.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
La Fresnaye began experimenting with the new Cubist idiom in 1910. While studying sculpture with Aristide Maillol at the Académie de La Grande-Chaumière, La Fresnaye met Raymond Duchamp-Villon, who later introduced him to the Puteaux group of painters. These artists included Raymond's brothers Marcel Duchamp and Jacques Villon (in whose home in Puteaux they met on a weekly basis), as well as the painters Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger (see lot 6), who were emerging as the chief theoreticians of the Cubist movement.
This group later formed the Section d'Or, taking the name that Villon had derived from the theoretical works of Leonardo da Vinci and the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras concerning the proportions of the human body. La Fresnaye contributed four paintings to their first group exhibition at the Galerie d'Art Moderne, Paris in November 1911. He exhibited again in the second Section d'Or show at the Galerie La Boëtie in October 1912, which "marked the climax of the Cubist movement", as well as in both the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne of that year (J. Golding, Cubism, A History & An Analysis 1907-1914, London, 1968, p. 159).
By this time Cubism had numerous followers working in a plethora of related styles, some of which may only be loosely classified as Cubist. Robert Delaunay was already experimenting with his "Orphist" color theories and was skirting the frontier of abstraction. La Fresnaye, like others, felt that pure Cubism was hardening into a systematic and static method, and that it tended to drain painting of its traditional humanity. Moreover, few artists would adhere to a discipline, as most rigorously practiced by Picasso and Braque, that reined in the expressive power of color.
"In opposition to the more cerebral orthodoxy of late Cubist canvases, often more thought-out than seen, La Fresnaye painstakingly arranged and re-arranged the actual objects, even employing sheets of paper to simulate the planes and geometric colour areas. In fact he himself once stated that he was so lacking in imagination that he could only paint what he saw, but he saw with the eye of a poet and his vision transformed plebeian objects of everyday use into lyrical arrangements of distinction and grace. A favourite device was to choose an angle of sight above the level of objects portrayed. Thus, he created an illusion of air and space between them and avoided the crowded effect of an eye-level view which tends to superimpose one object upon another" (G. Seligman, op. cit., p. 36).
In the present work the artist has selected his motifs for their purity of form, juxtaposing simple cylindrical shapes against rectilinear objects and planes. In compositions of this kind, La Fresnaye prefigured the Purist theories formulated by Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) and Amédée Ozenfant later in the decade. Seligman points out that the rectangular box at lower left, which appears in other still lifes of this period, was made of glass (the circular forms within it hint at its reflective surface) with a silver lid, and remained in the possession of the La Fresnaye family.
This group later formed the Section d'Or, taking the name that Villon had derived from the theoretical works of Leonardo da Vinci and the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras concerning the proportions of the human body. La Fresnaye contributed four paintings to their first group exhibition at the Galerie d'Art Moderne, Paris in November 1911. He exhibited again in the second Section d'Or show at the Galerie La Boëtie in October 1912, which "marked the climax of the Cubist movement", as well as in both the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne of that year (J. Golding, Cubism, A History & An Analysis 1907-1914, London, 1968, p. 159).
By this time Cubism had numerous followers working in a plethora of related styles, some of which may only be loosely classified as Cubist. Robert Delaunay was already experimenting with his "Orphist" color theories and was skirting the frontier of abstraction. La Fresnaye, like others, felt that pure Cubism was hardening into a systematic and static method, and that it tended to drain painting of its traditional humanity. Moreover, few artists would adhere to a discipline, as most rigorously practiced by Picasso and Braque, that reined in the expressive power of color.
"In opposition to the more cerebral orthodoxy of late Cubist canvases, often more thought-out than seen, La Fresnaye painstakingly arranged and re-arranged the actual objects, even employing sheets of paper to simulate the planes and geometric colour areas. In fact he himself once stated that he was so lacking in imagination that he could only paint what he saw, but he saw with the eye of a poet and his vision transformed plebeian objects of everyday use into lyrical arrangements of distinction and grace. A favourite device was to choose an angle of sight above the level of objects portrayed. Thus, he created an illusion of air and space between them and avoided the crowded effect of an eye-level view which tends to superimpose one object upon another" (G. Seligman, op. cit., p. 36).
In the present work the artist has selected his motifs for their purity of form, juxtaposing simple cylindrical shapes against rectilinear objects and planes. In compositions of this kind, La Fresnaye prefigured the Purist theories formulated by Le Corbusier (Charles-Edouard Jeanneret) and Amédée Ozenfant later in the decade. Seligman points out that the rectangular box at lower left, which appears in other still lifes of this period, was made of glass (the circular forms within it hint at its reflective surface) with a silver lid, and remained in the possession of the La Fresnaye family.