The Société des Artistes Indépendants (''Society of Independent Artists'') or Salon des Indépendants was formed in
Paris on 29 July 1884. The association began with the organization of massive exhibitions in Paris, choosing the slogan "''sans jury ni récompense''" ("without jury nor reward").
Albert Dubois-Pillet,
Odilon Redon,
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 sur ...
and
Paul Signac were among its founders. For the following three decades their annual exhibitions set the trends in art of the early 20th century, along with 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 ...
. This is where artworks were often first displayed and widely discussed.
World War I brought a closure to the salon, though the ''Artistes Indépendants'' remained active. Since 1920, the headquarters has been located in the vast basements of the
Grand Palais (next door to the ''
Société des Artistes Français
The Société des Artistes Français (, meaning "Society of French Artists") is the association of French painters and sculptors established in 1881. Its annual exhibition is called the "Salon des artistes français" (not to be confused with the ...
'', the ''
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts
Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA; ; en, National Society of Fine Arts) was the term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions.
1862
Es ...
'', the
Société du Salon d'Automne, and others).
History
The Salon des Indépendants (Salon des Artistes Indépendants) is an annual independent art exhibition aimed at a large audience that takes place in Paris. It was established in response to the rigid traditionalism of the official government-sponsored Salon. Since the first exhibition of 1884, at the Pavilion de la ville de Paris (
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées (, ; ) is an avenue in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France, long and wide, running between the Place de la Concorde in the east and the Place Charles de Gaulle in the west, where the Arc de Triomphe is l ...
), the organizing Société des Artistes Indépendants has vowed to bring together the works of artists claiming a certain independence in their art. The event is characterized by the absence of both awards and a selection jury. There are however placement or hanging committees. In contrast to 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 ...
, which takes place in Paris during autumn months, the Indépendants is held during the springtime, inspiring artistic production during winter months, as artists prepare for the show. Several important dates have marked the history of the salon.
During the
Second Empire, artists not backed by the official ''
Académie de peinture et de sculpture
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, f ...
'' in charge of the exhibits at the annual ''Salon'' or without support supplied by actual political constellations had little chance to advance. From year to year the number of artists working in Paris, the number of artists submitting works to the official ''
Salon'' and the number of works refused by the jury increased, but neither the Second Empire nor the
Third Republic found an answer to this situation.
For years, the artists had counted on official support. In 1884, finally, the artists began to organise themselves, and a "''Group of independent artists''" was authorised by the Ministry of Fine Arts to arrange an exhibition, while the City of Paris agreed to supply rooms for the presentation. So, from May 15 through July 15, the first "free" exhibition of contemporary art showed more than 5000 works by more than 400 artists.
Although sustained by Mesureur, deputy chairman of the Council of Paris and
Grand Master of the
Grand Lodge
A Grand Lodge (or Grand Orient or other similar title) is the overarching governing body of a fraternal or other similarly organized group in a given area, usually a city, state, or country.
In Freemasonry
A Grand Lodge or Grand Orient is the us ...
of France, by Frédéric Hattat, chairman of the Fine Art commission in the same council, by Albert Dubois-Pillet, commanding the
Republican Guard
A republican guard, sometimes called a national guard, is a state organization of a country (often a republic, hence the name ''Republican'') which typically serves to protect the head of state and the government, and thus is often synonymous wi ...
, member of the
Grand Orient de France, the beginning of the Company, considered as a nest of
revolutionaries
A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.
...
, were difficult.
Establishment
June 11, 1884, Maître Coursault, notary at
Montmorency, Val-d'Oise, officially confirmed the establishment of the ''Société''
Article 1 of the organization's statutes reads,
:...the purpose of ''Société des Artistes Indépendants'' – based on the principle of abolishing admission jury – is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom.
Groupe vs. Société
Members of the ''Groupe'' challenged this foundation and succeeded to have an exhibition arranged "for the victims of the recent
cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
epidemic", inaugurated December 1, 1884, by Lucien Boué, President of the Paris City Council. But financially the result was a catastrophe. Nevertheless, in spring 1885, the "Groupe" organised its next exhibition, this time with some success.
Early exhibitions
The Salon des Indépendants arose through the need by artists to present their works to the general public independently, rather than through the official selective method of the "Salon" (created by
Louis XIV).
[Société des Artistes Indépendants, History](_blank)
/ref> A small collective of innovative artists— Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Camille Pissarro
Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( , ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). Hi ...
along with Albert Dubois-Pillet, Odilon Redon, 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 sur ...
, Paul Signac—created the Salon des Indépendants. The right to present their works to the public with no restrictions was their only condition. Article no. 1 of the By-laws of the organization: "The purpose of Société des Artistes Indépendants—based on the principle of abolishing admission jury—is to allow the artists to present their works to public judgement with complete freedom".
On 1 December 1884, Lucien Boué, President of the Paris City Council, opened the first Salon des Artistes Indépendants at the Palais Polychrome (near the Palais de l'Industrie). The Salon became the refuge for artworks deemed unacceptable by the traditional Salon. Among the works exhibited were Seurat's " La baignade à Asnières" Signac's "Le Pont d'Austerlitz", and works of 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 ...
, Odilon Redon, Albert Dubois-Pillet, Louis Valtat
Louis Valtat (; 8 August 1869 – 2 January 1952) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauves ("the wild beasts", so named for their wild use of color), who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne.
''Les Fau ...
, Armand Guillaumin
Armand Guillaumin (; February 16, 1841 – June 26, 1927) was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.
Biography Early years
Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in Paris, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop while attending even ...
, Charles Angrand, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and 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, inclu ...
.[Salon des Indépendants, Merriam-Webster](_blank)
/ref>
The proceeds of the first show were earmarked for the victims of cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by some strains of the bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea that lasts a few days. Vomiting and ...
. The second exhibition was held in 1886 in a temporary building in the Tuileries Garden
The Tuileries Garden (french: Jardin des Tuileries, ) is a public garden located between the Louvre and the Place de la Concorde in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. Created by Catherine de' Medici as the garden of the Tuileries Palace ...
with 200 paintings exhibited. By 1905 Henri Rousseau, Pierre Bonnard, Jean Metzinger and Henri Matisse had exhibited there. During the period between 1890 and 1914 known as ''La Belle Époque
The Belle Époque or La Belle Époque (; French for "Beautiful Epoch") is a period of French and European history, usually considered to begin around 1871–1880 and to end with the outbreak of World War I in 1914. Occurring during the era ...
'' practically all of the artists associated with modernism and the avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical D ...
exhibited at the Indépendants. The works exhibited ranged in style from Realist to post-Impressionist
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction aga ...
, 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 real ...
, 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 beginni ...
/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 ...
, Fauve, Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radi ...
, 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 ...
and Abstract art
Abstract art uses visual language of shape, form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.
Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th ...
.
The submission payment was 10 francs for four works. In 1906 ten works could be submitted for 25 francs and from 1909 only two.
In 1895 and 1897 the Salon des Indépendants was held at the Palais des Beaux-Arts et des Arts libéraux (Champ de Mars
The Champ de Mars (; en, Field of Mars) is a large public greenspace in Paris, France, located in the seventh ''arrondissement'', between the Eiffel Tower to the northwest and the École Militaire to the southeast. The park is named after th ...
). Between 1901 and 1907, the exhibition was held in the Grandes Serres de la Ville de Paris (Cours-la-Reine, Paris), also called ''Grande Serre de l'Alma'', built for the Exposition Universelle of 1900. From 1920 the exhibitions were held at the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées in Paris. After some initial successes in the 1880s, response to the Indépendants waned in the 1890s. By 1897 art critic Andre Fontainas would complain "The Salon of the Independants reveals itself to be more and more sterile every year. Nothing, nothing and nothing! ... Why M. Signac? Why M. Luce?" Many avant-garde artists, including those associated with the Société des Artistes Indépendants shifted towards commercial venues in the 1890s.
Due to space constraints stemming from preparations for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, the 1899 exhibition had only 187 artists, down from more than 1000 in 1897. In 1900, the Indépendants reached its lowpoint, with only 55 exhibitors and few serious or substantial critical reviews.
1901 Turning Point
In 1901, however, the society rebounded with more than 1000 paintings exhibited, and critics paying it serious attention again. Reviews of that years show were decidedly positive, even calling it "one of the most brilliant exhibitions" in the group's 17-year history. Fontainas, who had cried "Why M. Signac?" in 1897, and in 1899 declared the society "almost dead" did an abrupt about-face in 1901, highly praising the Salon. Art critic Roger Marx highly praised that year's exhibition and importantly, he continued to link its success to the ideals of freedom on which the society had been founded. "Overall, the exhibition of the Independents is more and better than the protesting Salon des Refusés; it gives the example of an open society where the rights of all are equal, where everyone is answerable only to himself and remains individually responsible. The artist admits and shows himself as he is, openly without pretense; the viewer, meanwhile, receives no watchword from the jury, follows the inclination of his preferences and decides, in his own way, from beginning to end. Fortunate training for the will, is it not true, that which accustoms man to use his independence to act, to think by himself and for himself, consulting no-one, in the blissfulness of free will!"
In the following years the exhibition continued to grow in both numbers and importance. 2,395 works were exhibited in 1904, and in 1905, the Salon showed 4,269 works by 669 artists. By 1908 six thousand works were displayed at the Indépendants. In 1910 the number of artists increased to 1,182, rising progressively to 2,175 by 1930. But the Société's inclusive principles meant it would always be subject to the criticism that it valued quantity over quality: in 1926 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 ...
estimated that only 100 of the 3,726 artworks were of any value.[Kubisme.info, Salon des Indépendants](_blank)
/ref>
1902-1904: Towards a New Classical Canon
1902-04 continued the success seen in the 1901 Salon. Critics increasingly praised the harmony and beauty of Neo-Impressionist paintings of the Mediterranean coast. The art critic Fagus wrote in La Revue Blanche that Henri-Edmond Cross's works that year showed "the quivering of these Provencal pines, the beautiful rise towards the arabesque, towards the beautiful line, towards a new classical canon!". This year also featured a retrospective of works by Toulouse-Lautrec.
For the first time, the establishment journal Gazette des Beaux-Arts reviewed the annual Salon in 1903, marking the coming of age of the Indépendants. In 1903, Jean Metzinger sent three paintings to the Salon des Indépendants, and subsequently moved to Paris with the proceeds from their sale. He again exhibiting several paintings, this time along with 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 ...
, at the Indépendants of 1904, where Cross presented his Venice series. In 1905 the salon featured retrospectives of works by Seurat and 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, inclu ...
. Throughout this time, the Société des Artistes Indépendants was strongly associated with the Neo-Impressionists.
1905 Fauvism
From 24 March to 30 April, the burgeoning of Fauvism was visible at the Indépendants, prior to the infamous Salon d'Automne exhibition of 1905 which historically marks the birth of the term Fauvism, after 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 ...
described their show of work with the phrase " Donatello chez les fauves" ("Donatello among the wild beasts"),[Louis Vauxcelles, ''Le Salon d'Automne'', Gil Blas, 17 October 1905. Screen 5 and 6. Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France](_blank)
contrasting the paintings with a Renaissance-style sculpture that shared the room with them.[Chilver, Ian (Ed.)]
"Fauvism"
The Oxford Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved from enotes.com, 26 December 2007.
At the 1905 Indépendants Henri Matisse exhibited with Albert Marquet
Albert Marquet (27 March 1875 – 14 June 1947) was a French painter, associated with the Fauvist movement. He initially became one of the Fauve painters and a lifelong friend of Henri Matisse. Marquet subsequently painted in a more naturali ...
, Jean Puy
Jean Puy (8 November 1876 in Roanne, Loire – 6 March 1960 in Roanne) was a French Fauvist artist.
Life and work
He studied architecture at the École nationale des beaux-arts de Lyon and painting with Jean-Paul Laurens at l'Académie Juli ...
, Henri Manguin
Henri Charles Manguin (; 23 March 187425 September 1949)
2008 was a French painter, associated with the < ...
, 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 s ...
, Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvism, Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramic art, ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public bu ...
, Kees van Dongen
Cornelis Theodorus Maria "Kees" van Dongen (26 January 1877 – 28 May 1968) was a Dutch-French painter who was one of the leading Fauves. Van Dongen's early work was influenced by the Hague School and symbolism and it evolved gradually into a r ...
, 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, just outside Paris. In ...
, Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauvism, Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to ...
, Charles Camoin
Charles Camoin (; 23 September 1879 – 20 May 1965) was a French expressionist landscape painter associated with the Fauves.
