Cubist pochoirs

"Everything in nature takes its form from the sphere, the cone, and the cylinder," wrote Paul Cézanne. It was the major Cézanne retrospective in Paris in 1907, together with Picasso's discovery of African and Oceanic art around the same time, that gave rise to the Cubist movement which propelled art into the twentieth century and the machine age. Picasso's famous 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon shows Cubism in its earliest formative stage; its fractured perspectives derive, I believe, from Picasso's memories of the endless reflections he had glimpsed in the heavily mirrored brothels of the barrio chino in Barcelona, where the painting is set. In 1907 and 1908 Picasso, in close collaboration and friendly rivalry with Georges Braque, worked out the template for Cubism, an art in which the single perspective of a static onlooker is replaced by the multiple perspective of an all-seeing eye.

Pablo Picasso, Three Musicians

Pochoir after a painting

from Eugenio d'Ors Pablo Picasso 1930

Georges Braque, La Bouteille de Marc

Pochoir after a collage

from XXe Siècle, 1956

While Picasso and Braque were generous and open in sharing their discoveries with fellow artists, they were in no hurry to exhibit this ground-breaking work, and the first the general public knew of this radical new art was the Cubist room at the Salon des Indépendants in spring 1911, which showed work not by Cubism's originators but by their followers, who called themselves the Section d'Or. This same group staged an exhibition the following year at the Galerie La Boetie in Paris, to mark the publication of Du Cubisme by two of the members, Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes. America's introduction to Cubism came through a series of drypoints by Jacques Villon (who gave the Section d'Or its name), exhibited at the Armory Show in New York in 1913.

Henri Laurens, Nature Morte

Pochoir after a painting

from XXe Siècle, 1956

I've just acquired a copy of Guillaume Janneau's 1929 study L'Art Cubiste, which was enhanced by 12 pochoir (hand-stencilled) plates. The tricky task of cutting the stencils and hand-applying the gouache colour was entrusted to one of the masters of pochoir, Daniel Jacomet. I only have 11 of these plates (one by Léger is missing), but here they are, to give an overview of the movement, and the individual approaches developed by the various artists who followed in the wake of Braque and Picasso.

Georges Braque

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Pablo Picasso

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Albert Gleizes

Pochoir after a gouache

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Auguste Herbin

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Louis Marcoussis

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Georges Valmier

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Henri Laurens

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

André Lhote

Pochoir after a gouache

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Pablo Picasso

Pochoir after a painting

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Juan Gris

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

Fernand Léger

Pochoir after a watercolour

from L'Art Cubiste, 1929

More on Jeanne Bardey

I've been doing a little more digging on Jeanne Bardey (still without sight of the book on her by Hubert Thiolier). According to the Union List of Artist Names at the J. Paul Getty website, Jeanne Bardey's dates were 1876-1944, so it seems she was 7 years younger than I thought, and died 4 years earlier: I can't remember where I got my previous dates, but these seem more reliable. [Though apparently not: see the update at the foot of this post]. I have found several works by her illustrated in the Gazette des Beaux Arts, and a short essay on her in the Gazette's series Peintres-Graveurs Contemporains. The essay, published in 1913 and accompanied by the etched portrait reproduced in my last post, is by R. M. (presumably the art critic Roger Marx). Sorry for the poor quality of the images in this post, which are simply quick photos of reproductions in the Gazette, but it seems worthwhile posting what I can on this underservedly obscure artist, about whom so little information is readily available.

Jeanne Bardey, Étude

Fresco, 1911

The first mention I find of Jeanne Bardey is in a round-up article on Les Salons de 1911. Her fresco of a seated female nude is reproduced (taking up most of a page), and discussed by the author René Jean. It was exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants. Jean remarks on Jeanne Bardey's "very personal" fresco technique, in which the drawing is incised into a brick red ground. He asks, "Quelle est le part de M. Rodin, le maître de Mlle Bardey, dans ces nouvelles recherches? Peu importe: pour l'heure, il suffit de se laisser aller au charm bizarre que donne cette figure inclinée, les bras tendus au dossier du fauteuil tournant qui la reçut. Cette fille d'Ève offre et refuse à la fois le secret de ses lèvres ouvertes et de son regard fuyant: l'artiste qui la conçut avait la perception douloureuse d'une humanité à la poursuite vaine des oublis factices." What is the part of M. Rodin, the teacher of Miss Bardey, is these new researches? No matter: for now, it is enough to open oneself to the strange charm of this inclined figure, her arms outstretched to the back of the revolving chair on which she sits. This daughter of Eve both offers and refuses the secret of her opened lips and her elusive gaze: the artist who conceived her had a painful perception of a humanity in vain pursuit of false oblivion.

