.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The Comité Masson has confirmed the authenticity of this painting.
In the winter of 1921 Masson moved into a studio at 45, rue Blomet on the left bank in Paris. In the spring Max Jacob, the poet and close friend of Picasso, introduced Masson to Joan Miró. The latter was in Paris for his second extended visit and was using the studio of sculptor Pablo Gargallo, which was also at 45, rue Blomet and next door to Masson's. The two painters became close friends. Masson led "a disorderly, all but insane existence, frequented anarchist circles, read Nietzsche and poetry with exaltation, and threw himself into his paintings, his friendships and his drinking habits with the same frenzy...His studio was as famous for its indescribable disorder as was Miró's for its painstaking, almost alarming tidiness" (J. Dupin, Miró, Barcelona, 1993, p. 85).
Both painters had literary interests, and their studios became the meeting place of a small circle of writers and poets, including Michel Leiris, Robert Desnos, Jacques Prévert, Georges Limbour and Antonin Artaud. Limbour was also connected with the circle around the poet André Breton, and brought together the two groups. Breton saw Masson's paintings at Galerie Simon in early 1924, and later paid a visit to the painter's studio, drawing Masson closer into the nascent Surrealist movement. Breton published the first Surrealist manifesto later that year.
By the time Masson met Breton he had already assimilated the principles of surrealism in his work: the recording of dreams and automatic writing. Yet there was also palpability to Masson's work that was based on the metaphysical. In 1924, Mason wrote in his autobiographical notes that one theme he wished to explore was "A few still lifes: Views of monuments of France or Italy seen though transparent objects, appearance of the pomegranate and the flameclouds descending on the table. Then the figure of the man makes its solitary entrance, surrounded by a constellation of emblematic objects, in a mental space" (quoted in D. Ades, Masson, Barcelona, 1994, p. 9).
In L'homme one sees a syntheses of surrealist automatic writing and the metaphysical. The freely flowing lines of the male torso are grounded by the four elements of the earth: fish (water), pomegranate (earth), bird (air) and the sun (fire). The result is a mysterious and symbolic world. Like many surrealists, Masson had been highly effected by the disorder and violence of World War I where he served as a solider. He incorporated the feelings of this turmoil in his paintings. The viewer is confronted with the unexpected: the torso with a bird's wing as a head, the life giving fruit which also symbolizes the letting of blood and shapes flowing out in unpredictable directions.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), the fist private owner of this painting, wrote poetry and sought to support himself by becoming a stage and film actor, achieving some memorable success in such landmark silent films as Abel Gance's Napoleon (1925) and Carl Dreyer's La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1927). He briefly ran the Surrealist Research Center, and contributed to the first three issues of La Révolution surréaliste. He wrote the scenario for The Seashell and the Clergyman, the first surrealist film, directed by Germaine Dulac in 1927. Artaud's interest in the theatre, a "bourgeois" art form according to the purist Breton, led to his break with the Surrealists. In the 1930s he developed his concept of the "theatre of cruelty," among other innovative ideas which had a powerful international impact on avant-garde theater in the 1960s. After intense experimentation with drugs in Mexico and Ireland he was institutionalized between 1937-1946. Subject to brutal conditions and repeated electroshock treatments, he did not resume writing until late in his confinement, when he also began to draw as part of an art therapy program. He gave recitals and lectures after his release, which introduced his work to a new generation of readers.
In the winter of 1921 Masson moved into a studio at 45, rue Blomet on the left bank in Paris. In the spring Max Jacob, the poet and close friend of Picasso, introduced Masson to Joan Miró. The latter was in Paris for his second extended visit and was using the studio of sculptor Pablo Gargallo, which was also at 45, rue Blomet and next door to Masson's. The two painters became close friends. Masson led "a disorderly, all but insane existence, frequented anarchist circles, read Nietzsche and poetry with exaltation, and threw himself into his paintings, his friendships and his drinking habits with the same frenzy...His studio was as famous for its indescribable disorder as was Miró's for its painstaking, almost alarming tidiness" (J. Dupin, Miró, Barcelona, 1993, p. 85).
Both painters had literary interests, and their studios became the meeting place of a small circle of writers and poets, including Michel Leiris, Robert Desnos, Jacques Prévert, Georges Limbour and Antonin Artaud. Limbour was also connected with the circle around the poet André Breton, and brought together the two groups. Breton saw Masson's paintings at Galerie Simon in early 1924, and later paid a visit to the painter's studio, drawing Masson closer into the nascent Surrealist movement. Breton published the first Surrealist manifesto later that year.
By the time Masson met Breton he had already assimilated the principles of surrealism in his work: the recording of dreams and automatic writing. Yet there was also palpability to Masson's work that was based on the metaphysical. In 1924, Mason wrote in his autobiographical notes that one theme he wished to explore was "A few still lifes: Views of monuments of France or Italy seen though transparent objects, appearance of the pomegranate and the flameclouds descending on the table. Then the figure of the man makes its solitary entrance, surrounded by a constellation of emblematic objects, in a mental space" (quoted in D. Ades, Masson, Barcelona, 1994, p. 9).
In L'homme one sees a syntheses of surrealist automatic writing and the metaphysical. The freely flowing lines of the male torso are grounded by the four elements of the earth: fish (water), pomegranate (earth), bird (air) and the sun (fire). The result is a mysterious and symbolic world. Like many surrealists, Masson had been highly effected by the disorder and violence of World War I where he served as a solider. He incorporated the feelings of this turmoil in his paintings. The viewer is confronted with the unexpected: the torso with a bird's wing as a head, the life giving fruit which also symbolizes the letting of blood and shapes flowing out in unpredictable directions.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948), the fist private owner of this painting, wrote poetry and sought to support himself by becoming a stage and film actor, achieving some memorable success in such landmark silent films as Abel Gance's Napoleon (1925) and Carl Dreyer's La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1927). He briefly ran the Surrealist Research Center, and contributed to the first three issues of La Révolution surréaliste. He wrote the scenario for The Seashell and the Clergyman, the first surrealist film, directed by Germaine Dulac in 1927. Artaud's interest in the theatre, a "bourgeois" art form according to the purist Breton, led to his break with the Surrealists. In the 1930s he developed his concept of the "theatre of cruelty," among other innovative ideas which had a powerful international impact on avant-garde theater in the 1960s. After intense experimentation with drugs in Mexico and Ireland he was institutionalized between 1937-1946. Subject to brutal conditions and repeated electroshock treatments, he did not resume writing until late in his confinement, when he also began to draw as part of an art therapy program. He gave recitals and lectures after his release, which introduced his work to a new generation of readers.