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Lot Essay
Created in 1926, Accordéon, carafe et cafetière is a remarkable example of the growing complexity of Le Corbusier’s pictorial vocabulary during the latter half of the 1920s, as he reached the heights of his mature purist style. Densely packed with a group of familiar, everyday objects, from coffee-pots to carafes, wine glasses to smoking pipes, the composition elegantly combines many of the key principles which defined the iconic artistic vision that Le Corbusier had developed alongside Amédée Ozenfant in the years immediately following the First World War, whilst also revealing his dynamic new approach to still-life that was to emerge during the final years of the decade.
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant had met in 1918, and quickly developed an intensely productive artistic and intellectual friendship. Both believed that a new art was needed in response to what they saw as the growing excess of Cubism and the chaos of the war, and championed a return to order in painting, advocating a rigorous, precise, pure art attuned to the science and industry that permeated modern life. The pair’s theoretical discussions and shared artistic explorations during the early years of their friendship led to the formulation of a book – Après le Cubsime – in which they boldly declared the end of Cubism and heralded the arrival of a new, dynamic style in its place: ‘The war ends; everything is organized… Here, only order and purity illuminate and orient life… To the same extent that [yesterday] was troubled, uncertain of its path, that which is beginning is lucid and clear’ (Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, quoted in K.E. Silver, exh. cat., Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy and Germany, 1918-1936, New York, 2010, p. 20). Outlining the theoretical basis and practical applications of Purism, the book emphasised rationality, logic and refinement as the central pillars of this new movement in an effort to develop a permanent and enduring art, one which focused on the general and the invariable aspects of the material world, rather than the passing fashions of the day. The periodical L’Esprit Nouveau quickly became the leading publication for the purist movement, acting as a forum for Le Corbusier and Ozenfant’s theories, and featured articles on subjects as diverse as automobile and airplane design, contemporary painting, classical architecture and pottery, and seventeenth-century French art. Recalling this period of his life, Le Corbusier later wrote ‘The country was in the process of being reborn: We had the sense that an age of steel was beginning, and that on the heels of the anxiety, the disarray, the trials of an earlier era, the hours of construction would follow’ (Le Corbusier, quoted in C.S. Eliel, exh. cat., L’Esprit Nouveau: Purism in Paris, 1918-1925, Los Angeles, 2001, p. 17).
Le Corbusier spent much of the early half of the 1920s intensely focused on refining his still-life compositions to best reflect the theories of order and purity which underpinned the purist movement, reducing his forms to pure geometric shapes and minimising his use of colour to an austere palette of restrained hues. However in 1925, following a series of disagreements, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant parted ways and Purism was dissolved. Accordéon, carafe et cafetière emerged less than a year after this decisive break, and illustrates the gradual shift that was occurring in Le Corbusier’s art at this time, as he began to steadily move away from the rigorous, austere language of Purism and push his paintings to new levels of expression and invention. One of the most important developments in Le Corbusier’s painting at this time was his adoption of new forms, as he sought to expand the vocabulary of objet types that had defined his purist period and explore new aspects of the still-life theme. The inclusion of the accordion in the present composition is a perfect example of this, its distinctively concertinaed mid-section adding a new dynamism to the arrangement, as it stretches along the lower edge of the table. The bellows’ vertical folds recall the detailing frequently added to bottles and glasses in earlier purist compositions to echo the fluting of ancient columns, but the distinctive profile of its edges and Le Corbusier’s inclusion of subtle shadowing bring an impression of horizontal movement to the painting, lending the scene a greater visual richness. The rest of the forms within the composition also appear softer and rounder than in previous examples of the artist’s still-lifes, their outlines less strictly geometrical and sharp-edged, their contours displaying a previously unseen fluidity. The handle of the coffeepot, for example, appears as a free, sinuous line, its curvilinear profile captured using only a single, continuous stroke of black paint, its form standing in stark contrast to the sharp edges of the pot.
During this phase of his art, Le Corbusier’s still-lifes also became increasingly complex in their construction, the objects layered over one another, their contours overlapping and interconnecting, as he turned his attention to the formal relationships that exist between each of the different elements. In Accordéon, carafe et cafetière, the objects seem to converge at multiple points, their structures extending into one another, in a technique that allows them to appear simultaneously transparent and opaque. In the upper left corner of the composition, two wine glasses are interlocked in an unusual formation that shows several different profiles simultaneously alongside one another. At once solid and transparent, their conjoined forms produce a complex hybrid object that challenges our understanding of their materiality, and transforms them into something new. Le Corbusier uses colour to enhance this sense of overlapping and intersection throughout the painting, particularly in the transparency of the glass objects, employing a mixture of subtle tonal shifts and dramatic colour contrasts to achieve this sensation. In the bottom rim of the coffeepot, the silver hue gradually darkens as it overlaps with the coloured glass in front of it, whilst the orange shade of the vessel shifts from yellow to light orange, and again to dark orange and navy, as it reacts to the other objects which about it. This causes the viewer’s eye to move continuously around the composition, challenging their perception of each individual object and ensuring that they constantly consider each element in relation to its adjacent forms.
