, ''Painters of the Section d'Or: The Alternatives to Cubism'', Sept. 27 - Oct. 22, 1967, no. 37, repr. (dated 1913)


References


External links


Jean Metzinger Catalogue Raisonné entry page for ''Femme à l'Éventail''

Jean Metzinger: Divisionism, Cubism, Neoclassicism and Post Cubism

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
{{DEFAULTSORT:Femme a l'Eventail Paintings by Jean Metzinger 1912 paintings 20th-century portraits Portraits of women