''The Spring'' (or ''La Source'') is a large oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist

Francis Picabia Francis Picabia (: born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia; 22January 1879 – 30November 1953) was a French avant-garde painter, writer, filmmaker, magazine publisher, poet, and typography, typographist closely associated with Dada. When consid ...

. The work, both

Cubist Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

and abstract, was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1912. The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created a controversy in the Municipal Council of Paris, leading to a debate in the Chambre des Députés about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such 'barbaric' art. The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat.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''
(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) This painting was realized as

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 Jean Metzinger, in preparation for the Salon de la Section d'Or, published a major defence of

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement which began in Paris. It revolutionized painting and the visual arts, and sparked artistic innovations in music, ballet, literature, and architecture. Cubist subjects are analyzed, broke ...

, resulting in the first theoretical essay on the new movement, '' Du «Cubisme»''. The painting forms part of the permanent collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York City. Francis Picabia, ''The Spring'', Museum of Modern Art
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Background

''The Spring'' is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 249.6 x 249.3 cm (8' 2 1/4" x 8' 2 1/8"). It was executed by Picabia upon return from a road trip with two friends; the poet

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

and the composer

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, during the summer of 1912. During the trip, Picabia is quoted: "Are blue and red unintelligible? Are not the circle and the triangle, volumes and colors, as intelligible as this table?"

1912 Salon d'Automne

The Salon d'Automne of 1912, held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 1 October to 8 November, saw the Cubists regrouped into the same room XI. The history of the Salon d'Automne is marked by two important dates: 1905, bore witness to the birth of

Fauvism Fauvism ( ) is a style of painting and an art movement that emerged in France at the beginning of the 20th century. It was the style of (, ''the wild beasts''), a group of modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong col ...

, and 1912, the xenophobe and anti-modernist quarrel. The 1912 polemic leveled against both the French and non-French avant-garde artists originated in ''Salle XI'' where the Cubists exhibited their works. The resistance to foreigners (dubbed "apaches") and avant-garde artists was just the visible face of a more profound crises: that of defining modern French art, and the dwindling of an artistic system crystallized around the heritage of

Impressionism Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

centered in Paris. Burgeoning was a new avant-garde system, the international logic of which—''mercantile'' and ''médiatique''—put into question the modern ideology elaborated upon since the late 19th century. What had begun as a question of ''aesthetics'' quickly turned ''political'', and as in the 1905 Salon d'Automne, with his infamous "Donatello chez les fauves",Louis Vauxcelles, ''Le Salon d'Automne'', Gil Blas, 17 October 1905. Screen 5 and 6. Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France
the critic Louis Vauxcelles (Les Arts, 1912) was most implicated in the deliberations. Recall too, it was Vauxcelles who, on the occasion of the 1910 Salon des Indépendants, wrote disparagingly of 'pallid cubes' with reference to the paintings of Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Léger and Delaunay. The Cubist contribution to the 1912 Salon d'Automne created scandal regarding the use of government owned buildings, such as the

Grand Palais The (; ), commonly known as the , is a historic site, exhibition hall and museum complex located in the 8th arrondissement of Paris between the Champs-Élysées and the Seine, France. Construction of the began in 1897 following the demolitio ...

, to exhibit such artwork. The indignation of the politician Jean Pierre Philippe Lampué made the front page of ''Le Journal'', 5 October 1912. On 3 December 1912 the controversy spread to the Municipal Council of Paris. A debate transpired in the

Chambre des Députés The Chamber of Deputies (, ) was the lower house of parliament in France at various times in the 19th and 20th centuries: * 1814–1848 during the Bourbon Restoration and the July Monarchy, the Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the Fr ...

about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such art.Journal officiel de la République française. Débats parlementaires. Chambre des députés, 3 Décembre 1912, pp. 2924-2929. Bibliothèque et Archives de l'Assemblée nationale, 2012-7516
The Cubists were defended by the Socialist deputy, Marcel Sembat.Patrick F. Barrer: ''Quand l'art du XXe siècle était conçu par les inconnus'', pp. 93-101, gives an account of the debate.Pierre Lampué, ''Lettre ouverte a M. Berard, sous-secretaire d’Etat aux Beaux-Arts'', Mercure de France, 16 October 1912, pp. 894–895 * Francis Picabia, ''La Source'' (''The Spring''), 1912 (Museum of Modern Art, New York) *

