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Lot Essay
In April 1918 Soutine traveled with Amedeo Modigliani, Tsuguharu Foujita and their dealer Léopold Zborowski to Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Côte d'Azur. It was Soutine's first vacation--indeed, probably his first trip outside Paris since his arrival from Russia in 1913-- and his first view of the sea. This enchanting experience must have been a powerful stimulus, for in the following year Soutine again left Paris, this time for Céret, a small town in the French Pyrenees not far from the border with Spain, where Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque had painted in the summer of 1911, and to which Picasso returned in 1912 and 1913. Zborowski took care of Soutine's expenses and saw to it that he had ample painting supplies. Soutine lived in Céret for the next three years, returning to Paris only periodically. During this time he painted about 200 canvases, mostly landscapes, but some portraits and figure paintings as well, "a body of work unique in modern times, paintings that may accurately be labeled ecstatic for their convulsiveness and evocation of exhilarant sensation" (M. Tuchman, "Chaim Soutine. Life and Work," in cat. rais., op. cit., p. 19).
Soutine was indeed aware of the importance of Céret as a significant site in the development of cubism prior to the First World War. He later admitted that while he was attracted to it at one time, he "never touched cubism...When I was painting in Céret and at Cagnes I yielded to its influence in spite of myself, and the results were not entirely banal. But then Céret itself is anything but banal. There is so much foreshortening in the landscape that, for that very reason, a picture may seem to have been painted in some specific style" (quoted in ibid.). Soutine's successful telescoping of distances into an abrupt and explosive claustrophobic space, in which swerving, contentious ribbons of thickly applied paint defeat the eye that would seek a focal point on which to rest its gaze, would not have been possible without the precedent of fractured cubist space.
The present painting contrasts with many of the Céret landscapes in that this scene, a friendly meeting of villagers under the shade of a tree in the town square, is viewed very close up, and incorporates figures. In other ways it is entirely characteristic of the series, especially in its rightward tilt of the picture axis, and the use of a twisting, rhythmic diagonals to hold the composition together. "In the early Céret landscapes...The space is increasingly compressed and pressurized; the forms flatten out and the liquid pigment surface asserts itself as a tangible entity. There is an ongoing fusion between one form and the next, between near and far space; each element is impacted with and inseparable from the other. This pictorial compression and fusion generate parallel emotional sensations - enclosure, density and merging" (E. Dunow, in ibid., p. 97).
However, while there is little distance separating the viewer from the scene, the seated man in black has his back to us, which has the effect of separating him and his companions (who appear to be dancing) from the viewer. This hints at feelings of isolation and alienation that Soutine, the habitual outsider, may have experienced in this otherwise very social occasion. Modigliani, Soutine's most sympathetic friend, died in January 1920. Soutine hurried back to Paris attend the funeral. He painted more furiously than ever following his return to Céret, "his accelerated production attributed to his alarm at the death of Modigliani" (M. Wheeler, Soutine, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1950, p. 50).
Soutine was indeed aware of the importance of Céret as a significant site in the development of cubism prior to the First World War. He later admitted that while he was attracted to it at one time, he "never touched cubism...When I was painting in Céret and at Cagnes I yielded to its influence in spite of myself, and the results were not entirely banal. But then Céret itself is anything but banal. There is so much foreshortening in the landscape that, for that very reason, a picture may seem to have been painted in some specific style" (quoted in ibid.). Soutine's successful telescoping of distances into an abrupt and explosive claustrophobic space, in which swerving, contentious ribbons of thickly applied paint defeat the eye that would seek a focal point on which to rest its gaze, would not have been possible without the precedent of fractured cubist space.
The present painting contrasts with many of the Céret landscapes in that this scene, a friendly meeting of villagers under the shade of a tree in the town square, is viewed very close up, and incorporates figures. In other ways it is entirely characteristic of the series, especially in its rightward tilt of the picture axis, and the use of a twisting, rhythmic diagonals to hold the composition together. "In the early Céret landscapes...The space is increasingly compressed and pressurized; the forms flatten out and the liquid pigment surface asserts itself as a tangible entity. There is an ongoing fusion between one form and the next, between near and far space; each element is impacted with and inseparable from the other. This pictorial compression and fusion generate parallel emotional sensations - enclosure, density and merging" (E. Dunow, in ibid., p. 97).
However, while there is little distance separating the viewer from the scene, the seated man in black has his back to us, which has the effect of separating him and his companions (who appear to be dancing) from the viewer. This hints at feelings of isolation and alienation that Soutine, the habitual outsider, may have experienced in this otherwise very social occasion. Modigliani, Soutine's most sympathetic friend, died in January 1920. Soutine hurried back to Paris attend the funeral. He painted more furiously than ever following his return to Céret, "his accelerated production attributed to his alarm at the death of Modigliani" (M. Wheeler, Soutine, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1950, p. 50).