''The Banks of the Marne'' (French: ''Bords de la Marne'') is a proto-Cubist oil painting on canvas created in 1909 by the French artist Albert Gleizes. In this work can be seen a departure from the representation of the observable world. The development of Cubist 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 ...

in the work of Gleizes was necessarily a transformation from the synthetic preoccupation with his subject matter. The passage of Gleizes' painting from an epic visionary figuration to total abstraction was foreshadowed during his proto-Cubist period. ''Bords de la Marne'' measures 54 × 65 cm, and is currently in the permanent collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.

History

Gleizes' preoccupation for solidly constructed form is already manifest in his Fauve-like works between 1907 and 1909. Under the influence of

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a ...

, Symbolism, Pont Aven and

Les Nabis Les Nabis (French: les nabis, ) were a group of young French artists active in Paris from 1888 until 1900, who played a large part in the transition from impressionism and academic art to abstract art, symbolism and the other early movements of m ...

, Gleizes produced some of his first Proto-Cubist paintings. ''Bords de la Marne'' and other painting by Gleizes during this phase are close to the work of

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 ...

, though the artist did not know each other at the time.Robbins, Daniel, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, ''Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition'', 1964
/ref> Abbaye de Créteil 1906

Gleizes and the former members of 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 ...

(notably Jules Romains, Henri-Martin Barzun and

René Arcos René (''born again'' or ''reborn'' in French) is a common first name in French-speaking, Spanish-speaking, and German-speaking countries. It derives from the Latin name Renatus. René is the masculine form of the name (Renée being the feminine ...

) dreamed of a synthetic concept of the possibilities of the future, one of "collectivity, multiplicity and simultaneity" writes art historian Daniel Robbins: "Their vision invariably encompassed broad subjects which, although dealing with reality, were restricted neither by the limitations of physical perception nor by a separation of scientific fact from intellectual meaning—even symbolic meaning. Even their images of simultaneity were synthetic because scope was too vast, both physically and symbolically, for one man's limited participation".

Structural rhythms

Between 1905 and 1908, Gleizes transited through Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism with a brief passage though

Fauvism Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...

. By 1909 he began simplifying both his color and form. These paintings were parallel to the written and verbal ideas propounded at the Abbaye de Créteil.

Experienced in the treatment of inclusive landscapes (writes Robbins), he nevertheless had to solve the problem of balancing many simultaneous visions on a painted surface. Gleizes mitigated the distortion of distance by linear perspective, by flattening the picture plane; his skies were on the same plane as the simple flat objects in front and, although scale was retained, a form in the distance would be brought to the foreground by making it bright. Every element of the painting had to be reduced to clear planes, treated as uniformly as possible...

According to Gleizes, Mercereau introduced him to Jean Metzinger in 1910; the year Mercereau organized the Jack of Diamonds Exhibition in Moscow. Before Gleizes and Metzinger had met, they were both single out by Louis Vauxcelles, who wrote disparaging comments about their "cubes Blafards" possibly regarding Metzinger's ''Portrait of Apollinaire'' and Gleizes' '' L'Arbre (The Tree)'' (1910), both exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. Before 1911 a group of artists formed through the Mercereau connection, including

Allard Allard may refer to: * Allard (surname), people with the surname Allard * Allard Motor Company * Allard River, river in Quebec * Allard, Edmonton * Peter A. Allard School of Law, the law school of the University of British Columbia Given name * ...

Barzun Barzun may refer to: * Jacques Barzun, French-American historian * Matthew Barzun Matthew Winthrop Barzun (born October 23, 1970) is an American businessman, diplomat and political fundraiser who served as the United States Ambassador to the Uni ...

, Beauduin, Castiaux, Jouve, Divoire, Parmentier, Marinetti, Brâncuși, Varlet,

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 the ...

and Salmon.Peter Brooke, ''Albert Gleizes, Chronology of his life, 1881-1953''
/ref>Jean Metzinger, ''Alexandre Mercereau'', Vers et Prose, Paris, no. 27, October–December, 1911, p. 122 In his preface to the 1911 Brussels Indépendants, Apollinaire wrote:

...thus has come a simple and noble art, expressive and measured, eager to discover beauty, and entirely ready to tackle those vast subjects which the painters of yesterday did not dare to undertake, abandoning them to the presumptuous, old-fashioned and boring daubers of the official Salons.

Unlike the style and subject matter of Picasso and Braque, the paintings of Albert Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Robert Delaunay,

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 ...

and others of the Mercereau group favored vast scenes (epic themes) representing modern life. Allard wrote of Gleizes, Le Fauconnier and Metzinger, in a review of the 1910 Salon d'Automne:

Thus is born at the antipodes of impressionism an art which cares little to imitate the occasional cosmic episode, but which offers to the intelligence of the spectator the essential elements of a synthesis in time, in all its pictorial fullness.Roger Allard, ''Au Salon d'Automne de Paris'', L'Art Libre, Lyon, October–November, 1910

References

External links

Fondation Albert Gleizes

Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Grand Palais, Agence photographique, page 1 of 6

André Salmon, ''Artistes d'hier et d'aujourd'hui'', L'Art Vivant, 6th edition, Paris, 1920
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banks of the Marne, The Paintings by Albert Gleizes Proto-Cubist paintings 1909 paintings Paintings in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon Maritime paintings Rivers in art

History

Structural rhythms

See also

References

External links