13.3 Deconstruction in Montmartre

As we have seen, Academic Art conceived of a painting as a window on the world and a painter’s task as the meticulous imitation of subjects in perspective. That model was challenged by Impressionist atmospheric and subjective media through which subjects were viewed. But while the values of technique had changed, Impressionists still saw their task as capturing a moment of vision within an artistic window frame.

Le Bateaux-Lavoir. (c. 1910). Anonymous Photograph.

In 1900, laborers and farm workers lived and worked in Montmartre, a semi-rural hill just north of Paris. Among them was a disparate group of artists, many living and painting in le Bateaux-Lavoir, a derelict factory space with cheap rent and space for painting but no running water. The artists who lived and worked there drank in taverns such as the Lapin Agile and shattered the post-Renaissance window altogether. Buckle your seatbelts!

Henri Matisse and Fauvism

At the Autumn Salon of 1905, art critic Louis Vauxcelles was appalled to see a Renaissance sculpture standing among a group of avant-garde paintings: “Donatello au milieu des fauves,” i.e. “Donatello among the wild beasts.” The name stuck and Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Henri Matisse were labelled Fauvists, the beasts. Are you appalled?

Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life). (1906) Oil on canvas	La Danse (first version). (1909). Oil on canvas

Taking his cue especially from Cézanne, Matisse radically challenged the Renaissance idea that a painting functioned as a window on the world. Rejecting the rules of linear perspective and precise modeling, he plays a different game. What appear to be its values?

We find them in Formal Elements such as Line. The organic curves of human and vegetal forms of The Joy of Life blossom exuberantly in a celebration of Organic Form. La Danse depicts lively women. But they dance outside of time on a shapeless, dislocated green space. Figures are rendered with a few deft sketch lines and sheer colors dominate. Above all, Color is chosen not to imitate natural hues, but for its expressive energies. In a 1908 article, Matisse detailed his commitment to the value of Expression over Illusionism:

Boy with Butterfly Net. (1907). Oil on canvas.	The Red Studio. (1911). Oil on canvas.	Conversation. (1912) Oil on canvas.

We spent considerable time establishing the significance of Linear Perspective and Virtual Space. Matisse gleefully collapses his interiors into flat planes, figures, objects, and the dimensions of the room pressed into the Picture Pane. Matisse is playing with the techniques and conventions of the Renaissance Model of painting while denying viewers the satisfaction of having their expectations met.

Baigneuse dans les roseaux (Bather in the Reeds). (1952).  Oil on canvas.

In his later years, weakened by cancer, Matisse drew in the horizons of his ambition. In Bather in the Reeds, the elements of the composition have shrunk to minimalist proportions. A single blue against a neutral background. Ten elegantly simple, organically curved lines. A featureless profile of a figure with limbs that hover between Line and Shape. How much he deftly captures in a few brushstrokes. How elegant the result.

A composition like the Bather in the Reeds probably does not shock us much today. We are well accustomed to simple, Stylized figures in commercial design, advertising, and hotel room art. Matisse was one of the pioneers who broke the bonds of Illusionism.

Picasso’s Deconstructed Images

Barcelona native Pablo Picasso first visited Paris in 1900, settling into le Bateaux-Lavoir. Few artists trigger as much adulation and revulsion. Picasso is the master many love to detest. However, looking only at the Blue Period, one might ask what all the fuss was about. The long, lean figures are austere but elegant, quiet celebrations of the lives of the working poor. The cool blues are expressive rather than naturalistic, but not as jarring as Matisse can be.

Woman Ironing. (1904). Oil on canvas.	La Vie. (i.e. Life) (1904) Oil on canvas.	Old Guitarist. (1904). Oil on panel.

Around 1905, Picasso began a year’s work on a large canvas that he showed to no one until it was finished. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon was not received well initially, even by friends and collaborators. It also transformed the world of art.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. (1907) Oil on canvas.

OK, how do we meet the challenge? First, what can we recognize? Human figures—women of a brothel in Montmartre. Fragments of drapery. And fruit, suggesting a conventional Still Life.

But those human figures seem odd. Obviously, they are intensely stylized. Less obvious are the traditions they evoke. The faces of the two central women are stylized in the traditional manner of Spanish folk art. But what of those other faces? We recognize eyes, noses, mouths. But they are rendered in chunks of geometrical form distorted for expressive purposes.

Dan People. (N.D.) Kagle Mask. Wood, metal	Pende People (20th C.) Mbuyu (Mask). Wood, raffia, pigment	Pende People. (N.D.). Mbangu Mask.

