拍品专文
The highly conceptual theories behind Morgan Russell's Synchromist paintings distinguish them as some of the most important modernist inventions of the twentieth century. Morgan Russell began his professional career as an architect, but abandoned that to become an artist as soon as he got to Paris on his twentieth birthday. In 1906, when Russell began to explore the art scene, the bold color and forceful lines of the artists of the Fauve movement were astonishing the art world. From this point onward, as Russell developed his artistic style, color became increasingly important to him, taking on new significance.
In 1913, when Morgan Russell began his series of Synchromy in Blue-Violet, he had been seriously contemplating the implications of his work for a number of years. In an introduction written for the catalogue for their 1913 Bernheim-Jeune exhibition, Russell and his friend and fellow artist Stanton Macdonald Wright "stated that their art was different from anything else presently being done. As synchromists, they wrote, they were not interested in color as a means to copy the 'literal likeness' of an object: 'our dream for color is of a nobler task. It is the very quality of form that we mean to express and reveal through it.'" (M.S. Kushner, Morgan Russell, New York, 1990, p. 69)
The present work is part of a series of four works entitled Synchromy in Blue-Violet. Each work represents the artist's most intense and innovative artistic achievement. In a booklet he published on the largest and most important work in the series, he explained: "I have found the solution in my manner of treating light--i.e. translating the half-tones by colors naturally midway in value from yellow to blue-that is by reds, orange and greens. Never in painting has color been composed in the same sense--This is what I mean by all I say in the catalogue--I have always felt the need of imposing on color the same violent twists and spirals that Rubens, Michelangelo etc imposed on form... It is only by a sense of continuity or curve in color that one can produce an effect as emotional as that of music on us--this sense of color-curves sort of carries one around and not only up and down or from side to side as line does but is a powerful manner of drawing us into space back and forth in waves." (Morgan Russell, p. 76)
Morgan Russell's Synchromist paintings met with mixed reviews when they were originally exhibited, due undoubtedly in part to their complex theories and unconventional format. But to Morgan Russell, this work was part of a crusade for modern art. As he stated himself, "If modern art is to express anything greater than a few apples or portraits it can only be something of this sort." (Morgan Russell, p. 75)
In 1913, when Morgan Russell began his series of Synchromy in Blue-Violet, he had been seriously contemplating the implications of his work for a number of years. In an introduction written for the catalogue for their 1913 Bernheim-Jeune exhibition, Russell and his friend and fellow artist Stanton Macdonald Wright "stated that their art was different from anything else presently being done. As synchromists, they wrote, they were not interested in color as a means to copy the 'literal likeness' of an object: 'our dream for color is of a nobler task. It is the very quality of form that we mean to express and reveal through it.'" (M.S. Kushner, Morgan Russell, New York, 1990, p. 69)
The present work is part of a series of four works entitled Synchromy in Blue-Violet. Each work represents the artist's most intense and innovative artistic achievement. In a booklet he published on the largest and most important work in the series, he explained: "I have found the solution in my manner of treating light--i.e. translating the half-tones by colors naturally midway in value from yellow to blue-that is by reds, orange and greens. Never in painting has color been composed in the same sense--This is what I mean by all I say in the catalogue--I have always felt the need of imposing on color the same violent twists and spirals that Rubens, Michelangelo etc imposed on form... It is only by a sense of continuity or curve in color that one can produce an effect as emotional as that of music on us--this sense of color-curves sort of carries one around and not only up and down or from side to side as line does but is a powerful manner of drawing us into space back and forth in waves." (Morgan Russell, p. 76)
Morgan Russell's Synchromist paintings met with mixed reviews when they were originally exhibited, due undoubtedly in part to their complex theories and unconventional format. But to Morgan Russell, this work was part of a crusade for modern art. As he stated himself, "If modern art is to express anything greater than a few apples or portraits it can only be something of this sort." (Morgan Russell, p. 75)