Jean Metzinger

Robert Zunz, Paris (acquired circa 1940)
Thence by descent (and sold: Christie's, Paris, June 14, 2010, lot 25)
Acquired at the above sale

Paris, Grande Serre de l'Alma et des Invalides, Cour de la Reine, 21e Salon des Indépendants, 1905, no. 2901

In excellent condition; the canvas is unlined. The surface is clean. Under U.V, some original pigment fluoresces, but no inpainting is apparent.
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Jean Metzinger compared his mosaic-like Divisionist brushstroke technique to literature of the Symbolist writers of two decades earlier."I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescences and certain aspects of color still foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature." An interpretation of this statement was made by Robert Herbert: "What Metzinger meant is that each little tile of pigment has two lives: it exists as a place where mere size and direction are fundamental to the rhythm of the painting and, secondly, it also has color which can vary independently of size and placement" (Georges Desvallières, La Grande Revue, vol. 124, 1907, and quoted in Robert Herbert, Neo-Impressionism, New York, 1986, p. 221. Joann Moser, Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City 1985, pp. 34-35).

In 1905, around the time when La tour de Batz au coucher du soleil was painted, the 23-year-old Metzinger moved to Paris, where he encountered the styles of Seurat and Cézanne, applying his intellect and creative energies to the Divisionist Movement. The present work, so clearly the product of Metzinger's studies during this period, reveals another perspective on an artist frequently associated with Cubism. As S.E. Johnson observed of Metzinger, he "can only class that painter, in spite of his youth, as being already one of the leading artistic personalities in that period directly preceding Cubism...In an attempt to understand the importance of Metzinger in Modern Art, we could limit ourselves to three considerations.  Firstly, there is the often overlooked importance of Metzinger's Divisionist Period of 1900-1908.  Secondly, there is the consideration of Metzinger's whole Cubist Period from 1909 to 1930.  In taking into account these various factors, we can understand why Metzinger must be included among that small group of artists who have taken a part in the shaping of Art History in the first half of the Twentieth Century" (S.E. Johnson, Metzinger Pre-Cubist and Cubist Works 1900-1930 (exhibition catalogue), International Galleries, Chicago, 1964, pp. 3-10).