Le Corbusier and Ozenfant had met in 1918, and quickly developed an intensely productive artistic and intellectual friendship. Both believed that a new art was needed in response to what they saw as the growing excess of Cubism and the chaos of the war, and championed a return to order in painting, advocating a rigorous, precise, pure art attuned to the science and industry that permeated modern life. The pair’s theoretical discussions and shared artistic explorations during the early years of their friendship led to the formulation of a book – Après le Cubsime – in which they boldly declared the end of Cubism and heralded the arrival of a new, dynamic style in its place: ‘The war ends; everything is organized… Here, only order and purity illuminate and orient life… To the same extent that [yesterday] was troubled, uncertain of its path, that which is beginning is lucid and clear’ (Le Corbusier and Ozenfant, quoted in K.E. Silver, exh. cat., Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy and Germany, 1918-1936, New York, 2010, p. 20). Outlining the theoretical basis and practical applications of Purism, the book emphasised rationality, logic and refinement as the central pillars of this new movement in an effort to develop a permanent and enduring art, one which focused on the general and the invariable aspects of the material world, rather than the passing fashions of the day. The periodical L’Esprit Nouveau quickly became the leading publication for the purist movement, acting as a forum for Le Corbusier and Ozenfant’s theories, and featured articles on subjects as diverse as automobile and airplane design, contemporary painting, classical architecture and pottery, and seventeenth-century French art. Recalling this period of his life, Le Corbusier later wrote ‘The country was in the process of being reborn: We had the sense that an age of steel was beginning, and that on the heels of the anxiety, the disarray, the trials of an earlier era, the hours of construction would follow’ (Le Corbusier, quoted in C.S. Eliel, exh. cat., L’Esprit Nouveau: Purism in Paris, 1918-1925, Los Angeles, 2001, p. 17).
Le Corbusier spent much of the early half of the 1920s intensely focused on refining his still-life compositions to best reflect the theories of order and purity which underpinned the purist movement, reducing his forms to pure geometric shapes and minimising his use of colour to an austere palette of restrained hues. However in 1925, following a series of disagreements, Le Corbusier and Ozenfant parted ways and Purism was dissolved. Accordéon, carafe et cafetière emerged less than a year after this decisive break, and illustrates the gradual shift that was occurring in Le Corbusier’s art at this time, as he began to steadily move away from the rigorous, austere language of Purism and push his paintings to new levels of expression and invention. One of the most important developments in Le Corbusier’s painting at this time was his adoption of new forms, as he sought to expand the vocabulary of objet types that had defined his purist period and explore new aspects of the still-life theme. The inclusion of the accordion in the present composition is a perfect example of this, its distinctively concertinaed mid-section adding a new dynamism to the arrangement, as it stretches along the lower edge of the table. The bellows’ vertical folds recall the detailing frequently added to bottles and glasses in earlier purist compositions to echo the fluting of ancient columns, but the distinctive profile of its edges and Le Corbusier’s inclusion of subtle shadowing bring an impression of horizontal movement to the painting, lending the scene a greater visual richness. The rest of the forms within the composition also appear softer and rounder than in previous examples of the artist’s still-lifes, their outlines less strictly geometrical and sharp-edged, their contours displaying a previously unseen fluidity. The handle of the coffeepot, for example, appears as a free, sinuous line, its curvilinear profile captured using only a single, continuous stroke of black paint, its form standing in stark contrast to the sharp edges of the pot.
During this phase of his art, Le Corbusier’s still-lifes also became increasingly complex in their construction, the objects layered over one another, their contours overlapping and interconnecting, as he turned his attention to the formal relationships that exist between each of the different elements. In Accordéon, carafe et cafetière, the objects seem to converge at multiple points, their structures extending into one another, in a technique that allows them to appear simultaneously transparent and opaque. In the upper left corner of the composition, two wine glasses are interlocked in an unusual formation that shows several different profiles simultaneously alongside one another. At once solid and transparent, their conjoined forms produce a complex hybrid object that challenges our understanding of their materiality, and transforms them into something new. Le Corbusier uses colour to enhance this sense of overlapping and intersection throughout the painting, particularly in the transparency of the glass objects, employing a mixture of subtle tonal shifts and dramatic colour contrasts to achieve this sensation. In the bottom rim of the coffeepot, the silver hue gradually darkens as it overlaps with the coloured glass in front of it, whilst the orange shade of the vessel shifts from yellow to light orange, and again to dark orange and navy, as it reacts to the other objects which about it. This causes the viewer’s eye to move continuously around the composition, challenging their perception of each individual object and ensuring that they constantly consider each element in relation to its adjacent forms.