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Lot Essay
After several years of living in New York, Albert Gleizes returned to France in 1919 disenchanted by the epicentre of modernity—only to encounter equally profound social, cultural, and political transformations unfolding across postwar Europe. This period marked a pivotal moment for the artist, significantly influencing his aesthetic concerns and stylistic evolution. While the principles of dynamism and movement remained integral to Gleizes’ artistic vision, he began to articulate these concepts through a more distilled visual language rooted in proportion and order. Painted in 1920, Composition, évocation figurée ou Sur l’avenue exemplifies the compositional harmony and structural elegance that define the artist’s austere post-war style.
Despite his critique of metropolitan life, cityscapes were a recurring motif in Gleizes' work (figs. 1 and 2).
Gleizes' own words shed light on this apparent contradiction: “Skyscrapers are works of art. They are creations of steel and stone which equal the most admired creations in the Old World. The great bridges like Brooklyn Bridge could be put on the same plane as the work of the builders of Notre Dame of Paris” (A. Gleizes, Albert Gleizes: Le Cubisme en majesté, Paris, 2001, p. 149). For Gleizes, just as cathedrals reached toward the heavens, skyscrapers symbolized humanity's ambition to reach new heights. Yet, it was only through a Cubist perspective that the spiritual dimension of these towering structures could be fully appreciated.
Through his use of juxtaposing intersecting planes of bold and opaque color, Gleizes renders an abstracted, flattened cityscape in Composition, évocation figurée ou Sur l’avenue, with a central figure rising within its vertically elongated canvas. Composed of subtly rotated and overlapping shapes, the human form generates a rhythmic tension that animates the composition, drawing the viewer into its vibrant spatial dynamics. Firm in his belief that art can renew the human spirit by revealing hidden connections and deepening our understanding of the modern world, in the present work, Gleizes deconstructs a moment of city life into geometric rhythms. Using this method, the artist reflects the fragmented nature of the modern experience and reveals the spiritual order beneath the painting's surface.
Despite his critique of metropolitan life, cityscapes were a recurring motif in Gleizes' work (figs. 1 and 2).
Gleizes' own words shed light on this apparent contradiction: “Skyscrapers are works of art. They are creations of steel and stone which equal the most admired creations in the Old World. The great bridges like Brooklyn Bridge could be put on the same plane as the work of the builders of Notre Dame of Paris” (A. Gleizes, Albert Gleizes: Le Cubisme en majesté, Paris, 2001, p. 149). For Gleizes, just as cathedrals reached toward the heavens, skyscrapers symbolized humanity's ambition to reach new heights. Yet, it was only through a Cubist perspective that the spiritual dimension of these towering structures could be fully appreciated.
Through his use of juxtaposing intersecting planes of bold and opaque color, Gleizes renders an abstracted, flattened cityscape in Composition, évocation figurée ou Sur l’avenue, with a central figure rising within its vertically elongated canvas. Composed of subtly rotated and overlapping shapes, the human form generates a rhythmic tension that animates the composition, drawing the viewer into its vibrant spatial dynamics. Firm in his belief that art can renew the human spirit by revealing hidden connections and deepening our understanding of the modern world, in the present work, Gleizes deconstructs a moment of city life into geometric rhythms. Using this method, the artist reflects the fragmented nature of the modern experience and reveals the spiritual order beneath the painting's surface.