In the early 20th Century, traditional art of African peoples was becoming popular among artists and sophisticated patrons in European and American cities. A stylish New York apartment might be decorated with Art Deco flourishes and African masks. Picasso embraced the conventions of the African mask, the Geometrical Forms and the freedom to distort them.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Detail.

Let’s recall that Cézanne broke landscape into formal planes. Picasso similarly deconstructs the human figure into geometrical shapes. He follows African models in two of the faces and more radically deconstructs the women’s bodies into planes of form and color.

The face in the lower right carries these distortions to an extreme, foregrounding pure color and geometrical form. The distortions begin to make sense when we realize that we see the case from multiple perspectives at once. The technique remains startlingly provocative even today, yet we should remember that Egyptian painters routinely challenged us to process an image combining profiles of heads, legs and feet with face-on views of torsos and eyes.

Georges Braque & Cubism

Remember Cézanne’s notion that what we see can be broken down into component Geometrical Forms? Georges Braque took up that concept and innovated a deconstructive form of Representation. Cubists analyzed the visual subject, breaking it down into fragmented forms. They then reassembled the fragments into layered, densely interwoven compositions. The muted, narrow color palette focuses the eye on forms and composition that obscure the subject.

Georges Braque. (1911). Man with a Guitar. Oil and sawdust on canvas.	Georges Braque. (1911). Woman Reading. Oil on canvas.

Pablo Picasso collaborated closely with Braque, producing canvases with extremely similar subjects, color palettes, and technique. For a decade or two, Cubism dominated the world of avant-garde art, passing through a number of stages of development. In Picasso’s 1913 composition, we see an example of Synthetic Cubism, fusing paint and canvas with other materials. Collages like this have since become a major tradition in the world of fine art.

Pablo Picasso. (1907). Ma Jolie (Femme a la guitare). Oil on canvas.	Pablo Picasso. (1913). Woman with Guitar Charcoal, collage, oil, canvas

So how do we deal with a Cubist composition? I would suggest that we divide our response. Our What is it? instinct is appropriate here: the titles instruct us on what figures to look for. But if we expect a comfortable experience of Illusionism, we will be deeply disappointed. We can take the composition as a visual puzzle, and there can be pleasure in that. If you take that path, keep in mind that multiple perspectives are simultaneously displayed. One must accept the challenge of seeing from several vantage points at once.

If we look for a satisfying Aesthetic experience, we probably need to let the whole project of Illusionism go. We can see the compositions as intricately interwoven Formal designs: Line, Shape, Monochromatic color, assembled in fascinating, rhythmic patterns. One really can get lost in an exploration of pure design elements.

After leaving Cubism behind, Picasso went on to experiment with an astonishing array of Representational techniques and Styles. Some were more uncomfortably experimental than others. Picasso found hundreds of interesting ways to deconstruct the image. Consider this provocative interrogation of multiple perspectives, mirror images, and stylized depiction of forms.

Girl in Front of Mirror. (1932). Oil on canvas.

If you have the patience, you will find some interesting interplays between elements. Notice that the girl’s faces can be viewed in profile or from face on. Analogous Colors tie the two halves of the figure together. Strong Contour Lines define elegantly elongated body parts. The composition hovers between Representation and pure Aesthetic Form.

Vital Questions

Context

The essence of the Modern mindset is an impatience with tradition and a rushing advance into something new, something that shocks old sensibilities. We have seen that many artistic traditions revere and preserve esteemed Conventions, often suppressing the individuality and creativity of artists. Since the Renaissance, artists had gained prominence and were rewarded for innovation but within the framework of tradition.

The Modern artist felt compelled to do something radically innovative, to deconstruct conventional Content and technique and confront an audience with disorienting uncertainty. From this point forward, a dizzying array of styles and isms would proliferate into our own day. The first decades of the 20th Century flung a door wide open to a lurching, careening future.

Content

At its core, the Modern questions the Content of a work of art. We have explored ways that art has Represented visual subjects, a scene, a human figure, a fragment of a story, a symbolic Signification. The Forms and Media project the subject which dominates an audience’s interest. The Modern artist fractures the projected content and pulls our attention back to the Aesthetic surface of the Medium. In Cubism, extensive obstacles limit our experience of, say, the woman with a guitar, and arrest our eyes in sheer design: Color, Line, Shape. The Modern subordinates Content to Form.

