''Colored Landscape with Aquatic Birds'' (French: ''Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques'') is an oil painting created circa 1907 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 ...
. ''Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques'' is a Proto-Cubist work executed in a Post-Divisionist style with a unique Fauve-like palette. Metzinger's broad omnidirectional brushstrokes in the treatment of surfaces render homage to
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, while the luscious subtropical imagery in the painting are an homage to
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
''Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques'' is an oil painting on canvas in a horizontal format with dimensions 75.5 x 101 cm (29.7 by 39.8 in). The work represents three aquatic birds in an ambrosial Mediterranean landscape with semi-tropical vegetation, trees, a body of water, mountains and a sailboat in the background. The free and expressive brushstrokes of ''Paysage coloré aux oiseaux aquatiques''—as in ''Les Ibis'' and ''Le Flamant rose et le voilier'' of the same period—represent a loosening of the mosaic-like Divisionist technique that characterized Metzinger's work from 1905 to early 1907.Joann Moser, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, Pre-Cubist works, 1904–1909'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press, 1985, pp. 34-42
By 1907 a select group of avant-garde artists in Paris were reevaluating their own work in relation to that of
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
. A retrospective of Cézanne's paintings had been held 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 f ...
of 1904. Current works were displayed at the 1905 and 1906 Salon d'Automne, followed by two commemorative retrospectives after his death in 1907. Metzinger's interest in the work of Cézanne suggests a means by which he made the transformation from Divisionism to Cubism.
The lattices of squares or 'cubes' of paint employed throughout his Divisionist period have not been entirely abandoned, but pushed to another extreme. Where before brushstrokes had become increasingly larger and organized into groups of color, now they were larger still and elongated, seemingly blended together directly on the canvas (rather than on a palette). The treatment of color and composition is globally free, loose, expressive, and thus dynamic. There are no inert tones. Colors have retained their brilliance. As before, contrasting hues are placed side by side—resulting in rhythmic and optic vibrational effects.Jean Metzinger: Divisionism, Cubism, Neoclassicism and Post-Cubism /ref>
The lines and large strokes of color, like words, are treated autonomously—each possessing an abstract value independent of one another, yet together forming a coherent whole. The impulse toward abstraction becomes a primary quality of Metzinger's work of 1907. Though not without reference to the real world, Metzinger's treatment of the painted surface is meant to draw away from the outward appearance of nature. Imitation is vacated in order to concentrate upon the distillation of essential shapes and movements. These distilled forms were superior to nature because they partook of idea, and represented the dominance of the artist over the mere stuff of nature.Daniel Robbins, ''Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism'', 1985, in ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art
Complex in both composition and the rendering of color, the subject matter of ''Paysage coloré'', though clearly readable, is to a certain extent faceted and denaturalized. Its combination of painterly techniques, color and exoticism in its subject matter, sets it apart, resulting in a broader scope typically employed to define the Fauve movement.
The spatial relationships between forms in the foreground and structures in the background are ambiguously flattened. Metzinger had already abandoned classical perspective for the most part since 1903, and now it had become entirely irrelevant.
This composition was not only different from
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
,
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 ...
,
Henri-Edmond Cross
Henri-Edmond Cross, born Henri-Edmond-Joseph Delacroix, (20 May 1856 – 16 May 1910) was a French painter and printmaker. He is most acclaimed as a master of Neo-Impressionism and he played an important role in shaping the second phase of t ...
,
Paul Sérusier
Paul Sérusier (9 November 1864 – 7 October 1927) was a French painter who was a pioneer of abstract art and an inspiration for the avant-garde Nabis movement, Synthetism and Cloisonnism.
Education
Sérusier was born in Paris. He studied ...
,
Maurice Denis
Maurice Denis (; 25 November 1870 – 13 November 1943) was a French painter, decorative artist, and writer. An important figure in the transitional period between impressionism and modern art, he is associated with ''Les Nabis'', symbolism, a ...
Nabis
Nabis ( grc-gre, Νάβις) was the last king of independent Sparta. He was probably a member of the Heracleidae, and he ruled from 207 BC to 192 BC, during the years of the First and Second Macedonian Wars and the eponymous " War against Nab ...
, but different from
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
,
André Derain
André Derain (, ; 10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.
Biography
Early years
Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France (region), Île-de-Franc ...
,
Othon Friesz
Achille-Émile Othon Friesz (6 February 1879 – 10 January 1949), who later called himself Othon Friesz, a native of Le Havre, was a French artist of the Fauvist movement.
Biography
Othon Friesz was born in Le Havre, the son of a long line of ...
and the other Fauves. Indeed, Metzinger, unlike others of his immediate circle, or peripheral entourage, would soon become one of the founders of Cubism—flanked between
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
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 ...
,
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 ...
,
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885 – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who, with his wife Sonia Delaunay and others, co-founded the Orphism art movement, noted for its use of strong colours and geometric shapes. His later works were more abstra ...
, Fernand Léger on the other—and this painting was a step in that direction.
Note: in ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'' (1985), the title, dimensions and provenance for this painting, n. 19 of the catalogue, are erroneously switched with n. 18, ''Le Flamant rose et le voilier'', (pages 40 and 41).
Related works
File:Paul Gauguin 113.jpg,
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
, 1894, ''Mahana no Atua (Day of the Gods, Jour de Dieu)'', oil on canvas, 66 x 87 cm (26 x 34.3 in), Art Institute of Chicago
File:Henri Rousseau 005.jpg,
Henri Rousseau
Henri Julien Félix Rousseau (; 21 May 1844 – 2 September 1910) at the Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York
File:La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue de la carrière Bibémus, par Paul Cézanne.jpg,
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, 1897, ''Montagne Sainte-Victoire'', oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm,
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...
File:Bonheur Matisse.jpg,
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, and sculptur ...
, 1905–06, ''
Le bonheur de vivre
''Le bonheur de vivre'' (''The Joy of Life'') is a painting by Henri Matisse. Along with Picasso's ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'', ''Le bonheur de vivre'' is regarded as one of the pillars of early modernism. The monumental canvas was first exhib ...
'', oil on canvas, 175 x 241 cm,
Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Penn ...