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拍品專文
Drawn in 1907, Picasso’s powerful Nez quart de Brie (Étude pour Les Demoiselles d'Avignon ou Nu avec draperie) elucidates the artist’s radical proto-cubist style as he worked towards his groundbreaking, painting, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (Zervos, vol. 2a, no. 18; The Museum of Modern Art, New York). In this pivotal shift towards a very pared-down figurative style, Picasso represented an overall form through its fragmentation into geometric shapes, eschewing traditional naturalistic representation. As he juxtaposes the sharp, slanting lines of the nose, jawline, and shoulders with the sweeping, curvilinear arches and parabolas that define the eyes, ears, and forehead, Picasso imbues Nez quart de Brie with a powerful and rhythmic intensity. In its mask-like quality, the highly stylised face in the present work emanates an evocative and compulsive power, its vacant gaze immediately arresting.
Picasso’s innovative approach took inspiration from the recently deceased Paul Cezanne, who had boldly championed the virtues of formal geometry in his oeuvre, and Picasso had attended the posthumous retrospective of Cezanne’s works at the 1906 Salon d’Automne. Picasso was also influenced by African and Iberian art, both of which were the subject of significant contemporary cultural study and discussion. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris was abuzz with the discoveries of the recent excavations of French archaeologists Arthur Engel and Pierre Paris at Osuna and Cerro de los Santos, and the Louvre Museum’s collection of Iberian art and statuary was inaugurated in 1904. Picasso came upon the Louvre’s so-called ‘Iberian Cabinet’ in early 1906, and stylistic features of Iberian art swiftly began to permeate his work. Later that same year, Picasso travelled to Gósol, in the Catalonian Pyrenees, and art historian James Johnson Sweeney suggests this ten-week sojourn likely served as a catalyst for his enthusiasm for Iberian sculpture.
Upon his return to Paris, Picasso resumed work on a portrait of Gertrude Stein, one of his most important patrons, repainting his sitter’s head and face in a profoundly Iberian-esque idiom. In Gertrude Stein (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 352; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) the hallmarks of Iberian representation manifest in the dignified geometry of her mask-like countenance, as well as in the heavy lids of her eyes and the slope of the bridge of her nose. Nez quart de Brie demonstrates the crucial progression of Picasso’s embrace of the stylistic qualities of Iberian sculpture, as he amplified and intensified the architectonic geometry of the human visage. This stylistic evolution would ultimately lead to the establishment of Cubism. Here, in his exploration of the formalised structure of the face, Picasso moved away from the naturalistic, capturing humankind’s élan vital. In Nez quart de Brie, the artist conveys the figure’s facial features with a compelling severity, which combined with the purity of the medium imbues the figure with a transcendental and atavistic gravitas.
Scholars and art historians have noted the similarity of Nez quart de Brie to the rightmost figure in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, as well as to Nu à la draperie (Zervos, vol. 2a, no. 47; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). In all three of these works, Picasso imbues the simplified, geometric architecture of the face with a three-dimensionality, an effect created by meticulous strokes of hachure lines. In Nez quart de Brie, Picasso’s skilled wielding of the pencil with varying applications of pressure intensifies this sculptural quality, furthering the feeling of depth and volume.
Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo acquired Nez quart de Brie directly from Picasso, when they purchased Carnet 10, one of the artist’s sketchbooks which they carefully separated so as to better display the individual drawings. Highly influential cultural figures throughout the early 20th Century, Gertrude and Leo, indelibly shaped the reception of contemporary art in Paris at the turn of the century, collecting works of then little-known artists, who, through the Stein’s weekly salon, were to become some of modern art’s greatest names. Leo and Gertrude lived together on the rue de Fleurus, where they hosted open-house evenings every Saturday, prosthelytising on their most recent acquisitions. Although both were enraptured by his ability as a draughtsman, Gertrude was the most passionate about his talent, and when the two divided their collection in 1914 she kept almost all of his drawings. Nez quart de Brie remained with Gertrude throughout her life. Gertrude’s championing and endorsement of Picasso had such a fundamental impact on Picasso’s career, that, following the 1938 publication of her biography of the artist, William Cook wrote to her; ‘you have done Picasso legend and it will stay that way… without you he would have melded off somewhere, into something else, you have kept him and made him Picasso’ (William Cook to Gertrude Stein, 27 March 1938, in D. Gallup, ed., The Flowers of Friendship. Letters written to Gertrude Stein, New York, 1953, p. 327).