Form

This section’s discussion of paintings has drawn our attention to the Formal Elements of visual art with greater intensity than we needed looking at other traditions. Line. Shape. Form. Color. Texture. Medium. Composition. In a traditional painting, these are means to an end, Illusionism‘s Representation of the subject. In a Matisse, Braque, or Picasso they shoulder their way into the forefront of our awareness. At this point, a tension remains between the advancing forms and the represented subject which is still there, albeit problematically. As we go forward, we will see what happens when pure form erases the represented subject altogether.

References

Braque, G. (Spring 1914). L’homme à la guitare (Man with a Guitar) [Painting]. Paris, FR: Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. AN AM1981-540. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.10593688

Braque, G. (Autumn 1911). Woman Reading [Painting].  Private collection. WikiArt https://www.wikiart.org/en/georges-braque/woman-reading-1911

Fauvist Movement, The [Article]. (N.D.). Austin Artists Market. https://www.austinartistsmarket.com/fauvist-movement/

Dan People (N.D.). “Kagle” mask. Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Institute of Art. https://collections.artsmia.org/art/113448/kagle-mask-dan

Le Bateau-Lavoir [Photograph] (c. 1910). Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bateau-Lavoir#/media/File:Le_Bateau-Lavoir,_circa_1910.jpg.

Marinetti, F. (February 5, 1909). Futurist Manifesto. Flint, R. W. (Trans.).  Brittanica.com  https://cdn.britannica.com/primary_source/eb/435828.html

Matisse, H. (1952). Baigneuse dans les roseaux (Bather in the Reeds) [Painting]. Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-matisse/bather-in-the-reeds-1952

Matisse, H. (1906). Le Bonheur de Vivre (The Joy of Life) [Painting]. Philadelphia, PA: Barnes Foundation. AN BF719. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14676607   https://ezproxy.bethel.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14676607     WikiArt https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-matisse/the-joy-of-life-1906   Oil on canvas.

Matisse, H. (1907). Boy with Butterfly Net [Painting].  Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Institute of Art. WikiArt https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-matisse/boy-with-butterfly-net-1907

Matisse, H. (1912).Conversation [Painting].  Saint Petersburg, Russia: Hermitage Museum. WikiArt https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-matisse/conversation-1912

Matisse, H. (1909). La Danse (first version). [Painting].  New York City: The Museum of Modern Art. AN 201.1963.Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.15658141    https://ezproxy.bethel.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.15658141   Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:La_danse_(I)_by_Matisse.jpg   Oil on canvas

Matisse, H. (Fall 1911). The Red Studio [Painting]. New York: Museum of Modern Art. AN 8.1949. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.15660282    https://ezproxy.bethel.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.15660282   Oil on canvas

Matisse, H. (1908). Notes of a Painter. Grande Revue. Austin Community College https://www.austincc.edu/noel/writings/matisse%20-%20notes%20of%20a%20painter.pdf

Matisse, H. (1947). Two Girls, Red and Green Background [Painting]. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art. AN 1950. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14594034      https://ezproxy.bethel.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.14594034

Pende People. (N.D.). Mbangu Mask. Terburen, Belgium: Africa Museum. Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mbangu_mask_-_Central_Pende,_Southern_Bandundu,_DRC_-_Royal_Museum_for_Central_Africa_-_DSC06657.JPG

Pende People. (20th C.) Mbuyu (Mask). Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Institute of Art.  https://collections.artsmia.org/art/55429/mask-pende

Picasso, P. (1907). Les Demoiselles d’Avignon [Painting] New York: Museum of Modern Art. Jstor https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.25642513

Picasso, P. (1932). Girl in Front of Mirror [Painting]. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/girl-in-front-of-mirror-1932   Oil on canvas.

Picasso, P. (1937). Guernica [Painting]. Madrid, Spain: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/guernica-1937.

Picasso, P. (1904). La Vie [Painting]. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art.  Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/life-1903.

Picasso, P. (1904). The Old Guitar Guitarist [Painting]. Chicago IL: Art Institute of Chicago. Reference number 1926.253. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasso%27s_Blue_Period

Picasso, P. (1907). Ma Jolie (Femme a la guitare) [Painting]. Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/my-beautiful-woman-with-guitar-1912

Picasso, P. (1913). Woman with a Guitar. New York: Museum of Modern Art. Wikiart https://www.wikiart.org/en/pablo-picasso/woman-with-guitar-1913.

Picasso, P. (1927). Woman in an armchair [Painting]. Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Institute of Art.  https://collections.artsmia.org/art/1517/woman-in-an-armchair-pablo-picasso

Picasso, P. (1904). Woman Ironing [Painting]. New York, NY: Thannhauser Collection, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Accession 78.2514.41. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3417