+ Expand
Dimensions: 81.6 by 55cm., 32 1/8 by 21 5/8 in.
+ Expand
Provenance: Dr Chocquet, France
Acquired by the present owner in 1989
+ Expand
Exhibited:
Paris, Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, Anquetin, La passion d'être peintre, 1991, no. 21, illustrated in the catalogue
Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum & Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard, illustrated in the catalogue
+ Expand
Notes: To be included in the Louis Anquetin archives at Galerie Brame & Lorenceau, Paris
Louis Anquetin's striking appearance and artistic skill established him as one of the leading lights of the Parisian artistic and literary avant garde; 'he established a reputation as a brilliant, innovatory artist and leader of a café-cabaret circle centred on Aristide Bruant's Le Mirliton in Montmartre... His subject matter included townscapes, café-cabaret scenes, nudes, the racecourse and fashionable women: he absorbed and discarded with equal speed styles derived from Lautrec and Renoir' (John House & Mary Ann Stevens, Post-Impressionism, Cross-Currents in European Painting, London, 1979, p. 28).
During his frenetic career, Anquetin's work evolved through a range of different influences and styles, ranging from Degas to Japanese prints, and also the Impressionists. The present work, dating from 1891, is a highlight of the artist's oeuvre. The dramatic gaze of the subject holds our eye as it pierces through the veil in a tone that is intimate, almost flirtatious. Anquetin takes his cues from a range of artists though in this lot perhaps the biggest homage is paid to Lautrec, the bold outlines and slightly sordid subject matter of Parisian nightlife are typical of Lautrec's oeuvre. Yet Anquetin was the arguably the founder of a slight, though important movement that provided the artistic score for the decorous scenes of Paris at the end of the 19υth Century: Cloisonnism.
His old school friend Edouard Dujardin created the moniker, and in the Revue Indépendante used his analysis of Anquetin's work to link this style to the symbolist movement; 'In painting as well as in literature the representation of nature is idle fancy... On the contrary, the aim of painting, of literature, is to give the sensation of things through means specific to painting and literature; what ought to be expressed is not the image by the character [of the model]. Therefore, why retrace the thousands of insignificant details the eye perceives. One should select the essential trait and reproduce it - or, even better, produce it. An outline is sufficient to represent a face. Scorning photography, the painter will set out to retain, with the smallest possible number of characteristic lines and colours, the intimate reality, the essence of the object he selects' (E. Dujardin, 'Le Cloisonnisme', in Revue Indépendante, Paris, 19υth May 1888).
We're Hiring!