''Les Fauves: A Sourcebook'', by Russell T. Clement,
p. 2, web:
-->&lpg=PA2 Google Books
Born in Marseille, Franc ...
and Jean Metzinger.[Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 21ème exposition, 1905, Digital collection: Rare Books in the Thomas J. Watson Library, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)](_blank)
/ref> This exhibition was reviewed by Vauxcelles in Gil Blas
''Gil Blas'' (french: L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane ) is a picaresque novel by Alain-René Lesage published between 1715 and 1735. It was highly popular, and was translated several times into English, most notably as The Adventures of Gi ...
on 4, 18 and 23 March 1905.[Russell T. Clement, ''Les Fauves: A Sourcebook'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994](_blank)
Matisse exhibited the proto-Fauve painting '' Luxe, Calme et Volupté''. In 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 ...
technique and brightly colored, it was painted in 1904, after a summer spent working in St. Tropez
, INSEE = 83119
, postal code = 83990
, image coat of arms = Blason ville fr Saint-Tropez-A (Var).svg
, image flag=Flag of Saint-Tropez.svg
Saint-Tropez (; oc, Sant Tropetz, ; ) is a commune in the Var department and the region of Provence-Alp ...
on the French Riviera alongside the 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 beginni ...
painters Paul Signac and 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 ...
. The painting is Matisse's most important work in which he used the Divisionist technique advocated by Signac, which Matisse had first adopted after reading Signac's essay, "D'Eugène Delacroix au Néo-impressionisme" in 1898. Signac purchased the work after the 1905 Salon des Indépendants.
Matisse is in charge of the hanging committee, assisted by Metzinger, Bonnard, Camoin, Laprade Luce, Manguin, Marquet, Puy and Vallotton.
1906, all the Fauves
At the Salon des Indépendants of 1906 the elected members of the hanging committee included Matisse, Signac and Metzinger. Following the Salon d'Automne of 1905 which marked the beginning of Fauvism, the Salon des Indépendants of 1906 marked the first time all the Fauves would exhibit together. The centerpiece of the exhibition was Matisse's monumental ''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 ...
(The Joy of Life)''. The triangular composition is closely related to Cézanne's Bathers; a series that would soon become a source of inspiration for Picasso's '' Les Demoiselles d'Avignon''. Critics were horrified by the flatness, bright colors, eclectic style and mixed technique of ''Le Bonheur de Vivre''.
According to Metzinger's memoirs, it was at the 1906 Salon des Indépendants that he met 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 visited his studio in Courbevoie several days later. In 1907, at Max Jacob's place, Metzinger met Guillaume Krotowsky, who already signed his works 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 ...
.[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, pp. 9-23]
In 1906 Metzinger had acquired enough prestige to be elected to the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants, in addition to his entry of eight works. He formed a close friendship at this time with Robert Delaunay, with whom he would share an exhibition at 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 ...
's gallery early in 1907. The two of them were singled out by one critic (Louis Vauxcelles) in 1907 as Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions.
1907, the wholesale transformation
In the spring of 1906 Georges Braque exhibited his works for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants. At the exhibition of 1907, held from 20 March to 30 April, six paintings by Braque were exhibited. Five were purchased directly at the Salon des Indépendants by the art dealer Wilhelm Uhde
Wilhelm Uhde (28 October 1874, Friedeberg, Province of Brandenburg (now Poland) – 17 August 1947, Paris) was a German art collector, dealer, author and critic, an early collector of modernist painting, and a significant figure in the career of H ...
for a total price of 505 FF. The sixth work was presumably bought by the art dealer Kahnweiler. It was around this time that Braque first met Kahnweiler and was introduced to Picasso by Guillaume Apollinaire. Braque's works were still Fauve in nature. It wasn't until the autumn of 1907 at L’Estaque that Braque began his transition away from bright hues to more subdued colors, possibly as a result of the memorial exhibition of Cézanne's work 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 1907.
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, just outside Paris. In ...
exhibited his ''Dancer at Le Rat Mort'', painted during the winter of 1906, and his large ''Bathers'' (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 th ...
, New York) of early 1907. No longer truly Fauve, this work is close to Cézanne in its angular form and tonal modeling.
Matisse's ''Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra)
''Blue Nude (Souvenir of Biskra)'' ("Nu bleu, Souvenir de Biskra"), an early 1907 oil painting on canvas by Henri Matisse, is located at the Baltimore Museum of Art as part of the Cone Collection.
Matisse painted the nude when a sculpture he ...
'' also appeared at the 1907 Indépendants, entitled ''Tableau no. III''. Vauxcelles writes on the topic of ''Nu bleu'':
I admit to not understanding. An ugly nude woman is stretched out upon grass of an opaque blue under the palm trees... This is an artistic effect tending toward the abstract that escapes me completely. (Vauxcelles, Gil Blas, 20 March 1907)
''Blue Nude'' would later create a sensation 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 ...
of 1913 in New York City. The painting, already a certain distance from Fauvism, was deemed so ugly students burned it in effigy at the 1913 Armory Show in Chicago, where it had toured from New York.
In addition to the works of Matisse, Derain and Braque, the Indépendants of 1907 included six works (each) by Vlaminck, Dufy, Metzinger, Delaunay, Camoin, Herbin, Puy, and Valtat, and three by Marquet.
Vauxcelles described this group of 'Fauves':
A movement I consider dangerous (despite the great sympathy I have for its perpetrators) is taking shape among a small clan of youngsters. A chapel has been established, two haughty priests officiating. MM Derain and Matisse; a few dozen innocent catechumens have received their baptism. Their dogma amounts to a wavering schematicism that proscribes modeling and volumes in the name of I-don't-know-what pictorial abstraction. This new religion hardly appeals to me. I don't believe in this Renaissance... M. Matisse, fauve-in-chief; M. Derain, fauve deputy; MM. Othon Friesz and Dufy, fauves in attendance... and M. Delaunay (a fourteen-year-old-pupil of M. Metzinger...), infantile fauvelet. (Vauxcelles, Gil Blas, 20 March 1907)
The Fauvism of Matisse and Derain was virtually over by the spring of the 1907 Indépendants. And by the Salon d'Automne of 1907 it had ended for many others as well. The shift from bright pure colors loosely applied to the canvas gave way to a more calculated geometric approach. The priority of simplified form began to overtake the representational aspect of the works. The simplification of representational form gave way to a new complexity; the subject matter of the paintings progressively became dominated by a network of interconnected geometric planes, the distinction between foreground and background no longer sharply delineated, and the depth of field limited.