Jeanne Bardey, Ophèlie

Marble sculpture, 1913

After René Jean's rather over-excited response to the fresco nude, Roger Marx (if it is he) is more measured in his assessment of the art of Jeanne Bardey. He opens by acknowledging that, "It is a common experience to witness the rise to fame of a favoured female pupil of some independant master." He instances Judith Leyster and Frans Hals, Margeurite Gérard and Frago, Constance Mayer and Prud'hon, Eva Gonzalès and Manet, Mary Cassatt and Degas, "et, auprès de M. Rodin, Mlle Camille Claudel et Mme Jeanne Bardey." I note that throughout this article the artist is Mme Bardey, rather than Mlle as before. There's a reference on the internet to a visiting card of Rodin's inscribed, "Madame Bardey one of my friends has a talent that you will see. Your friend Aug. Rodin", presumably sent to introduce her to some art world luminary, but no date is given. It seems from what Roger Marx writes that Bardey was her married name, and that her husband was the Lyonnais artist Louis Bardey. Louis Bardey, described by Roger Marx as a "decorator", who had studied under Guichard, was born in 1851. I can't find a death date for him, but he is described as still active in 1913. He is described as Jeanne Bardey's first teacher.

Jeanne Bardey, Figure en marbre

Marble sculpture, 1913

Although Jeanne had shown a marked artistic talent since her schooldays, it was only in 1905, when she was nearing 30, that she commenced her artistic career. In 1907 she exhibited a still life at the Salon de Lyon, which was bought by the town for its museum; so far as I can tell this was her first publicly exhibited work. Buoyed-up by this success, Jeanne Bardey went to Paris to continue her studies, both in the academies and in hospitals and asylums where "she set herself to surprise on the faces of the insane and degenerate the flaws of imbalance and the stigmata of bewilderment and madness." Besides these studies of the mentally ill, Bardey filled sketchbooks with quick drawings of the human body in motion, and of nudes. It was these drawings that persuaded Rodin to take her into his atelier. "Drawing will give you the key to all the arts," he told her. At this period she branched out into etching, returned to painting,  made frescos. In 1911, under Rodin's guidance, she took up sculpture, "kneading clay, shaping marble from Asia or Sienna, or making bas-reliefs on Carrera marble in the Egyptian style."

Jeanne Bardey, Rieuse

Painting, 1913

Roger Marx concludes by saying that. "Mme Bardey leaves the impression of an artist who maintains, in the successful pursuit of powerful achievements, a nature inherently inventive, a delicate taste, refined by culture and a determined, lucid, and sensitive will." Despite this early acclaim, Jeanne Bardey did not become a famous artist. After Rodin's death in 1917 she lost her main promoter. So far as I can tell she retreated from Paris to Lyon, though whether she ever returned to Louis Bardey is unclear. She did continue to exhibit until the early 1930s. Having commenced at the Salon des Artistes Indépendants in 1908-1910, and the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs in 1911-1912, from 1913-1933 she moved her allegiance to the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Tuileries, and the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, of which she was elected a member in 1930.

UPDATE 13 June 2011: André Vessot kindly informs me that Jeanne Bardey was born in Lyon on August 10, 1872 and died in Lyon on October 8, 1954.

Rodin's last mistress? Jeanne Bardey

A comment from Emeline on my last post, about the profound unacknowledged contribution of his pupil, assistant, and mistress Camille Claudel to Rodin's work, reminded me that I have a number of etchings and drypoints by another of Rodin's pupils and mistresses, Jeanne Bardey. Like most of the women in Rodin's life - his longterm partner Rose Beuret, Camille Claudel, Gwen John - Jeanne Bardey got a raw deal from her relationship with him. She was born in Lyon 1869. She was therefore 5 years younger than Camille Claudel, and seven years older than Gwen John [N.B. This information appears to be wrong; her correct dates are 1872-1954; see the next post]. Rodin made a will in her favour, which was anulled when, after his fourth stroke, and when it has been argued he was incapable of informed assent, he was persuaded to sign a deed of gift willing all his estate to the French State. There's a whole book about this controversy, which I haven't seen, Jeanne Bardey et Rodin: Une élève passionnée - La bataille du Musée Rodin, by Hubert Thiolier.

