.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The late Dina Vierny confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Following the devastation of the First World War, Maillol was asked by three French towns, Céret, Elne and Port-Vendres, all of which were near to his hometown Banylus, to create war memorials honouring those lost in battle. In these years following the end of the war, the French state was commissioning a number of artists to create memorials. Yet while many chose to depict the pathos, anguish or patriotism of the war, Maillol chose the theme of the pacifying female figure – her monumentality and classical style imparting a sense of harmony and immutability.
Maillol conceived three different works for each of these locations: a seated woman, with her head resting on her hand in the archetypal pose of melancholy for Céret; a standing figure for Elne; and a recumbent reclining one for Port-Vendres. The present work is a study for the Port- Vendres monument. John Rewald describes the final work: ‘the reclining figure of a young woman holds up a laurel branch in memory of the fallen, the silhouette of her powerful body stands out against the sky and seems to incarnate repose and calm; her whole attitude betrays a complete forgetfulness of past sorrows and a secret rise of hope’ (J. Rewald, Maillol, Paris, 1939, p. 20).
In creating Le monument de Port-Vendres, Maillol returned to the pose of a reclining nude figure that he had been exploring for another work, Monument à Cézanne, which the city of Aix had commissioned before the war. Together with a lack of funds, indecision over the details of the commission and the outbreak of the First World War, this plan was put on hold. Maillol, however, who regarded Cézanne as, ‘the genius of modern painting’ (Maillol, quoted in J. Rewald, ibid., p. 19), continued to pursue the idea, and returned to it following the end of the war in 1918. By 1920, the sculptor had arrived at its definitive state: a nude figure resting on her elbow while lifting her other arm to proffer a bunch of olive branches, a universal symbol of peace. With one leg bent slightly higher than the other, she is pictured reclining on a flowing drapery, as if she were resting in the current of a river, an allegory for the passing of time.
The present Premier état uses the same essential format as the Monument à Cézanne. For the final version of the Monument de Port- Vendres, Maillol drew on the sense of serenity and harmonious repose in this work, as well as the motif of the olive branch, adding draperies and altering slightly the position of the reclining figure so she is more upright, stately and majestic. Casts of both Monument à Cézanne and Monument de Port-Vendres reside today in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris.
With their smooth surfaces, calm stasis, classical aesthetic and their embodiment of l’éternal féminin, Maillol’s sculptures of this period serve as the embodiment of the ‘Return to Order’ or rappel à l’ordre, the cultural movement that defined artistic production in the years during and following the First World War. At this time, the avant-garde took a decidedly backward turn, looking to the art of antiquity and Classicism for both inspiration and reassurance. From Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance to the great French masters, Poussin, David and Ingres, a host of artists mined the past in order to fulfil the overwhelming cultural and ideological need for unity, order and stability to counteract and heal the unimagined horror wrought by four years of war. The pre-war avant-garde and its exaltation of subjectivity, abstraction and extreme experimentation was replaced by a new form of inherently patriotic, measured and restrained modernity that embodied the Latin or ‘classical’ values of stability, harmony and tradition. Maillol’s sculptures, with their wholeness, stability and reference to the past, offered a new form of modern sculpture in this post-war period.
Following the devastation of the First World War, Maillol was asked by three French towns, Céret, Elne and Port-Vendres, all of which were near to his hometown Banylus, to create war memorials honouring those lost in battle. In these years following the end of the war, the French state was commissioning a number of artists to create memorials. Yet while many chose to depict the pathos, anguish or patriotism of the war, Maillol chose the theme of the pacifying female figure – her monumentality and classical style imparting a sense of harmony and immutability.
Maillol conceived three different works for each of these locations: a seated woman, with her head resting on her hand in the archetypal pose of melancholy for Céret; a standing figure for Elne; and a recumbent reclining one for Port-Vendres. The present work is a study for the Port- Vendres monument. John Rewald describes the final work: ‘the reclining figure of a young woman holds up a laurel branch in memory of the fallen, the silhouette of her powerful body stands out against the sky and seems to incarnate repose and calm; her whole attitude betrays a complete forgetfulness of past sorrows and a secret rise of hope’ (J. Rewald, Maillol, Paris, 1939, p. 20).
In creating Le monument de Port-Vendres, Maillol returned to the pose of a reclining nude figure that he had been exploring for another work, Monument à Cézanne, which the city of Aix had commissioned before the war. Together with a lack of funds, indecision over the details of the commission and the outbreak of the First World War, this plan was put on hold. Maillol, however, who regarded Cézanne as, ‘the genius of modern painting’ (Maillol, quoted in J. Rewald, ibid., p. 19), continued to pursue the idea, and returned to it following the end of the war in 1918. By 1920, the sculptor had arrived at its definitive state: a nude figure resting on her elbow while lifting her other arm to proffer a bunch of olive branches, a universal symbol of peace. With one leg bent slightly higher than the other, she is pictured reclining on a flowing drapery, as if she were resting in the current of a river, an allegory for the passing of time.
The present Premier état uses the same essential format as the Monument à Cézanne. For the final version of the Monument de Port- Vendres, Maillol drew on the sense of serenity and harmonious repose in this work, as well as the motif of the olive branch, adding draperies and altering slightly the position of the reclining figure so she is more upright, stately and majestic. Casts of both Monument à Cézanne and Monument de Port-Vendres reside today in the Tuileries Gardens, Paris.
With their smooth surfaces, calm stasis, classical aesthetic and their embodiment of l’éternal féminin, Maillol’s sculptures of this period serve as the embodiment of the ‘Return to Order’ or rappel à l’ordre, the cultural movement that defined artistic production in the years during and following the First World War. At this time, the avant-garde took a decidedly backward turn, looking to the art of antiquity and Classicism for both inspiration and reassurance. From Antiquity and the Italian Renaissance to the great French masters, Poussin, David and Ingres, a host of artists mined the past in order to fulfil the overwhelming cultural and ideological need for unity, order and stability to counteract and heal the unimagined horror wrought by four years of war. The pre-war avant-garde and its exaltation of subjectivity, abstraction and extreme experimentation was replaced by a new form of inherently patriotic, measured and restrained modernity that embodied the Latin or ‘classical’ values of stability, harmony and tradition. Maillol’s sculptures, with their wholeness, stability and reference to the past, offered a new form of modern sculpture in this post-war period.