''Coucher de soleil no. 1'' (also called ''Landscape'', ''Paysage'', ''Landschap'', or ''Sunset No. 1'') is an oil painting created circa 1906 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). ''Coucher de soleil no. 1'' is a work executed in a mosaic-like Divisionist style with a Fauve palette. The reverberating image of the Sun in Metzinger's painting is an homage to the decomposition of spectral light at the core of

Neo-Impressionist Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, '' A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beginn ...

color theory. ''Coucher de soleil'' was exhibited in Paris during the spring of 1907 at the

Salon des Indépendants Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (Pa ...

(n. 3457), along with '' Bacchante'' and four other works by Metzinger. The painting had been in the collection of

Helene Kröller-Müller Helene Kröller-Müller (11 February 1869 – 14 December 1939) was a German art collector. She was one of the first European women to put together a major art collection. She is credited with being one of the first collectors to recognise the ...

since 1921 or prior, now in the collection of the

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...

, Otterlo, Netherlands.

Description

''Coucher de soleil no. 1'' is an oil painting on canvas in a horizontal format with dimensions , signed ''J.Metzinger'' (lower right), and titled on the verso "Coucher de soleil no. 1". Also on the verso is another painting by Metzinger representing a river scene with ships. The work represents two nude women relaxing in a lush Mediterranean landscape with semi-tropical vegetation, hills, trees, a body of water and a radiating setting Sun beyond.Robert Herbert, ''Neo-Impressionism'', The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1968, Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 68-16803 The plants to the lower left resemble the

agave ''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the hot and arid regions of the Americas and the Caribbean, although some ''Agave'' species are also native to tropical areas of North America, such as Mexico. The genus is primarily known for ...

, a species found in the south of France, Spain and Greece. "

Agave ''Agave'' (; ; ) is a genus of monocots native to the hot and arid regions of the Americas and the Caribbean, although some ''Agave'' species are also native to tropical areas of North America, such as Mexico. The genus is primarily known for ...

" is also the name of three characters in Greek mythology: *''Agave'': one of the

Nereids In Greek mythology, the Nereids or Nereides ( ; grc, Νηρηΐδες, Nērēḯdes; , also Νημερτές) are sea nymphs (female spirits of sea waters), the 50 daughters of the ' Old Man of the Sea' Nereus and the Oceanid Doris, sisters ...

. *''Agave'': one of the Danaïdes, daughter of Danaus and Europa. She married Lycus, son of Aegyptus and Argyphia. *''Agave'': an

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

The two nudes appear to play a secondary role in the overall composition due to their small size. But their prominent location in the foreground and the provocative nature of

public nudity Nudity is the state of being in which a human is without clothing. The loss of body hair was one of the physical characteristics that marked the biological evolution of modern humans from their hominin ancestors. Adaptations related to h ...

propels them to a position that cannot be ignored. In this luscious setting—as in '' Luxe, Calme et Volupté'' by

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 ...

—Metzinger makes use all the colors in the

spectrum A spectrum (plural ''spectra'' or ''spectrums'') is a condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without gaps, across a continuum. The word was first used scientifically in optics to describe the rainbow of colors ...

of visible

light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 te ...

. Unlike Matisse's work, Metzinger's brushstrokes are large, forming a mosaic-like lattice of squares or cubes of similar size and shape throughout, juxtaposed in a wide variety of angles relative to one another, creating an overall rhythm that would otherwise not be present. Evidence suggests that this work was completed prior to Metzinger's paintings entitled '' La danse (Bacchante)'' or '' Two Nudes in an Exotic Landscape'': (1) there exists an oil on canvas study of the latter dated circa 1905–1906, located at the University of Iowa with the title ''Two Nudes in a garden'', 91.4 x 63.8 cm with a similar radiating sun above the bathers. (2) The brushstrokes are smaller in size consistent with Metzinger's style of late 1905. (3) In 1906 and 1907 Metzinger's brushstrokes became larger and more organized, structured within a highly geometrized framework already proto-Cubist in appearance. (4) As its name implies, ''Coucher de soleil no. 1'' might have been the first in a series of sunsets. Though no other works by Metzinger are known by the titles ''Coucher de soleil no. 2'' or ''No. 3'', the artist did produce other works with sunsets during the same period: ''Landscape with Fountain'', for example, an oil on canvas measuring 53.3 x 73.6 cm; ''Paysage pointilliste'', 1906–07, an oil on canvas measuring 54.5 x 73 cm; ''Matin au Parc Montsouris'', ca. 1906, oil on canvas, 49.9 x 67.7 cm; or even ''La tour de Batz au coucher de soleil'', 54 x 73 cm, an oil on canvas ca. 1905. These clues would seem to suggest ''Coucher de soleil no. 1'' was painted during the later months of 1905, or early 1906, just before Metzinger and

