.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Mary Swanzy gained an early interest in Cubism, having seen works by Picasso in Paris, and she exhibited in the company of Delaunay and other Cubists at the Salon des Independents. An admiration for Cézanne, and for these artists, drew her attention to simple geometric forms, and the underlying structure beneath the surface of nature. She may not have developed in this manner herself until the 1920s or 1930s, but once doing so, she worked with Cubism for many years, and interpreted it in different ways - applying it to landscapes, figurative subjects and abstract or imaginative compositions.
She developed a personal form of Cubism, different from the more formal or theoretical concerns of her compatriates Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett, but influenced by the sweet, pastel colours of Delaunay, and following an intuitive and imaginative path.
The present work is a fine example of the genre, showing a colourful Mediterranean, or perhaps Eastern European, landscape, with a half circle of wiry, pale viridian trees, rolling green fields, a winding pathway between walls, white-washed villages with red roofs, church spires, and bushes in pink blossom, to create a mood of colour and harmony. As in several such landscapes the small trees in blossom are like light pink pods that float across the landscape; while the panorama is divided into elegant arcs and spirals, as if by swifts flying at rapid speed through the air, so that nature and space are broken up into a series of interconnecting prisms and circles.
J.C.
She developed a personal form of Cubism, different from the more formal or theoretical concerns of her compatriates Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett, but influenced by the sweet, pastel colours of Delaunay, and following an intuitive and imaginative path.
The present work is a fine example of the genre, showing a colourful Mediterranean, or perhaps Eastern European, landscape, with a half circle of wiry, pale viridian trees, rolling green fields, a winding pathway between walls, white-washed villages with red roofs, church spires, and bushes in pink blossom, to create a mood of colour and harmony. As in several such landscapes the small trees in blossom are like light pink pods that float across the landscape; while the panorama is divided into elegant arcs and spirals, as if by swifts flying at rapid speed through the air, so that nature and space are broken up into a series of interconnecting prisms and circles.
J.C.