Man in a Hammock

L'Homme au hamac, also referred to as Man in a Hammock, is a painting created in 1913 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at Moderni Umeni, SVU Mánes, Vystava, Prague, February – March 1914, no. 41; and Der Sturm, Berlin, July – August 1914.[1] The painting was reproduced in Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris-Journal, July 4, 1914 (published again in Chroniques d'Art, 1960. p. 405); and Albert Gleizes, L'Épopée, Le Rouge et le Noir, October 1929, p. 81. Stylistically Gleizes' painting exemplifies the principle of mobile perspective laid out in Du "Cubisme", written by himself and French painter Jean Metzinger. Evidence suggests that the man reclining in the hammock is indeed Jean Metzinger. Formerly in the collection of Metzinger, the first owner of the painting, Man in a Hammock forms part of the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.[2]

Man in a Hammock
French: L'Homme au hamac
ArtistAlbert Gleizes
Year1913
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions130 cm × 155.5 cm (51.2 in × 61.2 in)
LocationAlbright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Description

Man in a Hammock is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 130 by 155.5 cm (51.2 x 61.2 inches) signed and dated "Alb Gleizes 13", lower left. Painted in 1913, the work "presents an interesting synthesis of back and forth motion," writes art historian Daniel Robbins (Guggenheim, 1964), "and introduces a composition based on the intersection of powerful diagonals".[3] Man in a Hammock is related to a number of other works,[4] such as a watercolor and a sepia ink over pencil drawing from 1909, a pencil and ink dated 1913, in addition to at least three other works in various media.[5] A large and finished painting of L'Homme au hamac dating from the summer of 1909 is on the reverse of Houses among Trees, 113.5 x 154 cm, 1910. In both the proto-Cubist version and in a small oil sketch (formerly in the collection of Ida Bienert, Dresden) the man wears a large sombrero.[3]

Portrait of Jean Metzinger
Left: Photograph of Jean Metzinger circa 1912. Right: Man in a Hammock by Albert Gleizes, 1913, detail

The reclining figure is clearly readable. His face is seen both from a profile and frontal view simultaneously. While this property of seeing multiple facial features at once is rare in the work of Gleizes, it is seen quite often in the works of Metzinger.[6][7] The figure is situated in a landscape setting that recedes to buildings typical of Parisian suburbs around 1900 in the upper center background of the canvas. In the foreground, the sitter's right leg is supported by a Paris-style park chair. The table placed next to the sitters right arm, portrayed as if seen from above in accord with the non-Euclidean geometry first pronounced by Paul Cézanne, supports various elements; a vase, a glass, some fruit (perhaps lemons) and a spoon. The long spoon, according to Christian Briend[8] (Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris), is a reference to the principle accessory of Metzinger's seminal 1911 Le goûter (Tea Time); dubbed by André Salmon "La Joconde du Cubisme" (The Mona Lisa of Cubism).[9][10][11][12]

Gleizes utilizes a multitude of colors—unlike the limited palette often associated with early Cubism—ranging from large areas of ochre, red, white and blue, surrounding the grisaille figure.[13]

The man represented in the painting is very likely a portrait of Jean Metzinger.[8] The book entitled Paroles devant la vie,[14] held prominently by the model was written by Alexandre Mercereau in 1913. Gleizes had collaborated in founding the Abbaye de Créteil, and was very familiar with Mercereau's writings. Metzinger wrote an important text about Mercereau in 1911.[15] It was Mercereau who introduced Gleizes to Metzinger in 1910. Mercereau's publisher, Eugène Figuière, a year earlier had published Du "Cubisme", the Cubist manifesto written by Gleizes and Metzinger.

Gustave Courbet, 1844, Le Rêve (The Hammock), oil on canvas, 70.5 × 97 cm, Museum Oskar Reinhart, Switzerland

In Gleizes' painting, one does not merely see a figure swinging in a hammock; one sees multiple aspects of the same figure simultaneously refracted into new pictorial language. Mercereau attempted to represent facets of time in his writings, much as Gleizes and Metzinger attempted to represent facets of space, time and form in their paintings.[16]

Man in a Hammock integrates the man into the landscape, forming a single image by virtue of a non-linear grid. This device is used by Gleizes very skillfully to accommodate all aspects of the scene. Mercereau's book, the still-life next to the sitter, the man, and the environment are all symbols of fundamental importance to Gleizes, an artist who rarely, if ever, contented himself with mundane subjects (a guitar, violin, or a bowl of fruit).[17]

Man in a Hammock is testament to the close association of two artists, Metzinger and Gleizes, and to their shared social, cultural and philosophical conviction that painting represented more than a fleeting glimpse of the world in which they lived, that indeed by showing multiple facets of a subject captured at successive intervals in time simultaneously, a truer more complete image would emerge.[6]