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 ...

began painting portraits of one another,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 rather than circa 1908 as indicated by the Kröller-Müller Museum.

Neo-Impressionism, Divisionism

The Fauves (many of whom would become

Cubists 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 ...

), were heavily influenced by

Neo-Impressionism Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, '' A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beginn ...

, calling upon rational and scientific thought and creating highly abstract visions with the goal of producing the effects of real color-light. Mechanical brushwork suppressed the personality of the artist in an act of conspicuous defiance against the

Impressionists 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 ...

. The Symbolists too would strip away the casual and accidental features of reality, revealing the true 'essence of form.' Whether such a revelation could be backed up by a scientific theory or not, there were still examples that could be codified. The problem was that pigments ''reflect'' light, they are not a light source themselves. Colors in the spectra of light did not respond in the same way as color pigments painted on canvas. For example, red and blue light rays result in white light, but the same colors in pigments make violet.Alexander Mittelmann., ''State of the Modern Art World, The Essence of Cubism and its Evolution in Time'', 2011
/ref>Daniel Robbins, ''Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism'', 1985, in ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art Metzinger's response in ''Coucher de soleil no. 1'', in addition to illustrating actual radiation emanating in concentric circles from the sun, was to separate colors in such a way as to avoid mixtures, leading to inert tones. Contrary to the Impressionists related hues, often placed on top of one another while still wet—leading to a result the Divisionists found dull—contrasting hues placed side by side for the effect or creating optical vibrations were essential to Divisionists. The basic elements of art—the line, particle of color—like words could be treated autonomously, each possessing an abstract value independent of one another, if so chose the artist. The line, independent of its topographical role, possesses an calculable abstract value, in addition to the particles of color and the relation of both to the observer's emotion. The underlying theory behind Neo-Impressionsim, something Divisionists like the Metzinger would push to the extreme, would have a lasting effect on the works produced in the coming years by

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 ...

and

Gino Severini Gino Severini (7 April 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to orde ...

. The impulse toward abstraction was a primary quality of the time, even prior to Metzinger's ''Sunset No. 1''. "Neo-Impressionism" wrote Paul Adam, "wants to reproduce the pure phenomenon, the subjective appearance of things. It is a school of abstraction." By "abstract," writes Robert Herbert, "writers and painters of the period did not mean "devoid of reference to the real world", as we now use the term. They meant to draw away from nature, in the sense of disdaining imitation 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. In embryo, the Symbolists and Neo-Impressionists did establish the philosophical defense of pure abstraction, but nature still formed part of the basic dialogue." By 1905 Metzinger began to favor the abstract qualities of larger brushstrokes and luminous colors. Following the lead 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 ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

