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Lot Essay
By the mid-1920s the movement away from the hard, layered and angled forms of Cubism to the simpler and more rounded shapes of the new classicism had influenced most artists in European vanguard. Picasso had set this dialectic in motion in the late years of the First World War, and by 1920 had set himself apart from most other artists by retaining his interest in Cubism, especially in his still-life subjects, and at the same time working in a classical mode in many of his figure paintings.
The gigantic, huge-limbed women Picasso painted and drew at Fontainebleau in 1921 set the style for the new classicism: they were robust and volumetric, and drew heavily on the voluptuous late nudes of Pierre Auguste Renoir. The ripe, full-bodied figural style of Aristide Maillol (see lots 201, 213, 241, and 266.), who clung to his classicism as the radical movements of the first decade and a half of the century passed him by, was also suddenly relevant again. The pre-war sculpture of Raymond Duchamp-Villon seemed prophetic (see lot 282).
Some artists returned with the now familiar language of Cubism, in its late synthetic manner (in itself a classicized style), but many, like Laurens, found the new classicism with its potential for the redefinition of the figure difficult to ignore. It harkened back to values that seemed quintessentially French--balance, poise, a refined sensuality and timelessness--and seemed worthy of revival in the wake of the most destructive and murderous war that Europe had experienced up to that time.
Through the early 1920s Laurens sought to reconcile Cubist form with the new classicism, and he seized upon the elements that both tendencies shared to some extent: form reduced to its essentials and shorn of extraneous detail, and the illusion of weight and mass in a newly defined spatial context.
In sculptures such as Deux femmes à la pomme, Laurens proceeded to soften the angularity of Cubism, although he retains several sharp-edged cuts as if to bolster the heavy forms of the figures and to prevent them from seeming too ponderous and flaccid. His emphasis is now on conveying a sense of volume and weight, and the flattened planar forms of his Cubist sculpture become tubular and increasingly more rotund. The classical balance of Laurens' sculptures during the 1920s is best seen in his dual figure compositions, such as the present work, in which the figures are positioned in a pleasing counterpoint, and are united by simple and flowing rhythmical movement. The subject itself returns to the sculpture of Renoir and Maillol, who modeled female subjects holding apples, as a idyllic symbol of fertility and plenty. Here the apple is shared, as it is passed from one reclining woman to the next, in a gesture of friendship and peace.
The gigantic, huge-limbed women Picasso painted and drew at Fontainebleau in 1921 set the style for the new classicism: they were robust and volumetric, and drew heavily on the voluptuous late nudes of Pierre Auguste Renoir. The ripe, full-bodied figural style of Aristide Maillol (see lots 201, 213, 241, and 266.), who clung to his classicism as the radical movements of the first decade and a half of the century passed him by, was also suddenly relevant again. The pre-war sculpture of Raymond Duchamp-Villon seemed prophetic (see lot 282).
Some artists returned with the now familiar language of Cubism, in its late synthetic manner (in itself a classicized style), but many, like Laurens, found the new classicism with its potential for the redefinition of the figure difficult to ignore. It harkened back to values that seemed quintessentially French--balance, poise, a refined sensuality and timelessness--and seemed worthy of revival in the wake of the most destructive and murderous war that Europe had experienced up to that time.
Through the early 1920s Laurens sought to reconcile Cubist form with the new classicism, and he seized upon the elements that both tendencies shared to some extent: form reduced to its essentials and shorn of extraneous detail, and the illusion of weight and mass in a newly defined spatial context.
In sculptures such as Deux femmes à la pomme, Laurens proceeded to soften the angularity of Cubism, although he retains several sharp-edged cuts as if to bolster the heavy forms of the figures and to prevent them from seeming too ponderous and flaccid. His emphasis is now on conveying a sense of volume and weight, and the flattened planar forms of his Cubist sculpture become tubular and increasingly more rotund. The classical balance of Laurens' sculptures during the 1920s is best seen in his dual figure compositions, such as the present work, in which the figures are positioned in a pleasing counterpoint, and are united by simple and flowing rhythmical movement. The subject itself returns to the sculpture of Renoir and Maillol, who modeled female subjects holding apples, as a idyllic symbol of fertility and plenty. Here the apple is shared, as it is passed from one reclining woman to the next, in a gesture of friendship and peace.