'We feared the dogmas and hermetic ideas, destructive acts disguised as new constructions, before they appeared as we knew they would. Rejecting nothing, we sketched out a traditional curve in French painting from Courbet to ourselves as the latest arrivals, persuaded that the new order cannot be created independently of the permanent order'. (Albert Gleizes, 1917)[18][19]

Provenance
  • Jean Metzinger
  • Mme Russo
  • Sidney Janis Gallery, 1957
  • Purchased by Albright Art Gallery, February 22, 1957

Exhibitions
  • Moderni Umeni, S.V.U., Manes, Prague, 1914, no. 41
  • Der Sturm, Berlin, July, 1914

Literature
  • Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris-Journal, July 4, 1914, cf. Chroniques d'Art, 1960. p. 405
  • Albert Gleizes, L'Epopee, Le Rouge et le Noir, October, 1929, p. 81
  • Painting and sculpture from antiquity to 1942, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Steven A. Nash - 1979
  • The Saturday Review, 1965
  • Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953: A Retrospective Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum - 1964
  • Saturday Review, Henry Seidel Canby, Bernard Augustine De Voto, George Cooper Stevens - 1965
  • Painters of the Section d'Or: The Alternatives to Cubism. Exhibition September 27-October 22, 1967, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York - 1967
  • Gallery Notes, Albright-Knox Art Gallery - 1970
  • Masterworks at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Karen Lee Spaulding - 1999
  • 125 masterpieces from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Karen Lee Spaulding, Albright-Knox Art Gallery - 1987
  • Gallery Notes, Buffalo Fine Arts Academy - 1958
  • The Guggenheim Museum collection: paintings, 1880-1945, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Angelica Zander Rudenstine - 1976
  • Albert Gleizes: Catalogue Raisonné, Albert Gleizes, Anne Varichon, Daniel Robbins - 1998
  • L'Oeil, Georges Bernier, Rosamond Bernier - 1999
  • Albert Gleizes et le dessin: 11 December 1970 - 25 January 1971
  • André Dubois, Saint-Étienne (Loire, France). Musée d'art et d'industrie - 1970
  • Maurice Raynal: la bande à Picasso, David Raynal - 2008
  • Gallery Notes, Albright-Knox Art Gallery - 1953
  • Œuvres en prose, Guillaume Apollinaire, Michel Décaudin, Pierre Caizergues - 1991
  • International Auction Records, 1992

References
  1. Varichon, Anne, Albert Gleizes – Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 1, Paris, SOMOGY éditions d'art/Fondation Albert Gleizes, 1998, ISBN 2-85056-286-6
  2. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, L'Homme au hamac by Albert Gleizes
  3. Robbins, Daniel, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition, 1964
  4. L'Homme au hamac" 1913 Albert Gleizes.' plume et encre de Chine sur papier fort, 24.3 x 29.1 cm
  5. Homme dans un Hamac [Man in a Hammock], 1909, Watercolor and ink on paper, Albright-Knox Art Gallery / Art Resource, NY / Gleizes, Albert (1881-1953) ARS, NY
  6. Joann Moser, Daniel Robbins, Jean Metzinger in retrospect, 1985, The University of Iowa Museum of Art (J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press)
  7. Mark Antliff, Patricia Dee Leighten, Cubism and Culture, Thames & Hudson, 2001
  8. Briend, C., Exhibition Catalogue, Gleizes - Metzinger. Du Cubisme et après, 9 May - 22 September 2012, pp. 34, 36, Musée de La Poste, Galerie du Messager, Paris, France. Exposition in commemoration of 100th anniversary of the publication of Du "Cubisme"]
  9. André Salmon, L'Art Vivant, Paris, 1920
  10. André Salmon, Artistes d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, L'Art Vivant, 6th edition, Paris, 1920
  11. Guillaume Apollinaire, Dorothéa Eimert, Anatoli Podoksik, Le Cubisme, 2010 ISBN 978-1-78042-777-5
  12. Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tea Time (Woman with a Teaspoon), Provenance
  13. Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Karen Lee Spaulding, Masterworks at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Hudson Hills Press, 1999
  14. Alexandre Mercereau, Paroles devant la vie, Published 1913 by E. Figuière in Paris
  15. Alexandre Mercereau, Vers et prose 27, October–November 1911: 122-129
  16. Bernard Augustine De Voto, Saturday Review, Volume 48, Saturday Review Company, 1965
  17. Painters of the Section d'Or: The Alternatives to Cubism. Exhibition, September 27-October 22, 1967, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York
  18. Albert Gleizes: La Peinture Moderne, in 391, No.5, New York, June 1917
  19. Two Philosopher-Painters, Albert Gleizes and Kasimir Malevich
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