, Metzinger began incorporating a new geometry into his works that signified a further departure still from naturalism. Robert Herbert writes of Metzinger's ''Coucher de soleil'' and its importance during the Neo-Impressionist period and thereafter: :"At the Indépendants in 1905, his paintings were already regarded as in the Neo-Impressionist tradition by contemporary critics, and he apparently continued to paint in large mosaic strokes until some time in 1908. The height of his Neo-Impressionist work was in 1906 and 1907, when he and Delaunay did portraits of each other ..in prominent rectangles of pigment. (In the sky of oucher de soleil, 1906-1907, Collection Rijksmuseum Kröller-Mülleris the solar disk which Delaunay was later to make into a personal emblem.)" The vibrating image of the Sun in Metzinger's painting, and of Delaunay's ''Paysage au disque'' (1906-1907), writes Herbert, "is an homage to the decomposition of spectral light that lay at the heart of Neo-Impressionist color theory..." "The Neo-Impressionists" according to Maurice Denis, "inaugurated a vision, a technique, and esthetic based on the recent discoveries of physics, on a scientific conception of the world and of life." In 1904-05 Henri Poincaré discovered a graphical tool for visualizing different types of polarized light (known as Poincaré sphere). The Poincaré homology sphere, also called Poincaré dodecahedral space, is a particular example of a homology sphere. Being a

spherical 3-manifold In mathematics, a spherical 3-manifold ''M'' is a 3-manifold of the form :M=S^3/\Gamma where \Gamma is a finite subgroup of SO(4) acting freely by rotations on the 3-sphere S^3. All such manifolds are prime, orientable, and closed. Spherical 3-ma ...

, it is the only homology 3-sphere, besides the

3-sphere In mathematics, a 3-sphere is a higher-dimensional analogue of a sphere. It may be embedded in 4-dimensional Euclidean space as the set of points equidistant from a fixed central point. Analogous to how the boundary of a ball in three dimensio ...

itself, with a finite fundamental group. While it is not known the extent to which such discoveries influenced Metzinger's representation of the radiating sun in ''Coucher de soleil no. 1'', his interest and prowess in mathematics is well documented.

Related works

File:Turner, J. M. W. - The Fighting Téméraire tugged to her last Berth to be broken.jpg, J. M. W. Turner, 1839, ''

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'', oil on canvas, 90.7 × 121.6 cm,

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, London File:Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant.jpg,

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, 1872, '' Impression, soleil levant (Impression Sunrise)'' oil on canvas, 48 × 63 cm,

Musée Marmottan Monet Musée Marmottan Monet ( en, Marmottan Museum of Monet) is an art museum in Paris, France, dedicated to artist Claude Monet. The collection features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1 ...

, Paris File:Claude Monet, Saint-Georges majeur au crépuscule.jpg,

, 1908, '' Saint-Georges majeur au crepuscule'', 65.2 x 92.4 cm, National Museum Cardiff File:Van Gogh - Starry Night - Google Art Project.jpg,

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...

, 1889, ''

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'', oil on canvas, 73.7 x 92.1 cm,

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, New York File:Signac - La Calanque edit.jpg,

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, 1906, ''La Calanque (The Bay)'', Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium File:Edvard Munch - The Sun - Google Art Project.jpg, Edvard Munch, 1910–11, ''The Sun'', 45 x 77.2 cm,

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, Oslo File:Cross-Baie-Cavalière-Annonciade.jpg,

, 1906–07, ''La baie à Cavalière'', Musée de l'Annonciade, Saint-Tropez, France File:Plage à Heist.jpg,

Georges Lemmen Georges Lemmen (1865–1916) was a neo-impressionist painter from Belgium. He was a member of Les XX from 1888. His works include ''The Beach at Heist'', ''Aline Marechal'' and ''Vase of Flowers''. Yvonne Serruys studied in his workshop in Brus ...

, 1891–92, ''Plage à Heist (Beach at Heist)'', oil on wood, 37.5 x 45.7 cm, Musée d'Orsay Paris File:Henri Edmond Cross La Plage de Saint-Clair.jpg,

, 1896, ''La Plage de Saint-Clair'', oil on canvas, 54.5 by 65.4 cm

References

External links

Jean Metzinger Catalogue Raisonné entry page for ''Coucher de soleil no. 1''

Jean Metzinger: Divisionism, Cubism, Neoclassicism and Post-Cubism

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
{{Jean Metzinger Paintings by Jean Metzinger 1905 paintings 1906 paintings Landscape paintings Collections of the Kröller-Müller Museum Nude art Water in art Sun in art

Description

Neo-Impressionism, Divisionism

Related works

See also

References

External links