.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Olivier Lorquin has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Although Maillol followed Rodin in exploring the sculptural possibilities of the figure, he was one of the few great sculptors of the early 20th century who had not studied under him. His nascent style of balance, harmony, and quiet restraint represented a bold departure from the expressive gestures, dramatic movement, and textured surfaces that the older master favored, which constituted the dominant force in European sculpture at the turn of the century.
John Rewald observed: "To celebrate the human body, particularly the feminine body, seems to have been Maillol’s only aim. He did this in a style from which all grandiloquence is absent, a style almost earthbound and grave. The absence of movement, however, is compensated by a tenderness and charm distinctively his own; and while all agitation is foreign to his art, there is in his work, especially in his small statuettes, such quiet grace and such warm feeling that they never appear inanimate. He has achieved a peculiar balance between a firmness of forms which appear eternal and a sensitivity of expression—even sensuousness—which seems forever quivering and alive" (J. Rewald, Aristide Maillol, Paris, 1939, pp. 6-7).
La Nuit is one of Maillol's earliest sculptural compositions, and it is among the best-known and most widely admired within his oeuvre. Crouching, with her head resting on her arms which are themselves on her knees, the woman in La Nuit appears to be sleeping. Maillol chose not to identify night with unconscious sleep, and he has instead suggested a temporary state in which the figure has simply desisted from activity, and entered a passive period of rest, a state of mind and place removed from the cares and labor of daily living. There is an emotional aspect present here as well, which runs in a deeper current than is normally encountered in Maillol's sculptures; this repose carries a suggestion of world-weariness, tinged with introspection and perhaps even melancholy. Certainly, the fact that her face is hidden from view and is turned down, creating a sense of interiority, adds to the notion that this sculpture somehow embodies, rather than merely represents, the night.
Although Maillol followed Rodin in exploring the sculptural possibilities of the figure, he was one of the few great sculptors of the early 20th century who had not studied under him. His nascent style of balance, harmony, and quiet restraint represented a bold departure from the expressive gestures, dramatic movement, and textured surfaces that the older master favored, which constituted the dominant force in European sculpture at the turn of the century.
John Rewald observed: "To celebrate the human body, particularly the feminine body, seems to have been Maillol’s only aim. He did this in a style from which all grandiloquence is absent, a style almost earthbound and grave. The absence of movement, however, is compensated by a tenderness and charm distinctively his own; and while all agitation is foreign to his art, there is in his work, especially in his small statuettes, such quiet grace and such warm feeling that they never appear inanimate. He has achieved a peculiar balance between a firmness of forms which appear eternal and a sensitivity of expression—even sensuousness—which seems forever quivering and alive" (J. Rewald, Aristide Maillol, Paris, 1939, pp. 6-7).
La Nuit is one of Maillol's earliest sculptural compositions, and it is among the best-known and most widely admired within his oeuvre. Crouching, with her head resting on her arms which are themselves on her knees, the woman in La Nuit appears to be sleeping. Maillol chose not to identify night with unconscious sleep, and he has instead suggested a temporary state in which the figure has simply desisted from activity, and entered a passive period of rest, a state of mind and place removed from the cares and labor of daily living. There is an emotional aspect present here as well, which runs in a deeper current than is normally encountered in Maillol's sculptures; this repose carries a suggestion of world-weariness, tinged with introspection and perhaps even melancholy. Certainly, the fact that her face is hidden from view and is turned down, creating a sense of interiority, adds to the notion that this sculpture somehow embodies, rather than merely represents, the night.