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拍品专文
A pivotal figure in the history of twentieth-century art, Alexander Calder broke new ground in multiple media and paved the way for a new understanding of form and space. Although primarily celebrated for his sculptures, Calder was an accomplished painter as well. Dating from the late 1940s, as the artist garnered an international reputation, What Isle Is This? is an intoxicating mix of bold colors and expressive linework. In dialogue with the chance encounters of European Surrealism and the burgeoning power of American Modernism, Calder acted as a creative link between the two continents. His three-dimensional constructions made from materials like wire and sheet metal breathed new life into everyday objects and instilled kinetic energy into the sculptural tradition. Similarly, paintings like What Isle Is This? capture the same intrinsic movement of life as the artist translates his three-dimensional vocabulary into two-dimensions. Combining humanoid figures with swirls, curls, and arabesques, Calder produces a scene full of complex motion.
Rendered on a red and brown ground, two figures with elongated necks pose next to a graceful array of branches. Calder’s repetition of swirling lines recalls the coils of wire used in some of his earlier his sculptures, such as Josephine Baker III (circa 1927; The Museum of Modern Art, New York), while also serving to draw the viewer’s eye like a hypnotist’s spiral. The figure on the left has prominent ears and a skeletal frame covered in orange, yellow, and brown. It raises its right arm in a graceful wave that mimics the spindly tree in the background. The right figure has a taller cranium, but otherwise exhibits features similar to those of its companion. However, in this case, the body is painted a shockingly pure field of white and has no other defining characteristics. A stylized green leaf unfurls between the two subjects, echoing their oblong heads and drawing a distinct connection to the sheet metal objects Calder often suspended at the end of his constructions.
Though much of his acclaim is often tied to his revolutionary mobiles and stabiles, Calder began as a painter. In 1923, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York, where he studied oil painting under the illustrious John Sloan. His teacher was a member of the Ashcan School, and from him and others, Calder learned to draw on the energy of daily life and the world around him. The young artist took up sketching for the National Police Gazette, where he honed his skills by capturing the fervor and action of sporting events, circus performances, and other boisterous activities. In 1926, Calder produced his first illustrated book, Animal Sketching, with a collection of brush and ink studies of animals in motion that he observed in the Bronx and Central Park Zoos. This early infatuation with depicting, harnessing, and translating the energy of life into two and three dimensions continued throughout the artist’s career.
Works like What Isle Is This? demonstrate Calder’s knack for capturing both actual movement and implied motion in all artistic forms. Speaking with curator Katharine Kuh, the artist quipped, "The mobile has actual movement in itself, while the stabile is back at the old painting idea of implied movement" (A. Calder and K. Kuh, “Alexander Calder,” The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, New York 1962). As early as the 1920s and 1930s, Calder began to involve himself in a number of interdisciplinary endeavors beyond his sculptural practice, including paintings, drawings, book illustrations, and even jewelry. All of these practices drew upon the same rich visual vocabulary that populates the canvas of What Isle Is This? with bold, abstract elements and a display of fluid momentum throughout.
Rendered on a red and brown ground, two figures with elongated necks pose next to a graceful array of branches. Calder’s repetition of swirling lines recalls the coils of wire used in some of his earlier his sculptures, such as Josephine Baker III (circa 1927; The Museum of Modern Art, New York), while also serving to draw the viewer’s eye like a hypnotist’s spiral. The figure on the left has prominent ears and a skeletal frame covered in orange, yellow, and brown. It raises its right arm in a graceful wave that mimics the spindly tree in the background. The right figure has a taller cranium, but otherwise exhibits features similar to those of its companion. However, in this case, the body is painted a shockingly pure field of white and has no other defining characteristics. A stylized green leaf unfurls between the two subjects, echoing their oblong heads and drawing a distinct connection to the sheet metal objects Calder often suspended at the end of his constructions.
Though much of his acclaim is often tied to his revolutionary mobiles and stabiles, Calder began as a painter. In 1923, he enrolled in the Art Students League in New York, where he studied oil painting under the illustrious John Sloan. His teacher was a member of the Ashcan School, and from him and others, Calder learned to draw on the energy of daily life and the world around him. The young artist took up sketching for the National Police Gazette, where he honed his skills by capturing the fervor and action of sporting events, circus performances, and other boisterous activities. In 1926, Calder produced his first illustrated book, Animal Sketching, with a collection of brush and ink studies of animals in motion that he observed in the Bronx and Central Park Zoos. This early infatuation with depicting, harnessing, and translating the energy of life into two and three dimensions continued throughout the artist’s career.
Works like What Isle Is This? demonstrate Calder’s knack for capturing both actual movement and implied motion in all artistic forms. Speaking with curator Katharine Kuh, the artist quipped, "The mobile has actual movement in itself, while the stabile is back at the old painting idea of implied movement" (A. Calder and K. Kuh, “Alexander Calder,” The Artist’s Voice: Talks with Seventeen Artists, New York 1962). As early as the 1920s and 1930s, Calder began to involve himself in a number of interdisciplinary endeavors beyond his sculptural practice, including paintings, drawings, book illustrations, and even jewelry. All of these practices drew upon the same rich visual vocabulary that populates the canvas of What Isle Is This? with bold, abstract elements and a display of fluid momentum throughout.