Many of Cézanne's paintings had been 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 f ...
of 1904, 1905 and 1906. After Cézanne died in 1906, his paintings were exhibited in Paris in the form of a retrospective at the Salon d'Automne of 1907, greatly attracting interest and affecting the direction taken by the avant-garde artists in Paris prior to the advent 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 ...
. Cézanne's explorations of geometric simplification and optical phenomena inspired not just Matisse, Derain, Braque and Metzinger, but the other artists who exhibited earlier with the Fauves. Those who had not transited through a Fauve stage, such as Picasso, experimented, too, with the complex fracturing of form. Cézanne had thus sparked a wholesale transformation in the area of artistic investigation that would profoundly affect the development modern art
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tra ...
of the 20th century.
1908, barbarous schematizers
Signac becomes president of the 24th Salon des Indépendants. At the exhibition of 1908, held 20 March through 2 May, a painting by Braque strikes Apollinaire by its originality. Though not listed in the catalog, it was described in ''L'Intransigeant''. In his review published in ''La Revue des lettres et des arts'' (1 May 1908) Apollinaire claims that Braque's work is the most original effort presented at the salon. Even in the absence of Matisse and Picasso, Vauxcelles, in Gil Blas (20 March 1908) refers to the most innovative artists of the exposition as 'barbarous schematizers'... who want to create an 'abstract art'.
This exhibition was reviewed in the ''New York Herald'' 20 March 1908; by Vauxcelles in ''Gil Blas'' 20 March 1908; by C. Le Senne in ''Le Courrier du Soir'', 22 March 1908; and by Maurice Denis, in ''La Grande revue'', 10 April 1908.
In excess of 1,314 artists exhibit 6,701 works. Matisse does not submit any works.
After this salon, the writer Gelett Burgess begins a series of interviews with the avant-garde working currently in Paris and surrounding banlieue
In France, the term banlieue (; ) refers to a suburb of a large city. Banlieues are divided into autonomous administrative entities and do not constitute part of the city proper. For instance, 80% of the inhabitants of the Paris Metropolitan Are ...
s. These interviews and Burgess' impressions of the works produced are published in ''Architectural Record'', May 1910, at the heart of the proto-Cubist period.
Gelett Burgess writes in ''The Wild Men of Paris'':
"Though the school was new to me, it was already an old story in Paris. It had been a nine-days’ wonder. Violent discussions had raged over it; it had taken its place as a revolt and held it, despite the fulmination of critics and the contempt of academicians. The school was increasing in numbers, in importance. By many it was taken seriously. At first, the beginners had been called "The Invertebrates." In the Salon of 1905 they were named "The Incoherents." But by 1906, when they grew more perfervid, more audacious, more crazed with theories, they received their present appellation of "Les Fauves"—the Wild Beasts. And so, and so, a-hunting I would go!"
"It was Matisse who took the first step into the undiscovered land of the ugly. Matisse himself, serious, plaintive, a conscientious experimenter, whose works are but studies in expression, who is concerned at present with but the working out of the theory of simplicity, denies all responsibility for the excesses of his unwelcome disciples."
"Picasso, keen as a whip, spirited as a devil, mad as a hatter, runs to his studio and contrives a huge nude woman composed entirely of triangles, and presents it in triumph. What wonder Matisse shakes his head and does not smile! He chats thoughtfully of the "Harmony and volume" and "architectural values," and wild Braque climbs to his attic and builds an architectural monster which he names Woman, with balanced masses and parts, with openings and columnar legs and cornices. Matisse praises the direct appeal to instinct of the African wood images, and even a sober Dérain, a co-experimenter, loses his head, moulds a neolithic man into a solid cube, creates a woman of spheres, stretches a cat out into a cylinder, and paints it red and yellow!"
"Metzinger once did gorgeous mosaics of pure pigment, each little square of color not quite touching the next, so that an effect of vibrant light should result. He painted exquisite compositions of cloud and cliff and sea; he painted women and made them fair, even as the women upon the boulevards fair. But now, translated into the idiom of subjective beauty, into this strange Neo-Classic language, those same women, redrawn, appear in stiff, crude, nervous lines in patches of fierce color."[Gelett Burgess, ''The Wild Men of Paris'', The Architectural Record, May 1910, documents p. 3, Interview with Jean Metzinger, circa 1908-09](_blank)
/ref>
1909, simplified forms
According to John Golding's influential history of Cubism published in 1959, it was at the Salon des Indépendants of 1909, held 25 March through 2 May, that one of the first Cubist painting was exhibited to the public: ''Little Harbor in Normandy (Petit port en Normandie)'', no. 215, entitled ''Paysage'', by Georges Braque (Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mil ...
). On 25 March 1909, Louis Vauxcelles qualifies the works of Braque (Bracke, sic) exhibited 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 ...
as "bizarreries cubiques" (cubic oddities). In Room 16 hung works by Derain, Dufy, Friesz, Laprade, Matisse, Jean Puy, Rouault and Vlaminck.
The evolution towards a more linear style with simplified forms continues with greater emphasis on clear geometric principles (derived from Cézanne) not solely visible in the works of Braque, but too in the works of Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier and Delaunay (Picasso being absent from the salons).[Peter Brooke, ''Albert Gleizes, Chronology of his life, 1881-1953''](_blank)
/ref>
1910, ignorant geometers
Gleizes exhibits in the Salon des Indépendants for the first time: ''Portrait de René Arcos'' and '' L'Arbre'', two paintings in which the emphasis on simplified geometric form overwhelms to a large extent the representational interest of the painting. The same tendency is evident in Metzinger's ''Portrait of Apollinaire'' exhibited in the same salon. According to Apollinaire this was the 'first Cubist portrait'. Apollinaire himself has pointed out in his book ''The Cubist Painters'' (1913), that Metzinger, following Picasso and Braque, was chronologically the third Cubist artist.[S. E. Johnson, 1964, Metzinger, Pre-Cubist and Cubist Works, 1900-1930, International Galleries, Chicago]
According to Gleizes's memoirs, Alexandre Mercereau
Alexandre Mercereau (22 October 1884, in Paris – 1945) was a French symbolist poet and critic associated with Unanimism and the Abbaye de Créteil. He founded the Villa Médicis Libre, which helped impoverished artists and operated as charitable ...
introduces him to Metzinger, but only after the Salon d'Automne do they become seriously interested in each other's work.
