Lot Essay
From Toulouse-Lautrec's sophisticated pastels to Fellini's visionary movie-sets, the world of the circus has been an inexhaustible source of icons and iconographical archetypes for the most celebrated visual artists. The amazing richness of colours and lights, the intense pathos of the performances, and the turmoil of actors, saltimbanques, clowns and animals give life to a very peculiar show - an 'expressionist' show ante litteram. The show of the circus is the ultimate expression of an underground world, socially and artistically opposite to the intellectual manifestations of the mainstream. The actors on stage represent the absurdity and the excesses of a comédie humaine, lacking any reference to a set of pre-established rules and laws: the circus show greatly contributes to the demolition of bourgeois ideology, thus epitomising the fundamental aims and meanings of the Expressionist drama.
It is, therefore, particularly significant that the protagonists of the Expressionist revolution were all deeply attracted to the iconography of the circus, often seen as a real 'formal laboratory', free of theoretical and stylistic conventions: an original arena from where to explore their new aesthetical devices. Kirchner's fascination with the circus' scenes started in the Dresden years, where he fell under the spell of life in the big city. The artist was endlessy inspired by the streets, the vaudeville, the dance halls, the cafés, and, of course, the circus - readily identified with the symbol of urban unconventionality. This utopic pursuit of an anti-bourgeois code of life was enthusiastically supported by Heckel (see fig. 1), who shared with Kirchner, in Dresden, the famous studio in an ex-butchershop in the Berliner Strasse, located in the Friedrichsuburb.
Jockeyakt, executed in 1925, is Kirchner's vibrant homage to his souvenirs de jeunesse. Stimulated by the eager response to his early circus scenes of Hans Mardestaig - a German publisher who had met the artist in Davos and become an assiduous admirer of his works -, Kirchner was determined to pursue his original passion for this subject. As we learn from Kirchner's Davoser Tagebuch, 'Der ältere Mardestaig, der gestern da war, sagte, er habe nie solche Cirkusbilder gesehen wie die meinen. Er wollte eines, aber ich habe keins mehr von den alten. Ich will aber neue malen, sobald es geht. Ich liebe diese nackten...' (entry for 7 September 1925, edition by L. Grisebach, Bern, 1997, p. 86).
Memories of the vibrant Dresden underground world came back to Kirchner when he first visited Germany after his final move to Switzerland. On 18 December 1925, Kirchner embarked on a long journey though his native country, which took him via Zurich and Basle to Frankfurt, Chemnitz, Dresden and Berlin, before returning to Davos on 12 March 1926. In Dresden, where he stayed with Grohmann, he paid several visits to his former models, and to the dancers Mary Wigman and Palucca. His return to Dresden coincided with the rediscovery of themes and subjects from his past - among which, and above all, the circus scenes, now underlined by a new stylistic boldness and confidence. For the present oil Kirchner chose a great format, both for the canvas itself and the animal and human figures dancing frenetically on the stage. The old theme is treated with an utterly modern lay-out: striving for a pure chromatic and geometric simplification, the artist used great planes of colour and flat strokes. Kirchner's leap towards abstraction is impressive.
Prior to forming an important part of the prestigious American collection of William Mazer, Jockeyakt was owned by Morton D. May, whose bequest forms the core of the renowned Expressionist collection of the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri.
It is, therefore, particularly significant that the protagonists of the Expressionist revolution were all deeply attracted to the iconography of the circus, often seen as a real 'formal laboratory', free of theoretical and stylistic conventions: an original arena from where to explore their new aesthetical devices. Kirchner's fascination with the circus' scenes started in the Dresden years, where he fell under the spell of life in the big city. The artist was endlessy inspired by the streets, the vaudeville, the dance halls, the cafés, and, of course, the circus - readily identified with the symbol of urban unconventionality. This utopic pursuit of an anti-bourgeois code of life was enthusiastically supported by Heckel (see fig. 1), who shared with Kirchner, in Dresden, the famous studio in an ex-butchershop in the Berliner Strasse, located in the Friedrichsuburb.
Jockeyakt, executed in 1925, is Kirchner's vibrant homage to his souvenirs de jeunesse. Stimulated by the eager response to his early circus scenes of Hans Mardestaig - a German publisher who had met the artist in Davos and become an assiduous admirer of his works -, Kirchner was determined to pursue his original passion for this subject. As we learn from Kirchner's Davoser Tagebuch, 'Der ältere Mardestaig, der gestern da war, sagte, er habe nie solche Cirkusbilder gesehen wie die meinen. Er wollte eines, aber ich habe keins mehr von den alten. Ich will aber neue malen, sobald es geht. Ich liebe diese nackten...' (entry for 7 September 1925, edition by L. Grisebach, Bern, 1997, p. 86).
Memories of the vibrant Dresden underground world came back to Kirchner when he first visited Germany after his final move to Switzerland. On 18 December 1925, Kirchner embarked on a long journey though his native country, which took him via Zurich and Basle to Frankfurt, Chemnitz, Dresden and Berlin, before returning to Davos on 12 March 1926. In Dresden, where he stayed with Grohmann, he paid several visits to his former models, and to the dancers Mary Wigman and Palucca. His return to Dresden coincided with the rediscovery of themes and subjects from his past - among which, and above all, the circus scenes, now underlined by a new stylistic boldness and confidence. For the present oil Kirchner chose a great format, both for the canvas itself and the animal and human figures dancing frenetically on the stage. The old theme is treated with an utterly modern lay-out: striving for a pure chromatic and geometric simplification, the artist used great planes of colour and flat strokes. Kirchner's leap towards abstraction is impressive.
Prior to forming an important part of the prestigious American collection of William Mazer, Jockeyakt was owned by Morton D. May, whose bequest forms the core of the renowned Expressionist collection of the St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri.