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Lot Essay
Lokomotive von Vorne dates from 1922, a pivotal period in Walter Dexel’s œuvre, when, in his prominent position as Art Director at the Art Union in Jena, the artist frequented various circles of artists and intellectuals, most notably befriending the Dutch De Stijl artist Théo van Doesburg, who fostered his progressive shift towards non-representational subject matters.
The painting belongs to a well-celebrated group of works the artist executed in 1921-1923 in various medium, highlighting technical subjects, such as sailing boats, steamships, locomotives, airplanes, and unspecified machines, confronting modern inventions in an avant-garde style, his subject and method in artistic concordance.
The series begins with a steam engine (Dampfmaschine, 1921, Wöbkemeier no. 169), in which, unlike in the following images, the colour fields are not yet on one level; rather, the two bands running diagonally to the oval assume a dominant role and push the other colour fields onto a second level. The detailed graphic designation of the other colour fields reinforces this effect.
In Lokomotive 1921 XI (Wöbkemeier no. 173) and in the airplane Das Flugzeug, 1922, (Wöbkemeier no. 182), in the collection of the Kunsthalle Augsburg, Munich, the dark fields become signs of movement. With the electric meter, Der Elektrische Zähler, 1922 (Wöbkemeier no. 184), the contrast in brightness becomes the new area contrast. In order to achieve symbolic field effects, Dexel no longer contrasts these areas in order to use the colour contrast to thematize spatial effects or image movements. In the past he still gained the painterly unity from the subject - namely from the tension between the imaginary image and the object.
This double perspective in the questioning of the surface was still present in the rhythmic pictures between 1917 and 1920 and caused the stage-like impression of the early work. Now the shapes are no longer determined by their relation to the total area. The new symbolic pictorial elements build up more from the central axis of the picture than from the edges of the picture. The pictures from 1922, which are reflected in a constantly recurring balance on the central axis, could tend to be continued beyond the edge of the picture. (R. Wöbkemeier, ‘Das Werk Dexels in seiner Zeit’, in Walter Dexel, Werkverzeichnis, Heidelberg, 1995, p. 54)
The vocabulary that Dexel employs in this extraordinary group of works is condensed, in Lokomotive von Vorne, in a relatively small space; diagonal lines intersect curved shapes lending the composition a sense of movement, which seem to continue beyond the edge of the canvas. When Dexel works with concise spatial energies, light against dark, pointed against round, are not heated up dissonantly, but are given a geometric rhythm.
In the present lot Dexel’s incredibly meticulous and strict approach to the surface is also at its best: the circular disks are fully geometrically positioned in the central axis, which gives the picture a perfect sense of balance.
Offered at auction for the first time, having remained in the same private collection for over fifty years, Lokomotive von Vorne constitutes a superb example of Walter Dexel's distinct constructivist idiom.
The painting belongs to a well-celebrated group of works the artist executed in 1921-1923 in various medium, highlighting technical subjects, such as sailing boats, steamships, locomotives, airplanes, and unspecified machines, confronting modern inventions in an avant-garde style, his subject and method in artistic concordance.
The series begins with a steam engine (Dampfmaschine, 1921, Wöbkemeier no. 169), in which, unlike in the following images, the colour fields are not yet on one level; rather, the two bands running diagonally to the oval assume a dominant role and push the other colour fields onto a second level. The detailed graphic designation of the other colour fields reinforces this effect.
In Lokomotive 1921 XI (Wöbkemeier no. 173) and in the airplane Das Flugzeug, 1922, (Wöbkemeier no. 182), in the collection of the Kunsthalle Augsburg, Munich, the dark fields become signs of movement. With the electric meter, Der Elektrische Zähler, 1922 (Wöbkemeier no. 184), the contrast in brightness becomes the new area contrast. In order to achieve symbolic field effects, Dexel no longer contrasts these areas in order to use the colour contrast to thematize spatial effects or image movements. In the past he still gained the painterly unity from the subject - namely from the tension between the imaginary image and the object.
This double perspective in the questioning of the surface was still present in the rhythmic pictures between 1917 and 1920 and caused the stage-like impression of the early work. Now the shapes are no longer determined by their relation to the total area. The new symbolic pictorial elements build up more from the central axis of the picture than from the edges of the picture. The pictures from 1922, which are reflected in a constantly recurring balance on the central axis, could tend to be continued beyond the edge of the picture. (R. Wöbkemeier, ‘Das Werk Dexels in seiner Zeit’, in Walter Dexel, Werkverzeichnis, Heidelberg, 1995, p. 54)
The vocabulary that Dexel employs in this extraordinary group of works is condensed, in Lokomotive von Vorne, in a relatively small space; diagonal lines intersect curved shapes lending the composition a sense of movement, which seem to continue beyond the edge of the canvas. When Dexel works with concise spatial energies, light against dark, pointed against round, are not heated up dissonantly, but are given a geometric rhythm.
In the present lot Dexel’s incredibly meticulous and strict approach to the surface is also at its best: the circular disks are fully geometrically positioned in the central axis, which gives the picture a perfect sense of balance.
Offered at auction for the first time, having remained in the same private collection for over fifty years, Lokomotive von Vorne constitutes a superb example of Walter Dexel's distinct constructivist idiom.