''Head'', also known as ''Tête d'homme'', or ''Portrait d'homme'', is an early

Cubist 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 ...

sculpture created in 1913 by the Hungarian avant-garde sculptor

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 ...

. This black and white photograph from the Csaky family archives (AC.111) shows a frontal view of the original 1913 plaster. ''Head'' was exhibited at Galerie Clovis Sagot, 46, rue Laffitte, Paris, 1913–14, and at the 1914

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 (P ...

titled ''Tête d'homme'' (n. 814 or 815). It was subsequently exhibited at

Galerie Moos The Maison Moos, later called the Galerie Moos, was an art gallery and auction house founded in 1906 in Geneva by the art dealer Max Moos. The gallery closed in 1976.''Le marché de l'art en Suisse du XIXe siècle à nos jours'' / éd. par Paul-An ...

, Geneva, 1920, titled ''Buste''.Marcilhac, Félix, 2007, ''József Csáky, Du cubisme historique à la figuration réaliste, catalogue raisonné des sculptures'', Les Editions de l'Amateur, Paris, n. 1913-FM.16 The work was published in ''The Sun'' (New York City), 15 March 1914. It was then reproduced in

Ricciotto Canudo Ricciotto Canudo (; 2 January 1877, Gioia del Colle – 10 November 1923, Paris) was an early Italian film theoretician who lived primarily in France. In 1913 he published a bimonthly avant-garde magazine entitled ''Montjoie!'', promoting Cubism ...

's Montjoie! ''Montparnasse'',

André Salmon André Salmon (4 October 1881, Paris – 12 March 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer) was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal. Biography André Salmon was born in P ...

, numéro spécial consacré au XXXème Salon, Artistes Indépendants, 3rd issue, 18 March 1914.Montjoie! March 1914
Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France The dimensions and whereabouts of ''Tête d'homme'' are unknown, and the work is presumed destroyed.

Description

''Head'' is a plaster sculpture carved in a vertical format. The work represents the bust of a man in a highly Cubist syntax, in opposition to the softness and curvilinearity of

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 Nabis" ...

Symbolist Symbolism was a late 19th-century art movement of French and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realis ...

Art Nouveau Art Nouveau (; ) is an international style of art, architecture, and applied art, especially the decorative arts. The style is known by different names in different languages: in German, in Italian, in Catalan, and also known as the Modern ...

forms. Csaky's heads of the period partake in the "stylized, hieratic, nonportrait tradition of tribal and ancient art", writes Edith Balas, "in which there is a total lack of interest in depicting psychological traits". ''Head'' is testimony to Csaky's early immersion in the Cubist idiom.Edith Balas, 1998, ''Joseph Csaky: A Pioneer of Modern Sculpture'', American Philosophical Society
Reproduced Fig. 6, p. 24 The subject is constructed with a grouping of faceted planar forms that together form a tight cohesive structure. The models facial features are simply constructed with only a few surface planes juxtaposed in geometric terms at various angles. Sphericity of the head is broken by angular cuts, forming triangular (ears), rectangles (the nose) and arcs (cheekbones), visible in the photograph. The shoulders and neck form a robust base upon which the head rests. The models hair, while treated almost realistically, are stylized and cut radically at an angle with the forehead. Only one eye is visible. The treatment of Csaky's ''Tête d'homme'', as other works by the artist executed between 1910 and 1914, suggest, as

Albert Elsen Albert Edward Elsen, Jr. (October 11, 1927 – February 2, 1995) was an American art historian and educator. A scholar of the work of Auguste Rodin, Elsen was the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. Career Born in ...

notes, that Csaky had looked not only at Picasso's earlier painting and sculpture, but also at African tribal masks whose exaggerated features and simplified design accommodated the need to be seen at a distance and to evoke strong feeling. Just as in Csaky's '' Groupe de femmes'' (1911–12) and '' Danseuse'' (1912), ''Head'' already shows a new way of representing the human figure, an unwillingness to revert to classical, academic or traditional methods of representation. The complex angular syntax visible in ''Head'' was born out of a growing sense of contemporary dynamism, out of rhythm, balance, harmony and out of the powerful geometric qualities of Egyptian art, African art, early Cycladic art, Gothic art, of

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (14 December 1824 – 24 October 1898) was a French people, French Painting, painter known for his mural painting, who came to be known as "the painter for France". He became the co-founder and president of the Soci ...