Louis Vauxcelles, in his review of the 26th Salon des Indépendants (1910), made a passing and imprecise reference to Metzinger, Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger and Le Fauconnier, as "ignorant geometers, reducing the human body, the site, to pallid cubes."
The work of Metzinger, Le Fauconnier and Robert Delaunay were exhibited together. Le Fauconnier showed the geometrically simplified ''Ploumanac'h'' landscapes: ''Le Ravin'' and ''Village dans les Montagne'', along with ''Femme à l'éventail'' and ''Portrait of Maroussia''. In the same hall hung the works of Matisse, Vlaminck, Dufy, Laurencin, van Dongen and Henri Rousseau.
Apollinaire wrote in the daily newspaper ''L'Intransigeant'', which had a circulation of about 50,000, about the exhibition that consisted of close to 6000 paintings.
1910, Lolo the donkey
Remarkably, the presence of a painting made by a donkey named Lolo passed by practically unnoticed. The painting was entitled ' presented by the fictitious artist Joachim-Raphaël Boronali
Joachim-Raphaël Boronali was a fictitious Italian painter created as an invention of writer and critic Roland Dorgelès who created paintings on canvas by tying a paintbrush to the tail of a donkey named Lolo.
A painting by the donkey, '' (Sunse ...
, the 'excessivist' from Genoa was exhibited at the 1910 Salon des Indépendants. Boronali was in fact a Parisian donkey (Lolo), who made the painting with his tail. It is suspected that Lolo belonged to Frédéric Gérard ( Le Père Frédé), owner of the cabaret Lapin Agile
Lapin Agile is a famous Montmartre cabaret, at 22 Rue des Saules, 18th arrondissement of Paris, France.
History
It existed circa 1860 under the name Au rendez-vous des voleurs meaning "Where the Thieves Meet." Some twenty years later the ...
in Montmartre. Roland Dorgelès and two friends, et Jules Depaquit, attached a paint brush to the tail of the animal. The donkey did the rest. The painting sold for 400FF (equal to 1,257 Euros today) and was donated by Dorgelès to the ''Orphelinat des Arts''. The painting forms part of the permanent collection at ''l'Espace culturel Paul Bédu'' (Milly-la-Forêt
Milly-la-Forêt () is a commune in the Essonne department in the Île-de-France region in northern France.
Geology
The Forest of Fontainebleau, in the western end of which Milly-la-Forêt lies, is composed of the Oligocene Fontainebleau sands, ...
).
1911, the major scandal of Cubism
The newly formed Montparnasse group (who held meetings not just at Le Fauconnier's studio, but at the cafés '' Le Dôme, La Coupole
''La Coupole'' ( en, The Dome), also known as the ''Coupole d'Helfaut-Wizernes'' and originally codenamed ''Bauvorhaben'' 21 ('Building Project 21') or ''Schotterwerk Nordwest'' (Northwest Gravel Works), is a Second World War bunker complex in the ...
, La Closerie des Lilas, Le Select'', and ''Café de la Rotonde
The Café de la Rotonde is a famous café in the Montparnasse Quarter of Paris, France at 105 Boulevard du Montparnasse, known for its artistic milieu and good food. In its official website, La Rotonde defines itself as a brasserie and restau ...
'') together with other young painters who also want to emphasise a research into form (as opposed to color) take over the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants ensuring that the works of painters now dubbed 'Cubists' would be shown together. Gleizes, Metzinger, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay, Léger and Marie Laurencin (at the request of Apollinaire) are shown together in Room 41.
The result of the group show is a major scandal. Even though the pictures shown are still conventional representations that generally observe the rules of classical perspective (according to Gleizes), the public is outraged by the representation of subject matter as cones, cubes and spheres, resulting in the obscurity of the subject matter. The predominance of sharp geometrical faceting and the fact that a group of artists are all working in similar directions, gives rise to the term 'Cubism'. Although this and similar terms have been used before in artistic circles (usually in relation to the works of Metzinger, Delaunay and Braque), this is the first time the use of the term becomes widespread.
The term 'Cubism' is employed in June 1911 by Apollinaire, speaking in the context of 'Les Indépendants', Musée Moderne de Bruxelles in Brussels, which includes works by Gleizes, Delaunay, Léger, and Le Fauconnier. During the summer, Gleizes is in close contact with Metzinger, who has recently moved to Meudon. Both are discontent with the conventional perspective mechanism. They have long conversations about the nature of form and perception. They agree that traditional painting gives a static and incomplete idea of the subject as experienced in life. Things, they conclude, are in fact dynamic, observed to move, are seen from different angles and can be captured at successive moments in time.
Another Cubist scandal is produced several months later at the Salon d'Automne, where the Indépendants exhibitors develop relations with the Duchamp brothers, Jacques Villon, 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 Marcel Duchamp. The studios of Jacques Villon and Raymond Duchamp-Villon at 7, rue Lemaître, become, together with Gleizes' studio at Courbevoie, regular meeting places for the newly formed ''Groupe de Puteaux'' (soon to exhibit under the name 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 ...
). 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 ...
, the Czech painter interested in non-representational painting based on analogies with music and the progressive abstraction of a subject in motion, joins the discussions.
In the spring of 1911 the cubists made sure they were shown together, infiltrating the placement committee. That Le Fauconnier was the secretary of the salon facilitated the goal of hanging their works together. Until then, works in alphabetical order of the artists names. In room 41 hung works by Metzinger, Gleizes, Léger, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier and Archipenko. In room 43 hung works by 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 ...
, 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 ...
, André Dunoyer de Segonzac
André Dunoyer de Segonzac (6 July 1884 – 17 September 1974) was a French painter and graphic artist.
Biography
Segonzac was born in Boussy-Saint-Antoine and spent his childhood there and in Paris. His parents wanted him to attend the military ...
, Luc-Albert Moreau 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 ...
.
This exhibition involved more than 6,400 paintings. In room 42 was a retrospective exhibition of Henri (Le Douanier) Rousseau, who died 2 September 1910. Articles and reviews were numerous and extensive in sheer words employed; including in Gil Blas, Comoedia, Excelsior, Action, L'Oeuvre, and Cri de Paris. Apollinaire wrote a long review in the 20 April 1911 issue of L'Intransigeant.
