''Nu à la cheminée'', also referred to as ''Nu dans un intérieur'', ''Femme nu'', and ''Nu'' or ''Nude'', is a painting by

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 ...

. The work was exhibited in Paris 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 1910, and 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 ...

, Galerie La Boétie in Paris, October 1912. It was published 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 ...

'', written by 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 1912, and subsequently published in '' The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations (Les Peintres Cubistes)'' by

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 th ...

, 1913. By 1912 ''Nu à la cheminée'' was in the collection of M.G. Comerre (the mother of Albert Gleizes, and sister of Léon Comerre, the academic/Symbolist painter who won the Gand Prix de Rome in 1875). The work has not been seen in public since, its current location is unknown.

Overview

Jean Metzinger, judging from an interview with

Gelett Burgess Frank Gelett Burgess (January 30, 1866 – September 18, 1951) was an American artist, art critic, poet, author and humorist. An important figure in the San Francisco Bay Area literary renaissance of the 1890s, particularly through his iconoclast ...

in '' Architectural Record'',Gelett Burgess, Wild Men of Paris, The Architectural Record, May 1910
/ref> appears to have abandoned 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 ...

style in favor of the ''faceting of form'' associated with analytic Cubism around 1908 or early 1909.''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press, pp. 9-23 A resident of

Montmartre Montmartre ( , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Right Bank. The historic district established by the City of Paris in 1995 is bordered by Rue Ca ...

, Metzinger frequented the Bateau Lavoir at this time and exhibited with

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

at the

Berthe Weill Berthe Weill (Paris 1865 – 1951) was a French art dealer who played a vital role in the creation of the market for twentieth-century art with the manifestation of the Parisian Avant-Garde. Although she is much less known than her well-establi ...

gallery. By 1910, the robust form of early analytic Cubism of

Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th century, he is ...

(''Girl with a Mandolin, Fanny Tellier'', 1910), Braque (''Violin and Candlestick'', 1910) and Metzinger (''Nu à la cheminée, Nude'', 1910) had become practically indistinguishable.Daniel Robbins, 1985, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism'', University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press As opposed to depicting the subject matter classically from one point of view, Metzinger used a concept he enunciated for the first time in ''Note sur la peinture'' (published in ''Pan'', 1910), of 'mobile perspective' to portray the subject from a variety of angles. The images captured from multiple spatial view-points and at successive intervals in time are shown simultaneously on the canvas.Joann Moser, Cubist Works, 1910–1921, p. 43, 1985, Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, The University of Iowa Museum of Art (J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press) The similarity between Metzinger's own work of 1910 to that of Picasso is exemplified in his ''Nu à la cheminée''. The style of lips in both Metzinger's ''Nude'' and Picasso's ''Portrait of Wilhelm Uhde'' (spring-automn 1910) bear resemblance to each other (both are in the form of an "X"). So too, both pictures merge the model with the environment, blurring the distinction between background and foreground. Metzinger, however—in addition to the simultaneous views and multiple perspective—has included the image of a clock in the upper right quadrant, a fact that reveals Metzinger's didactic visual and literary reference to the physicist, mathematician and philosopher of science

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...

, and to the philosopher

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

's 'duration'.Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, ''Cubism and Culture'', Thames & Hudson, 2001
/ref> Such mathematical and philosophical inferences had little in common with the paintings of Picasso or Braque. Metzinger's interpretation targeted a wide audience—as opposed to private gallery collectors—exhibits in abundance an underlying idealism, a temporal reconstruction of dissected subjects based on the principles of

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 ge ...

. These inferences were compelling because they offered a stimulating and intelligible rationale for his innovations—consistent with contemporary intellectual trends in literature; notably with the

Abbaye de Créteil L'Abbaye de Créteil or Abbaye group (french: Le Groupe de l'Abbaye) was a utopian artistic and literary community founded during the month of October, 1906. It was named after the Créteil Abbey, as most gatherings took place in that suburb of Pa ...

group and

Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson

's philosophy.David Cottington, ''Cubism and its Histories'', Manchester University Press, 2004
/ref>

Geometrical follies

At the 1910

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 ...

the works of Metzinger (''Nu'', n. 3635, possibly ''Nu à la cheminée'', and ''Portrait de M. Guillaume Apollinaire'', n. 3636),

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 ...

