拍品專文
Juliette (The Green Dress) captures the quintessential "female sentiment" that characterizes the mature work of John White Alexander. In the fall of 1890, when he uprooted his family for a planned stay of one or two years in Paris, he was on the threshold of finding his mature painting style. He found it in the beauty of the female form, not as a likeness, but as a sentiment.
The artist's wife Elizabeth, who was a writer of short stories, captured the spirit of the international avant garde of the 1890s which nourished her husband's creative ideas:
"In Paris were gathered in addition to the French artist, the cream of the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Austrians and Italians. The secession of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts headed by Puvis de Chavannes and Meissonier was comparatively resigned. The convictions leading to this secession were still burning questions.....
It was much too much to ask of even as progressive a group as the founders of the Champ de Mars to open their doors to extreme moderns. Manet and Monet were accepted without reservation, also many of their followers. The young Belgian School of Symbolists were freely admitted. The Rose Croix Society headed by Sar Peladin had made a success at the Durand-Ruel Gallery....."
Alexander debuted in 1893 at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. On the strength of three large canvases on the subject of the female form, he was made an associate member in 1894 and a full member in 1895. It was through these annual salons that Alexander earned the distinction "Painter of the Flowing Line," accorded him by J. Walker McSpadden in his book, Famous Painters in America (N.Y., 1923). He exhibited at least one major canvas each year through 1900. Those canvases which attracted the attention of the art press included La Glace (1894), Althea (1897), Isabella and the Pot of Basil and Les Pivoines (1897), The Blue Bowl (1898), Le Rayon de Soleil (1899), and Portrait of Rodin (1900).
Alexander's solid record of achievement earned him an invitation to join other liberal secessionist salons in Munich, Vienna and Brussels. Alexander probably received a personal invitation from Octabe Maus to exhibit in the Libre Esthétique in Brussels, which was begun in 1894 as the successor to the more radical group Les XX. In 1898, the only year Alexander exhibited in the Belgian salon, he submitted Juliette (The Green Dress), which was displayed along with works such as Maison à Veere by the realist Emile Claus, La Nature by the naturalist Leon Frederic, Soudards Pénitents dans une Cathédrale by the symbolist James Ensor, Le Canale Flandre by the pointilist Theo Van Rysselberghe and Les Trois Saintes Femmes by the sculptor George Minne.
The painting's notoriety is associated primarily with the Brussels exhibition. It was a new canvas--one he had not exhibited in Paris at the 1897 salon nor planned for the 1898 salon. His model was Juliette Very who had modeled for Isabella and the Pot of Basil, Alethea and others. The figure in Juliette (The Green Dress) wears the same delicate floral patterned dress used for Les Piviones one year earlier in the 1897 Paris salon. She is seated in a low empire chair--a studio prop frequently used by the artist. This chair has passed from generation to generation and was part of the living room furniture of his granddaughhter, Irina Reed.
The merits of the painting were noted in the Belgian press. The writer for The Gazette (March 8, 1898) wrote of the painter as having "une vision bien moderne." L'Art Moderne noted "la simplicité et l'aisance de la pose, la sobriety..." while the critic for Le XXIeme Siecle (February 27, 1898) complimented the picture for its "contour plein de souplesse et d'harmonie," at the same time raising the question "peut-être la tonalité des chairs est-elle de qualité un peu sêche...". What seems to have gone unnoticed by critics is the grand gesture of the sober subject -- the figure's arm and hand are outstretched in a pose filled with a tension uncommon for Alexander.
We are grateful to Mary Anne Goley for providing the essay and catalogue entry for this painting.
The artist's wife Elizabeth, who was a writer of short stories, captured the spirit of the international avant garde of the 1890s which nourished her husband's creative ideas:
"In Paris were gathered in addition to the French artist, the cream of the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Austrians and Italians. The secession of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts headed by Puvis de Chavannes and Meissonier was comparatively resigned. The convictions leading to this secession were still burning questions.....
It was much too much to ask of even as progressive a group as the founders of the Champ de Mars to open their doors to extreme moderns. Manet and Monet were accepted without reservation, also many of their followers. The young Belgian School of Symbolists were freely admitted. The Rose Croix Society headed by Sar Peladin had made a success at the Durand-Ruel Gallery....."
Alexander debuted in 1893 at the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. On the strength of three large canvases on the subject of the female form, he was made an associate member in 1894 and a full member in 1895. It was through these annual salons that Alexander earned the distinction "Painter of the Flowing Line," accorded him by J. Walker McSpadden in his book, Famous Painters in America (N.Y., 1923). He exhibited at least one major canvas each year through 1900. Those canvases which attracted the attention of the art press included La Glace (1894), Althea (1897), Isabella and the Pot of Basil and Les Pivoines (1897), The Blue Bowl (1898), Le Rayon de Soleil (1899), and Portrait of Rodin (1900).
Alexander's solid record of achievement earned him an invitation to join other liberal secessionist salons in Munich, Vienna and Brussels. Alexander probably received a personal invitation from Octabe Maus to exhibit in the Libre Esthétique in Brussels, which was begun in 1894 as the successor to the more radical group Les XX. In 1898, the only year Alexander exhibited in the Belgian salon, he submitted Juliette (The Green Dress), which was displayed along with works such as Maison à Veere by the realist Emile Claus, La Nature by the naturalist Leon Frederic, Soudards Pénitents dans une Cathédrale by the symbolist James Ensor, Le Canale Flandre by the pointilist Theo Van Rysselberghe and Les Trois Saintes Femmes by the sculptor George Minne.
The painting's notoriety is associated primarily with the Brussels exhibition. It was a new canvas--one he had not exhibited in Paris at the 1897 salon nor planned for the 1898 salon. His model was Juliette Very who had modeled for Isabella and the Pot of Basil, Alethea and others. The figure in Juliette (The Green Dress) wears the same delicate floral patterned dress used for Les Piviones one year earlier in the 1897 Paris salon. She is seated in a low empire chair--a studio prop frequently used by the artist. This chair has passed from generation to generation and was part of the living room furniture of his granddaughhter, Irina Reed.
The merits of the painting were noted in the Belgian press. The writer for The Gazette (March 8, 1898) wrote of the painter as having "une vision bien moderne." L'Art Moderne noted "la simplicité et l'aisance de la pose, la sobriety..." while the critic for Le XXIeme Siecle (February 27, 1898) complimented the picture for its "contour plein de souplesse et d'harmonie," at the same time raising the question "peut-être la tonalité des chairs est-elle de qualité un peu sêche...". What seems to have gone unnoticed by critics is the grand gesture of the sober subject -- the figure's arm and hand are outstretched in a pose filled with a tension uncommon for Alexander.
We are grateful to Mary Anne Goley for providing the essay and catalogue entry for this painting.