Auguste Rodin François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

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 ...

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 ...

, all of whom Csaky greatly admired.

Salon des Indépendants, 1914

At the Salon des Indépendants, held in Paris 1 to 30 March 1914, composed of many Orphist works of large dimension and took place in one of the largest rooms on the ground floor of the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées:

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 ...

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 ...

Patrick Henry Bruce Artist Patrick Henry Bruce (3rd from left) & friends/associates in front of the entrance to a 300px Patrick Henry Bruce (March 25, 1881 – November 12, 1936) was an American cubist painter. Biography A descendant of Patrick Henry, Bruce wa ...

and

Arthur Burdett Frost Arthur Burdett Frost (January 17, 1851 – June 22, 1928), usually cited as A. B. Frost, was an American illustrator, graphic artist, painter and comics writer. He is best known for his illustrations of Brer Rabbit and other characters i ...

were largely represented.Kubisme.info, Salon des Indépendants
/ref> Csaky exhibited ''Tête d'homme'' (plaster, n. 814 or 815 of the catalog), along with another bust and '' Danseuse'' (1912), executed in a highly Cubist facture. Several years later,

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

, speaking about his own experience during the revolutionary years in the history of art of the 20th century, presented Joseph Csaky as "belonging to a group of sculptors who, before 1914, imparted a new direction in their work. The theory of Cubism was then a trampoline that permitted the propulsion towards unexplored regions and Csaky, even if influenced by Cubism, developed his own concepts on the treatment of space. His first works appeared more theoretical and intellectual than his later works when he oriented his personal development towards atmospheric structures."Marcel Duchamp, 1958, ''Duchamp du signe, suivi de Notes'', Michel Sanouillet, Paul Matisse, Anne Sanouillet, Paul B. Franklin, Flammarion, 2008, (re-edition) , 9782080116642 Reviewing the 1914 Indépendants in an article entitled ''Le Salon'', published in the periodical ''Montjoie!'' and ''Montparnasse'',

, who usually considered works the Indépendants 'true mediocrity' of the pupils of ''l'art officiel'', encouraged his readers to visit this years salon to discover 'true modernity'. To justify his claim he reproduce a large photograph Csaky's 1913 ''Head''.

Literature

* "André Salmon Sings the Praises of 'Independant' Painters in Paris", ''The Sun''. (New York, N.Y.), 15 March 1914 * Montjoie! Montparnasse'', André Salmon, numéro spécial consacré au XXXème Salon, Artistes Indépendants, 3rd issue, 18 March 1914 * René Reichard, ''Joseph Csaky'', Frankfurt, 1988, n. 6, rep. p. 16, 20. * Edith Balas, 1998, ''Joseph Csaky: A Pioneer of Modern Sculpture'', American Philosophical Society. Reproduced Fig. 6, p. 24 * Félix Marcilhac, ''József Csáky, Du cubisme historique à la figuration réaliste, catalogue raisonné des sculptures'', Les Editions de l'Amateur, Paris, 2007. rep. (1913-FM.16)

Notes and references

External links

Ministère de la Culture, France, La Médiathèque de l'Architecture et du Patrimoine, Base Memoire

Base Arcade, Culture.gouv.fr Csaky

Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Holland, 23 works by Joseph Csaky

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées

{{DEFAULTSORT:Danseuse Sculptures by Joseph Csaky 1913 sculptures Cubist sculptures Destroyed sculptures