Henri Le Fauconnier's ''Abundance'', 1910-11 (Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag), partly due to its large size and partly to the treatment of its subject matter, was an eye-catcher, causing a sensation. This painting was soon bought by the Dutchman art critic and painter Conrad Kickert (1882-1965), who was secretary of the Contemporary Art Society ( Moderne Kunstkring). In 1934 he donated the painting to the Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag.
1912, the scandal continues
The Salon des Indépendants transpired in Paris from 20 March to 16 May 1912. This massive exhibition occurred exactly one year after Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay, Léger and Laurencin were shown together in Room 41 of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants, which provoked the scandal out of which Cubism emerged and spread throughout Paris. Its wide-ranging repercussions were felt in Germany, Holland, Italy, Russia, Spain and elsewhere (influencing Futurism, Suprematism
Suprematism (russian: Супремати́зм) is an early twentieth-century art movement focused on the fundamentals of geometry (circles, squares, rectangles), painted in a limited range of colors. The term ''suprematism'' refers to an abstra ...
, Constructivism
Constructivism may refer to:
Art and architecture
* Constructivism (art), an early 20th-century artistic movement that extols art as a practice for social purposes
* Constructivist architecture, an architectural movement in Russia in the 1920s a ...
, De Stijl
''De Stijl'' (; ), Dutch for "The Style", also known as Neoplasticism, was a Dutch art movement founded in 1917 in Leiden. De Stijl consisted of artists and architects. In a more narrow sense, the term ''De Stijl'' is used to refer to a body o ...
and so on). Just five months prior to this show another polemic developed at the Salon d'Automne of 1912. Originating in ''Salle XI'' where the Cubists exhibited their works, this quarrel involved both the French and non-French avant-garde artists. 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 o ...
and was debated at the ''Assemblée Nationale''. At stake was more than just the future of public funding for exhibitions that included Cubist art.[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''](_blank)
(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) Le Fauconnier, Gleizes, Léger, Metzinger and Archipenko formed the core of the hanging committee at the 1912 Indépendants. The common hall, room 20, in which the Cubists placed themselves became the nucleus of the exhibition.c
At the 1912 Salon des Indépendants Albert Gleizes exhibited '' Les Baigneuses (The Bathers)'' (no. 1347) — Marcel Duchamp's ''Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2
''Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2'' (French: ''Nu descendant un escalier n° 2'') is a 1912 painting by Marcel Duchamp. The work is widely regarded as a Modernist classic and has become one of the most famous of its time. Before its first pres ...
'' was listed in the catalogue (n. 1001) but was withdrawn prior to the exhibition — 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 ...
exhibited ''Artillerie'' (no. 1235) — 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 ...
showed his monumental ''Ville de Paris'' (no. 868) — Jean Metzinger exhibited '' La Femme au Cheval (Woman with a horse)'' and ''Le Port'' — 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 ...
showed ''La Noce'' — Henri Le Fauconnier, ''Le Chasseur (The Huntsman)'' — and the newcomer Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
exhibited his ''Portrait of Picasso''.
The art critic Olivier-Hourcade writes of this exhibition in 1912 and its relation to the creation of a new French school: "Metzinger with his ''Port'', Delaunay with ''Paris'', Gleizes with his ''Baigneuses'', are close to this real and magnificent result, this victory comes from several centuries: the creation of a school of painting, 'French' and absolutely independent."
Roger Allard's reviewed the 1912 Salon des Indépendants in the March–April 1912 issue of La Revue de France et des Pays, noting Metzinger's 'refined choice of colors' and the 'precious rarity' of the painting's 'matière'. 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 ...
too, in his review, noted Metzinger's 'refined use of color' in ''La Femme au Cheval'' and praised its 'French grace', while noting Metzinger 'illuminated a cubist figure with the virtues of a smile'.[David Cottington, ''Cubism and Its Histories''](_blank)
Manchester University Press, 2004, p. 107
Gleizes, on the other hand, would write in 1913 of the Cubist movements continual evolution:
And regarding the reception received by the Cubists at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne Gleizes writes:
1913, the peak of Cubism
The Salon des Indépendants was held March 9 through 18 May, the Cubist works were shown in room 46. Jean Metzinger exhibited his large '' L'Oiseau bleu'' — 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 ...
, Albert Gleizes. ''Les Joueurs de football (Football Players)'' 1912-13, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C — 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 ...
''The Cardiff Team (L'équipe de Cardiff )'' 1913, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven — 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 ...
, ''Le modèle nu dans l'atelier (Nude Model In The Studio)'' 1912-13, 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 ...
, New York — Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
, ''L'Homme dans le Café (Man in Café)'' 1912, Philadelphia Museum of Art.
In room 45 hung the works of 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 ...
, 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 ...
, Morgan Russell
Morgan Russell (January 25, 1886 – May 29, 1953) was a modern American artist. With Stanton Macdonald-Wright, he was the founder of Synchromism, a provocative style of abstract painting that dates from 1912 to the 1920s. Russell's "synchromie ...
and Macdonald-Wright. This was the first exhibition where Orphism and Synchromism
Synchromism was an art movement founded in 1912 by American artists Stanton Macdonald-Wright (1890–1973) and Morgan Russell (1886–1953). Their abstract "synchromies," based on an approach to painting that analogized color to music, were a ...
were emphatically present. Apollinaire in ''L'Intransigeant'' mentioned la Salle hollandaise (room 43), which included Jacoba van Heemskerck, Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
, Otto van Rees, Jan Sluyters
Johannes Carolus Bernardus (Jan) Sluijters, or Sluyters (17 December 1881 in 's-Hertogenbosch – 8 May 1957 in Amsterdam) was a Dutch painter and co-founder of the Moderne Kunstkring.
Sluijters (in English often spelled "Sluyters") was a leadin ...
en Leo Gestel
Leo Gestel (11 November 1881, Woerden – 26 November 1941, Hilversum) was a Dutch painter. His father Willem Gestel was also an artist. Leo Gestel experimented with cubism, expressionism, futurism and postimpressionism. Along with Piet Mondrian ...
and Lodewijk Schelfhout.
1914, Orphism
The 1914 exhibition, held from 1 March to 30 April, was composed of many Orphist works of large dimension and took place in one of the largest rooms on the ground floor: Robert and Sonia Delaunay, 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 w ...
and Arthur Burdett Frost were largely represented.
