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Lot Essay
Paris, the cultural capital of Europe during the fin-de-siecle, played an important role in the artistic life of Isaac Israels. As a young man Isaac regularly travelled to Paris with his parents and sister to visit the annual Salon des Artistes Français. The artist spoke French fluently, apparently with a typically Parisian accent.
In June 1903 Israels left Amsterdam for Paris where he was introduced to the important fashion-house Paquin. Isaac was often inspired by the beauty of the young 'Parisiennes' whom he encountered in parks like the Bois de Boulogne as in the present lot, but also on the Champs Elysées, on the Place Vendôme and in the café-chantants like the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette. In his Parisian period he turned his impressions of the Parisian atmosphere into a large number of dynamic paintings, watercolours, pastels and drawings. This period may be considered the finest of his career.
The present lot is an excellent example of his Parisian style. The light palette and rapid treatment of the subject matter are stylistic elements that were used by the French Impressionists, who led Isaac to change his palette. However, Isaac Israels paintings are not as extreme in terms of their focus on colour and light as some of his French contemporaries: his main focus was on subject matter. To him, the characteristic portrayal of a situation remained the most important.
Having become acquainted with the writing of Charles Baudelaire, he may have been aware of Baudelaire's statement:
'Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the-eternal and the immovable. There was a form of modernity for every painter of the past; the majority of the fine portraits that remain to us from former times are clothed in the dress of their own day. They are perfectly harmonious works because the dress, the hairstyle, and even the gesture, the expression and the smile (each age has its carriage, its expression and its smile) form a whole, full of vitality.' (Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life, 1863)
The portrayed midinette characterizes all the elegance and beauty of Parisian city life around the turn of the century, making the painting 'modern' in Baudelaire's sense of the word. It is precisely a harmonious vitality that Israels achieves and makes tangible in the present painting.
In June 1903 Israels left Amsterdam for Paris where he was introduced to the important fashion-house Paquin. Isaac was often inspired by the beauty of the young 'Parisiennes' whom he encountered in parks like the Bois de Boulogne as in the present lot, but also on the Champs Elysées, on the Place Vendôme and in the café-chantants like the Moulin Rouge and the Moulin de la Galette. In his Parisian period he turned his impressions of the Parisian atmosphere into a large number of dynamic paintings, watercolours, pastels and drawings. This period may be considered the finest of his career.
The present lot is an excellent example of his Parisian style. The light palette and rapid treatment of the subject matter are stylistic elements that were used by the French Impressionists, who led Isaac to change his palette. However, Isaac Israels paintings are not as extreme in terms of their focus on colour and light as some of his French contemporaries: his main focus was on subject matter. To him, the characteristic portrayal of a situation remained the most important.
Having become acquainted with the writing of Charles Baudelaire, he may have been aware of Baudelaire's statement:
'Modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the-eternal and the immovable. There was a form of modernity for every painter of the past; the majority of the fine portraits that remain to us from former times are clothed in the dress of their own day. They are perfectly harmonious works because the dress, the hairstyle, and even the gesture, the expression and the smile (each age has its carriage, its expression and its smile) form a whole, full of vitality.' (Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life, 1863)
The portrayed midinette characterizes all the elegance and beauty of Parisian city life around the turn of the century, making the painting 'modern' in Baudelaire's sense of the word. It is precisely a harmonious vitality that Israels achieves and makes tangible in the present painting.