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Lot Essay
Dina Vierny has kindly confirmed the authenticity of this bronze.
Maillol's first ventures into sculpture were in wood, and on a small scale. However, in 1900 he started to explore other materials and began producing bronzes. Baigneuse debout ('Bather Standing'), conceived in 1900 and cast at around the same time, was one of Maillol's earliest forays into the new medium. Until then, his works had been heavily influenced by his association with the Nabis. Maillol had painted colourful pictures superficially influenced by Gauguin, as well as exquisite but ultimately decorative tapestries. In sculpture, the influence of Gauguin took a new shape. Maillol's plastic work is not stylistically reminiscent of Gauguin's wood-carvings. It is rather in the new sense of form in Maillol's art that the influence shone through, a more profound, almost religious, appreciation of his subject matter. Baigneuse debout is a refined yet sensuous work, a testimony to female grace.
Maillol, like Gauguin, was interested in the artworks of other cultures, particularly Indian and Khmer temple sculpture. The key similarity between the two artists lay in what they gleaned from these other cultures - a new means of portraying reality, a stronger, more spiritual art that transcended mere figurative representation. Where so many styles of painting and sculpture follow fashions, investigations of the art of other cultures encouraged Maillol to seek a common denominator, a universal visual language.
One culture that especially influenced Maillol was ancient Greece - he adored the antiquities that the Greeks had left, finding in them a timeless grace and beauty. This led to him devising a concept of a universal art that was both modern and yet retained a strong link with the past. Hence Baigneuse debout, in its subject matter, harks back to a theme that has been handed down countless ages, and yet this new incarnation is fresh and novel. The woman's beauty mingles both Classical ideals and Oriental curves as Maillol explored his new universal image of the sublime. Maillol's women, invocations of a timeless sensuality, are devoid of 'meaning'. Instead, they are monuments to beauty itself. They play to the eye and to emotion, not to interpretation. It is in a sense ironic that Maillol provided his contemporaries with a template for conceptual art, allowing themes to be expressed with figurative means yet abstract intentions.
Baigneuse debout had a enormous impact on the artists of the day - Maurice Denis possessed a terracotta version, and bronze cast appears in the background of Edouard Vuillard's portrait of Pierre Bonnard. Indeed, the influence of this sculpture seems to have affected Bonnard so deeply that the French painter included it in several of his paintings.
Maillol's first ventures into sculpture were in wood, and on a small scale. However, in 1900 he started to explore other materials and began producing bronzes. Baigneuse debout ('Bather Standing'), conceived in 1900 and cast at around the same time, was one of Maillol's earliest forays into the new medium. Until then, his works had been heavily influenced by his association with the Nabis. Maillol had painted colourful pictures superficially influenced by Gauguin, as well as exquisite but ultimately decorative tapestries. In sculpture, the influence of Gauguin took a new shape. Maillol's plastic work is not stylistically reminiscent of Gauguin's wood-carvings. It is rather in the new sense of form in Maillol's art that the influence shone through, a more profound, almost religious, appreciation of his subject matter. Baigneuse debout is a refined yet sensuous work, a testimony to female grace.
Maillol, like Gauguin, was interested in the artworks of other cultures, particularly Indian and Khmer temple sculpture. The key similarity between the two artists lay in what they gleaned from these other cultures - a new means of portraying reality, a stronger, more spiritual art that transcended mere figurative representation. Where so many styles of painting and sculpture follow fashions, investigations of the art of other cultures encouraged Maillol to seek a common denominator, a universal visual language.
One culture that especially influenced Maillol was ancient Greece - he adored the antiquities that the Greeks had left, finding in them a timeless grace and beauty. This led to him devising a concept of a universal art that was both modern and yet retained a strong link with the past. Hence Baigneuse debout, in its subject matter, harks back to a theme that has been handed down countless ages, and yet this new incarnation is fresh and novel. The woman's beauty mingles both Classical ideals and Oriental curves as Maillol explored his new universal image of the sublime. Maillol's women, invocations of a timeless sensuality, are devoid of 'meaning'. Instead, they are monuments to beauty itself. They play to the eye and to emotion, not to interpretation. It is in a sense ironic that Maillol provided his contemporaries with a template for conceptual art, allowing themes to be expressed with figurative means yet abstract intentions.
Baigneuse debout had a enormous impact on the artists of the day - Maurice Denis possessed a terracotta version, and bronze cast appears in the background of Edouard Vuillard's portrait of Pierre Bonnard. Indeed, the influence of this sculpture seems to have affected Bonnard so deeply that the French painter included it in several of his paintings.