1915-1919
During the First World War there were no exhibitions. After the war, however, there was a revival of Cubism, led by Gleizes and others, which included exhibitions at 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 ...
's ''Galerie l'Effort Moderne'' and a revival of 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 ...
.
1920, the emergence of Dada
In an attempt to regain their pre-war status at the forefront of the avant-garde, and faced with the possibility of being overthrown by Dada
Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...
, the cubists regrouped.[Larry Witham, ''Picasso and the Chess Player: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and the Battle for the Soul of Modern Art'', University Press of New England (ebook) 2013](_blank)
Their first chance to exhibit together presented itself at the Salon des Indépendants of 1920. But the fight wasn't going to be easy. Opening on 28 January, over three thousand works were display, a large number of which were Cubist paintings. For the first time the exhibition took place at the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées. Picasso was nowhere to be seen, but others were, such as Archipenko, Braque, Csaky, Gleizes, Gris, Hayden, Herbin, Léger, Lhote, Lipchitz, Metzinger, Severini and Survage.
The most outrageous Dada eruption to date transpired at the Salon des Indépendants of 1920. The Dadaist saw the Indépendants as decisive in the push to the top of the avant-garde food chain of the Parisian art scene. The plan was as cunning as it was devious: Tristan Tzara
Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...
and André Breton
André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...
rented an auditorium at the Grand Palais. A group guided by Tzara distributed flyers and posters saying that Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
would appear "in the flesh" on February 5. The crowd heckled when Chaplin (not even aware of the event) never showed up, and Tzara was ready: his group hurled insults back at the crowd from the stage.
The renown literary figure André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...
present in the audience, fooled as the others, described the happening: "Some young people, solemn, stilted, tied up in knots, got up on the platform and as a chorus declaimed insincere inanities".[Gide quoted in Wayne Andrews, ''The Surrealist Parade'', New York: New Directions, 1990, p. 40, in Larry Witham, ''Picasso and the Chess Player: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and the Battle for the Soul of Modern Art'', 2013]
The offensive event witnessed by the more respectable Cubists solicited a vehement denunciation, declaring Dada an abomination.
1921, a new epoch
The Salon des Indépendants of 1921, which opened in January, had less Cubist paintings than the previous year. Braque and Metzinger were not represented. The artists that did exhibit included Gleizes, Ferat, Hayden, Marcoussis, Hellesen and Survage. With the Cubists were also Hélène Pordriat, Marthe Laurens, Irène Lagut, Alice Halicka
Alice Halicka or Alicja Halicka (20 December 1894 – 1 January 1975) was a Jewish-Polish painter who spent most of her life in France.
Biography
Alicja Halicka was born in Kraków and studied with Józef Pankiewicz there. She moved to Paris in ...
and Sonia Lewitska. At the exhibition were also the works of Bissière, Blanchard, Dufy, Lhote, Tirman, Zadkine and Lipchitz.
The hanging commission was conducted in opposition to Signac, who was in favor of the alphabetical order system. Léger left the placement committee in 1923. In 1924 placement was classified by nationality and alphabetically. Lhote left the placement committee, which consisted of 20 people, along with eight other members in 1925. Lhote was of the opinion that the change was mainly intended for the "Sunday painters". Signac and his supporters defended the alphabetical order stressing 'equal attention to all participants' and that there was no place for 'les petites chapelles' (the little chapels). The latter was especially directed against the neo-cubists, who after the First World wished to be associated with well-known artists.
From 1920 the ''Société des Artistes Indépendants'' obtained the Grand Palais for its salon exhibitions. After World War II, the ''Salon des Indépendants'' was renewed with the artist group '' Jeune création'', with the assistance of Dunoyer de Segonzac, Bernard Buffet
Bernard Buffet (; 10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
He produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative. The artist enjoyed worldwide popularity early in his caree ...
, Jean Carzou
__NOTOC__
Jean Carzou ( hy, Ժան Գառզու, born in Aleppo; 1 January 1907 – 12 August 2000) was a French–Armenian artist, painter, and illustrator, whose work illustrated the novels of Ernest Hemingway and Albert Camus.
Life and care ...
, Maurice Boitel
Maurice Boitel (July 31, 1919 – August 11, 2007) was a French painter.
Artistic life
Boitel belonged to the art movement called "La Jeune Peinture" ("Young Picture") of the School of Paris,The School of Paris (1945–1965) by Lydia Harambourg. ...
, Yves Brayer, Aristide Caillaud, Daniel du Janerand
Daniel du Janerand (18 July 1919 – 19 July 1990) was a French painter, muralist, and book illustrator.
Artistic life
He was born in the "Marais", center of Paris, on 18 July 1919. He studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Ar ...
, amongst others.
Notable exhibitors
* 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 ...
* Georges Braque
* Bernard Buffet
Bernard Buffet (; 10 July 1928 – 4 October 1999) was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor.
He produced a varied and extensive body of work. His style was exclusively figurative. The artist enjoyed worldwide popularity early in his caree ...
* Charles Camoin
Charles Camoin (; 23 September 1879 – 20 May 1965) was a French expressionist landscape painter associated with the Fauves.
''Les Fauves: A Sourcebook'', by Russell T. Clement,
p. 2, web:
-->&lpg=PA2 Google Books
Born in Marseille, Franc ...
* Marc Chagall
* Georgette Chen
Georgette Liying Chendana Chen (; Born Chang Li Ying; 23 October 1906 – 15 March 1993), most commonly known as Georgette Chen, was a Singaporean painter and one of the pioneers of Modernism, modern Visual art of Singapore, Singaporean art as ...
* Giorgio de Chirico
Giuseppe Maria Alberto Giorgio de Chirico ( , ; 10 July 1888 – 20 November 1978) was an Italian
artist and writer born in Greece. In the years before World War I, he founded the '' scuola metafisica'' art movement, which profoundly infl ...
* 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 ...
* Joseph Csaky
* 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 ...
* Jean Dries
Jean Dries was the name used by the artist Jean Driesbach, who was born on October 19, 1905, in Bar-le-Duc in Meuse, France and died in Paris on February 26, 1973. He was a Lorrain painter by birth and was born the year Fauvism appeared at the Sa ...
* Albert Dubois-Pillet
* Marcel Duchamp
* Georges Dufrénoy
Georges Dufrénoy (June 20, 1870December 9, 1943) was a French post-Impressionist painter associated with Fauvism.