Picasso’s innovative approach took inspiration from the recently deceased Paul Cezanne, who had boldly championed the virtues of formal geometry in his oeuvre, and Picasso had attended the posthumous retrospective of Cezanne’s works at the 1906 Salon d’Automne. Picasso was also influenced by African and Iberian art, both of which were the subject of significant contemporary cultural study and discussion. At the beginning of the 20th century, Paris was abuzz with the discoveries of the recent excavations of French archaeologists Arthur Engel and Pierre Paris at Osuna and Cerro de los Santos, and the Louvre Museum’s collection of Iberian art and statuary was inaugurated in 1904. Picasso came upon the Louvre’s so-called ‘Iberian Cabinet’ in early 1906, and stylistic features of Iberian art swiftly began to permeate his work. Later that same year, Picasso travelled to Gósol, in the Catalonian Pyrenees, and art historian James Johnson Sweeney suggests this ten-week sojourn likely served as a catalyst for his enthusiasm for Iberian sculpture.
Upon his return to Paris, Picasso resumed work on a portrait of Gertrude Stein, one of his most important patrons, repainting his sitter’s head and face in a profoundly Iberian-esque idiom. In Gertrude Stein (Zervos, vol. 1, no. 352; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) the hallmarks of Iberian representation manifest in the dignified geometry of her mask-like countenance, as well as in the heavy lids of her eyes and the slope of the bridge of her nose. Nez quart de Brie demonstrates the crucial progression of Picasso’s embrace of the stylistic qualities of Iberian sculpture, as he amplified and intensified the architectonic geometry of the human visage. This stylistic evolution would ultimately lead to the establishment of Cubism. Here, in his exploration of the formalised structure of the face, Picasso moved away from the naturalistic, capturing humankind’s élan vital. In Nez quart de Brie, the artist conveys the figure’s facial features with a compelling severity, which combined with the purity of the medium imbues the figure with a transcendental and atavistic gravitas.
Scholars and art historians have noted the similarity of Nez quart de Brie to the rightmost figure in Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, as well as to Nu à la draperie (Zervos, vol. 2a, no. 47; State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). In all three of these works, Picasso imbues the simplified, geometric architecture of the face with a three-dimensionality, an effect created by meticulous strokes of hachure lines. In Nez quart de Brie, Picasso’s skilled wielding of the pencil with varying applications of pressure intensifies this sculptural quality, furthering the feeling of depth and volume.
Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo acquired Nez quart de Brie directly from Picasso, when they purchased Carnet 10, one of the artist’s sketchbooks which they carefully separated so as to better display the individual drawings. Highly influential cultural figures throughout the early 20th Century, Gertrude and Leo, indelibly shaped the reception of contemporary art in Paris at the turn of the century, collecting works of then little-known artists, who, through the Stein’s weekly salon, were to become some of modern art’s greatest names. Leo and Gertrude lived together on the rue de Fleurus, where they hosted open-house evenings every Saturday, prosthelytising on their most recent acquisitions. Although both were enraptured by his ability as a draughtsman, Gertrude was the most passionate about his talent, and when the two divided their collection in 1914 she kept almost all of his drawings. Nez quart de Brie remained with Gertrude throughout her life. Gertrude’s championing and endorsement of Picasso had such a fundamental impact on Picasso’s career, that, following the 1938 publication of her biography of the artist, William Cook wrote to her; ‘you have done Picasso legend and it will stay that way… without you he would have melded off somewhere, into something else, you have kept him and made him Picasso’ (William Cook to Gertrude Stein, 27 March 1938, in D. Gallup, ed., The Flowers of Friendship. Letters written to Gertrude Stein, New York, 1953, p. 327).