Jeanne Bardey, Portrait

Etching, 1913

From her work, Jeanne Bardey appears to have shared some of the inward-looking sense of quiet that, in the case of Gwen John certainly, can mask a furiously passionate nature. My works by Bardey, especially the 1932 drypoints for an edition of Sous l'Olivier by Édouard Herriott, almost recede into the page - but there is something about the stance of that Greek boy that suggests a turbulent personality behind this reticent facade. It's probably too fanciful to see an echo of her relationship with Rodin in the centaur and the nymph, though like many of these drypoints it does have a distinct sculptural quality.

Jeanne Bardey, Shepherd with sheep

Drypoint, 1932

Jeanne Bardey, Delos

Drypoint, 1932

Jeanne Bardey, Bull's head

Drypoint, 1932

Jeanne Bardey, Greek boy

Drypoint, 1932

Jeanne Bardey, Centaur and nymph

Drypoint, 1932

Jeanne Bardey, The Parthenon

Drypoint, 1932

Herriott's text on Greece, published in an edition of only 136 copies, appears to mark the end of Jeanne Bardey's career. Although Jeanne Bardey exhibited at various Paris Salons between 1909 and 1930, her intimiste work has never won wide recognition. Much of it ended up in her hometown of Lyon, divided between the Musée des Arts Décoratifs and the Musée des Beaux-Arts. Jeanne Bardey died in 1948.

Lord of the Dance

Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) remains one of the most famous sculptors of all time. He is less well-known as a graphic artist. His drawings and watercolours are an important part of his work, and he also made 13 drypoints. Rodin was taught the technique of incising a drawing onto a copper plate with a drypoint needle by his friend Alphonse Legros, in London in 1881. Rodin and Legros had met in the drawing class of Horace Lecoq de Bosbaudran.

Rodin loved the immediacy of drypoint, the way he could use it to transfer his thoughts directly onto the copper. He didn’t work out a composition and then transfer it to the plate, he allowed the image to evolve on the plate. His drypoint portraits, for instance, generally show several views of the subject, more like a page from a sketchbook than a finished work.

 My Rodin drypoint, La Ronde, is more finished than most. Oddly the image is confined to the top quarter of the plate, while his monograph is a long way below at the bottom right, with the rest of the plate left blank. I suspect Rodin originally imagined he would try out his idea several times in the space available, was surprised by the perfection of the first image, and decided to leave well alone.

Auguste Rodin, La Ronde (detail)

Drypoint, 1883

It is a work with an extraordinary atmosphere, at once unnaturally still and wildly moving. A ring of male dancers whirl energetically in the centre, while to either side groups of figures stand or sit, passive and motionless. These “watchers”, who do not actually appear to be paying much notice to the dancers, seem more like judges in the underworld than an audience at a performance. There is a hieratic, ritual quality to the scene.

Auguste Rodin, La Ronde (full plate)

Drypoint, 1883

To understand this dreamlike image, with its underlying sense of unease caused by the tension between the frantic dancers and the immobile watchers, it is important to remember that when it was created, in 1883, Auguste Rodin was plunging deeply into the great artistic commission that would occupy much of his time and thought from 1880 until his death in 1917 – La Porte de l’Enfer. These monumental bronze Gates of Hell were intended to be the entrance to a planned Museum of the Decorative Arts. In the end, the Museum was never built, and Rodin anyway missed his deadline by over 20 years. The sculpture now stands where it was created, in the Hôtel Biron, now known as the Musée Rodin, with several bronze casts at other locations.

         La Porte de l’Enfer was a deeply felt response to Dante’s Inferno, which exercised a powerful grip on Rodin’s imagination. In my view, the dancers in La Ronde, caught in a ceaseless whirl, are lost souls, not merry revellers. The scene depicts one of the circles of Dante’s Hell.

         La Ronde is a vision set in a disconcerting world of dreams, not reality. One of the things that strikes me about it is the way it anticipates the Surrealist aesthetic. In particular, the work of André Masson seems to me to owe a huge debt to this simple, small-scale work, scratched onto a copper plate by Auguste Rodin one day in 1883.