Biography
He was born in Thiais, France. His family lived at 2 Place des Vosges in Paris in a historic 17th-century building in wh ...
* Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy (; 3 June 1877 – 23 March 1953) was a French Fauvism, Fauvist painter. He developed a colorful, decorative style that became fashionable for designs of ceramic art, ceramics and textile as well as decorative schemes for public bu ...
* Alexandra Exter
Alexandra () is the feminine form of the given name Alexander (, ). Etymologically, the name is a compound of the Greek verb (; meaning 'to defend') and (; GEN , ; meaning 'man'). Thus it may be roughly translated as "defender of man" or "prot ...
* Henri Le Fauconnier
* Alberto Giacometti
Alberto Giacometti (, , ; 10 October 1901 – 11 January 1966) was a Swiss sculptor, painter, Drafter, draftsman and Printmaking, printmaker. Beginning in 1922, he lived and worked mainly in Paris but regularly visited his hometown Borgonovo, ...
* 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 ...
* Henryk Gotlib
Henryk Gotlib (10 January 1890 – 30 December 1966) was a Polish painter, draughtsman, printmaker, and writer, who settled in England during World War II and made a significant contribution to modern British art. He was profoundly influenced b ...
* Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in Madrid who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic ge ...
* Louise Janin
Louise Janin (August 29, 1893, Durham, New Hampshire - 1997, Meudon) was an American painter who settled in Paris in 1923. Her work relates to symbolism and musicalism (the attempt to interpret music in painting).
Biography
Louise Janin wa ...
* Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...
* 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 ...
* Kiki of Paris
* 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 ...
* Henri Lebasque
* 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 ...
* 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 ...
* Maximilien Luce
Maximilien Luce (13 March 1858 – 6 February 1941) was a prolific French Neo-impressionist artist, known for his paintings, illustrations, engravings, and graphic art, and also for his anarchist activism. Starting as an engraver, he then c ...
* Kazimir Malevich
* 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 ...
* Albert Marque
Albert Marque (14 July 1872 – 1939) was a French sculptor and doll maker of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Life and work
Marque was born in 1872 in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine. He became well-known and respected at the turn of the 20th ...
* Henri Matisse
* Vadim Meller
* Jean Metzinger
* Joan Miró
* 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, an ...
* Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis Mondriaan (), after 1906 known as Piet Mondrian (, also , ; 7 March 1872 – 1 February 1944), was a Dutch painter and art theoretician who is regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. He is known for being o ...
* Edvard Munch
* Henry Ottmann
* Hippolyte Petitjean
* 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 ...
* Robert Antoine Pinchon
Robert Antoine Pinchon (, 1 July 1886 in Rouen – 9 January 1943 in Bois-Guillaume) was a French Post-Impressionist landscape painter of the Rouen School (''l'École de Rouen'') who was born and spent most of his life in France. He was consi ...
* Odilon Redon
* Jelka Rosen
Hélène Sophie Emilie Rosen, known as Jelka, (30 December 186828 May 1935) was a German painter, best known as the wife of the English composer Frederick Delius.
She was born in Belgrade in 1868. She was the youngest of five children born to ...
* Henri Rousseau
* Olga Sacharoff
* René Schützenberger
* André Dunoyer de Segonzac
André Dunoyer de Segonzac (6 July 1884 – 17 September 1974) was a French painter and graphic artist.
Biography
Segonzac was born in Boussy-Saint-Antoine and spent his childhood there and in Paris. His parents wanted him to attend the military ...
* 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 sur ...
* Paul Signac
* Alfred Sisley
Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedicatio ...
* Léopold Survage
Léopold Frédéric Léopoldowitsch Survage (31 July 1879 – 31 October 1968) was a French painter of Finnish origin. Trained in Moscow, he identified with the Russian avant-garde before moving to Paris, where he shared a studio with Amedeo Modi ...
* Amadeo de Souza Cardoso
Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso (14 November 1887 – 25 October 1918) was a Portuguese painter.
Belonging to the first generation of Portuguese modernist painters, Amadeo de Souza-Cardoso stands out among all of them for the exceptional quality of ...
* Sonia Terk
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 ...
* Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
* Henriette Tirman
Jeanne-Henriette Tirman (1875, in Charleville-Mézieres ( Ardenne) – 30 October 1952, in Sèvres (Hauts-de-Seine)) was a French woman painter and printmaker.
Biography
Henriette Tirman was a Post-Impressionist painter, printmaker and illust ...
* 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, inclu ...
* Louis Valtat
Louis Valtat (; 8 August 1869 – 2 January 1952) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauves ("the wild beasts", so named for their wild use of color), who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne.
''Les Fau ...
* Félix Vallotton
* Jacques Villon
* Édouard Vuillard
* Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauvism, Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to ...
* 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 s ...
See also
* Académie de La Palette
''Académie de La Palette'', also called ''Académie La Palette'' and ''La Palette'', (English: ''Palette Academy''), was a private art school in Paris, France, active between 1888 and 1925, aimed at promoting'' 'conciliation entre la liberté et l ...
* French art salons and academies
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
References
Further reading
* Monneret, Jean: "Catalogue raisonné des artistes Indépendants" Paris, 1999, ed. Eric Koehler *
* Monneret, Sophie: ''L'Impressionisme et son époque, dictionnaire international'', Paris 1980
* Socièté des artistes indépendants, 76e exposition: ''Le Premiers Indépendants: Rétrospective 1884-1894'', Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, April 23 - May 16, 1965
* Dominique Lobstein, ''Dictionnaire des Indépendants'', préface de Serge Lemoyne, L'Echelle de Jacob, 2003.
External links
Société des Artistes Indépendants
Official website
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 21ème exposition, 1905
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 22ème exposition, 1906
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 23ème exposition, 1907
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 24ème exposition, 1908
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 25ème exposition, 1909
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 26ème exposition, 1910
Société des artistes indépendants: catalogue de la 29ème exposition, 1913
''Georges Seurat, 1859-1891''
a full text exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which includes material on the Société des Artistes Indépendants
Catalogues of the Société des artistes indépendants online
Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France
{{Authority control (arts)
French artist groups and collectives
19th-century art groups
Art exhibitions in France
Second French Empire
1884 establishments in France
Arts organizations established in 1884
Modern art
Western art