, 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 ...

were hung in close proximity, where the mutual geometric interests, then observable collectively, began to unite as a group sensibility. Critics had begun treating these mutual interests as a single style, though the term Cubism would not emerge until the following spring relative to the same artists, on the occasion of the

. The autumn of 1910 saw Metzinger's ''Nude'' as the most purely Cubist work shown.Milton A. Cohen, ''Movement, manifesto, melee: the modernist group, 191–1914'', Lexington Books, 2004
/ref> In a review of the 1910 Salon d'Automne, published in ''La Presse'', art critique Edmond Epardaud writes of the 'geometric follies' of Metzinger, and describes both Gleizes and Le Fauconnier as 'specious architects' (''architectes fallacieux''). The critic Jean Claude writes in his review of the same salon, with reference to ''Nu à la cheminée'', published in ''Le Petit Parisien'', "Metzinger painted a puzzle, cubic and triangular, which after verification, is a naked woman. I managed to discover the head, torso and legs. I had to give up finding arms. This is beyond comprehension".Jean Claude, ''Grand Palais, Le Salon d'Automne'', Le Petit Parisien, 2 October 1910, Numéro 12391, p. 5
/ref> A few months earlier, reviewing the Indépendants, 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, C ...

had described Gleizes, Metzinger, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay and Léger as "ignorant geometers". Roger Allard reviewing the 1910 Salon d'Automne used the terms "analytical" and "synthesis" in relation to Metzinger's ''Nu à la cheminée'':

Metzinger's nude and his landscape are ruled by an equal striving for fragmentary synthesis. No usual cliché from the aesthetic vocabulary fits the art of this disconcerting painter. Consider the elements of his nude: a woman, a clock, an armchair, a table, a vase with flowers...such, at least, is an account of my personal inventory. The head whose expression is very noble is rendered formally, and the artist seems to have drawn back from the integral application of his law. ..The analytical kinships among objects and their mutual subordinations will be henceforth of little importance since they will be suppressed in the painted realization. These come into play later, subjectively, in each individual's mental realization.Daniel Robbins, "Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism", 1985, ''Jean Metzinger in Retrospect'', The University of Iowa Museum of Art (J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press) p. 15

"The importance of Allard's understanding of the genuine innovation visible at the salon is hard to overestimate," writes art historian Daniel Robbins, "He goes well beyond Metzinger's emphasis in the ''Pan'' article on multiple points of view, that is, beyond the technical innovations of the new painting. He penetrates to its intellectual core: an art capable of synthesizing a reality in the mind of the observer..."

, in his review of the 1911

writes about Metzinger's ''Nu à la cheminée'':Albert Gleizes, "L'Art et ses représentants", ''La Revue Indépendante'', September 1911, pp. 161–172. In Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten, ''A Cubism Reader, Documents and Criticism, 1906–1914'', The University of Chicago Press, 2008

In short, he wishes to develop the visual field by multiplying it, in order to inscribe it within the space of the canvas itself. It is at that point that the cube will play a role, and it is there that Metzinger will use that means to reestablish a balance that has been momentarily interrupted by these audacious inscriptions. At the last Salon d'Automne 910 we were able to get an idea of that technique, inscribed and set out in simple terms. His ''Femme nu'', depicted from various angles and in integral relationship with the setting, the shapes very subtly nestled one into another, was more like a masterful demonstration of the total image than an exclusively pictorial creation. Certain discriminating critics ..considered it a metaphysical discovery more than a manifestation of art. Alembics, laboratory tubing, intellectual masturbation—people have called his work all those things, with the greatest seriousness in the world.

References

External links

Jean Metzinger Catalogue Raisonné entry page for ''Nu à la cheminée''

Exhibition catalog, ''Salon de La Section d'Or", 1912. Walter Pach papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

''Les Peintres Cubistes'' ("The Cubist Painters")

, published in 1913, (translated and analyzed by Peter F. Read, University of California Press, 25 oct. 2004 - 234 pages). {{DEFAULTSORT:Nu a la cheminee Paintings by Jean Metzinger 1910 paintings Nude art Lost paintings Paintings of Montmartre