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 ...

entered three works: '' Dancer in a café'' (titled ''Danseuse''), ''La Plume Jaune'' (''The Yellow Feather''), '' Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan)'' (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), hung in the decorative arts section inside '' La Maison Cubiste'' (the ''Cubist House''). *

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 ...

exhibited ''La Femme en Bleu'' (''Woman in Blue''), 1912 (Kunstmuseum, Basel) and ''Le passage à niveau'' (''The Level Crossing''), 1912 (Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland) * Roger de La Fresnaye, ''Les Baigneuse'' (''The bathers'') 1912 (The National Gallery, Washington) and ''Les joueurs de cartes'' (Card Players) * Henri Le Fauconnier, ''The Huntsman'' (Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands) and ''Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours'' (''Mountaineers Attacked by Bears''), 1912 (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). *

, '' l'Homme au Balcon (Man on a Balcony), (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud)'', 1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), also exhibited at the

Armory show The 1913 Armory Show, also known as the International Exhibition of Modern Art, was organized by thAssociation of American Painters and Sculptors It was the first large exhibition of modern art in America, as well as one of the many exhibition ...

, New York, Chicago, Boston, 1913. * André Lhote, ''Le jugement de Paris'', 1912 (Private collection) *

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 A graphic designer is a practitioner who follows the discipline of graphic design, eit ...

, ''Amorpha, Fugue à deux couleurs'' (''Fugue in Two Colors''), 1912 (Narodni Galerie, Prague), and ''Amorpha Chromatique Chaude''. *

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculpture, sculptor, and graphic designer, graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles o ...

, ''Family Life'', 1912, sculpture *

Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (; ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor of the École de Paris who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern art, modern style characterized by a surre ...

, exhibited four elongated and highly stylized heads), sculptures * Joseph Csaky exhibited the sculptures '' Groupe de femmes'', 1911-1912 (location unknown), ''Portrait de M.S.H.'', no. 91 (location unknown), and '' Danseuse (Femme à l'éventail, Femme à la cruche)'', no. 405 (location unknown) This exhibition also featured '' La Maison Cubiste''.

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 ...

designed facade of a 10 meter by 3 meter house, which included a hall, a living room and a bedroom. This installation was placed in the Art Décoratif section of the Salon d'Automne. The major contributors were André Mare, a decorative designer, Roger de La Fresnaye,

Jacques Villon Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963), also known as Gaston Duchamp, was a French Cubist and Abstract art, abstract painter and printmaker. Early life Born Émile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp in Damville, Eure, Damville, Eure, ...

and Marie Laurencin. In the house were hung cubist paintings by

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

, Roger de La Fresnaye, and Jean Metzinger (''Woman with a Fan'', 1912). In a review of the exhibition published in ''Le Petit Parisien'', art critic Jean Claude writes of Picabia's entries:

I believe that the record of high fantasy is held this year by Mr. Picabia. His two entries are entitled ''La Source'' and ''Danses à la source''. These are beautiful titles... The two paintings, I must say, do not accord with them at all. They are vast panels, on which have been drawn triangles, rhombuses, trapezoids, squares, rectangles, all crooked, and mixing in their inextricable entanglement the brown with the pink, the brick with the red nasturtium and the green bluish to reddish black. It's ugly. It evokes incrusted linoleum and it has no utility.Jean Claude, ''Le Salon d'Automne'', Le Petit Parisien, 30 September 1912, p. 2
Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France

Of works by Léger, Gleizes and Metzinger, Jean Claude writes: "Mr. Léger walked his brush on the canvas after having dipped them in blue, black, red and brown. It is stupefying to look at. The catalog says it's a ''Woman in blue''. Poor woman. ''Man on a Balcony'', by Mr. Gleizes, is more comprehensible. At least in the chaos of cubes and trapezoids we find a man. I will say as much for the entry of Mr. Metzinger, ''Dancers''. It has the effect of a puzzle that is not assembled properly".

References

External links

Agence Photographique de la Réunion des musées nationaux et du Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spring, The Paintings by Francis Picabia Cubist paintings 1912 paintings Painting controversies Paintings in the Museum of Modern Art (New York City) Oil on canvas paintings

Background

1912 Salon d'Automne

See also

References

Further reading

External links