Lot Essay
The present work is part of a series of drawings, watercolors, gouaches and paintings which Picasso executed in the spring of 1906 as preparatory studies for a large-scale composition entitled Chevaux au bain. This project was ultimately never realized; however, a pencil drawing (Zervos, vol. 22, no. 266; Private Collection), a watercolor (Zervos, vol. 22, no. 267; Private Collection), an etching (Geiser and Baer, no. 10b) and a gouache (fig. 1) of the entire composition do exist, and they indicate that the figure in the present work was to have been placed on horseback at the far left of Cheval au bain.
Comparing Jeune homme et cheval to other studies for Chevaux au bain, Gary Tinterow has written:
Unlike the...summarily executed sketches, the Youth on Horseback was drawn in a deliberate manner in order to emphasize the great range of textures, tones and modeling that can be obtained from charcoal. Having established the pose in the sketches, Picasso concentrated here on the relationships between the forms and the rhythms of the contours; the arch of the shoulders echoes, for example, the spread of the legs. In so doing, he achieves an extraordinary synthesis of light, line, volume and texture which, as Jean S. Boggs has remarked, evokes in spirit parts of the Parthenon frieze. (G. Tinterow, exh. cat., op. cit., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981, p. 66)
As planned, Chevaux au bain is remarkabley similar in composition to Gauguin's Cavaliers sur la plage II (Wildenstein, no. 290; Private Collection), a work which Picasso would certainly have seen at Vollard's gallery. As Tinterow has commented upon:
Picasso's interest in classicizing forms and classical subjects was not unique. Neoclassicism was a pervasive phenomenon in French art and literature around 1905. Jean Moréas, a poet and acquaintance of Picasso, led a neoclassical literary movement that urged a return to "the Mediterranean heritage." This movement was encouraged in 1905, and the years just before, by influential exhibitions of the art of Ingres, Puvis, Renoir, Gauguin and Cézanne. The influence of older generations of classicizing artists can be directly felt in Picasso's work in his simplified drawing technique. The stability of his geometrically based compositions, the fresco-like texture of the paint and the serene expression of the figures contribute to this effect. Recent research has underscored the importance of Puvis de Chavannes for Picasso in this "first classic period." But a drawing such as this Youth on Horseback reveals that Picasso's debt to Cézanne, made evident by the repeated and broken contours, the importance given to a sense of volume, and the monumental sense of scale, was equally as great. (Ibid., p. 66)
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Chevaux au bain, 1906
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Comparing Jeune homme et cheval to other studies for Chevaux au bain, Gary Tinterow has written:
Unlike the...summarily executed sketches, the Youth on Horseback was drawn in a deliberate manner in order to emphasize the great range of textures, tones and modeling that can be obtained from charcoal. Having established the pose in the sketches, Picasso concentrated here on the relationships between the forms and the rhythms of the contours; the arch of the shoulders echoes, for example, the spread of the legs. In so doing, he achieves an extraordinary synthesis of light, line, volume and texture which, as Jean S. Boggs has remarked, evokes in spirit parts of the Parthenon frieze. (G. Tinterow, exh. cat., op. cit., Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1981, p. 66)
As planned, Chevaux au bain is remarkabley similar in composition to Gauguin's Cavaliers sur la plage II (Wildenstein, no. 290; Private Collection), a work which Picasso would certainly have seen at Vollard's gallery. As Tinterow has commented upon:
Picasso's interest in classicizing forms and classical subjects was not unique. Neoclassicism was a pervasive phenomenon in French art and literature around 1905. Jean Moréas, a poet and acquaintance of Picasso, led a neoclassical literary movement that urged a return to "the Mediterranean heritage." This movement was encouraged in 1905, and the years just before, by influential exhibitions of the art of Ingres, Puvis, Renoir, Gauguin and Cézanne. The influence of older generations of classicizing artists can be directly felt in Picasso's work in his simplified drawing technique. The stability of his geometrically based compositions, the fresco-like texture of the paint and the serene expression of the figures contribute to this effect. Recent research has underscored the importance of Puvis de Chavannes for Picasso in this "first classic period." But a drawing such as this Youth on Horseback reveals that Picasso's debt to Cézanne, made evident by the repeated and broken contours, the importance given to a sense of volume, and the monumental sense of scale, was equally as great. (Ibid., p. 66)
(fig. 1) Pablo Picasso, Chevaux au bain, 1906
Metropolitan Museum of Art