.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
Painted in 1926, Nature morte à l'accordéon dates from Le Corbusier's final purist phase, arguably his most successful artistic era, in which his most revolutionary architectural principles came together with his artistic vision to produce a coherent aesthetic of synthetic purism and architectural modernism.
The year 1926 marked the highpoint of Le Corbusier's late purist style, a movement he had developed in tandem with the painter Amedée Ozenfant, whom he had first met when he moved to Paris in 1916 at the age of 29. Le Corbusier's and Ozenfant's purism was a direct reaction against cubism, which they saw as too irrational and romantic, and against the development of decorative elements within its once pure language. The two artists established the journal L'Esprit Nouveau in 1920, in which they advocated the use of modern industrial techniques to transform the standard of urban living, an idea that developed the rallying cry "Architecture or Revolution!" It was in this journal that Charles-Edouard Jeanneret first adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier (adapted from his maternal grandfather's name, Lecorbésier), but it was not until 1928 that he began to sign his paintings as such.
Echoing Le Corbusier's basic architectural principles, both he and Ozenfant advocated a modernisation and mechanisation of art, in which form is subject to proportional and ideal systems. Thus objects are represented in a purely conceptual manner, tending towards abstraction and nearing a pure compositional synthesis of elements, always based on an underlying framework of squares, symmetry and the golden section. Towards the end of 1926 and the beginning of 1927, separated from Ozenfant, Le Corbusier's art took a more representational turn, and he began to depict objects in his compositions in a more direct, often more figurative manner, marking the beginning of the period often referred to as that of the 'objets à réaction poétique'.
The composition of Nature morte à l'accordéon is based around the central carafe and strongly recalls the right hand side of another composition from 1926, Le dé violet (Jornod 49). In another work from 1926, Nature morte à la pipe (Jornod 57), Le Corbusier replicates almost the same composition as in the present work, but drastically alters the palette, creating a less dramatic contrast between the different elements of the composition. In Nature morte à l'accordéon Le Corbusier includes both dice and a pipe in his composition, this time integrating them into the body of the bottle in the background. As in so many of his paintings from this late purist phase, individual elements of the composition are subsumed into the design of the whole, rendering many of them largely conceptual and assigning to many a dual, and often unclear identity. Thus the crenellated lower half of the glass at the lower left, whose depiction recalls many of the jugs and carafes that appear in his compositions from the 1920s, also becomes the accordeon of the title, a reference to another painting of this period, Accordéon, carafe et cafetière (Jornod 55). This glass is echoed in the upper part of the composition where the neck of the carafe is amalgamated into a pair of glasses and the necks of another carafe and a bottle on the right hand side partially hidden behind the central element.
The second carafe, which largely dominates the left hand side of the composition, demonstrates one of Le Corbusier's strongest architectual principles and one that would characterise his work and his influence on future generations of architects more than any other; the description of space in order to complement the defined areas of the building. As well as using the space around a building to balance it, Le Corbusier was a great advocate of designing the facades of his buildings to include large expanses of uninterrupted window space and of leaving exterior walls not filled by windows as pure white space with no decorative or ornamental elements. The flat carafe on the left, interrupted decoratively only at the bottom, as well as the expanse of background around it, serve to define the more complex structures of the composition, while at the same time suggesting volume and perspective in the rest of the painting.
The year 1926 marked the highpoint of Le Corbusier's late purist style, a movement he had developed in tandem with the painter Amedée Ozenfant, whom he had first met when he moved to Paris in 1916 at the age of 29. Le Corbusier's and Ozenfant's purism was a direct reaction against cubism, which they saw as too irrational and romantic, and against the development of decorative elements within its once pure language. The two artists established the journal L'Esprit Nouveau in 1920, in which they advocated the use of modern industrial techniques to transform the standard of urban living, an idea that developed the rallying cry "Architecture or Revolution!" It was in this journal that Charles-Edouard Jeanneret first adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier (adapted from his maternal grandfather's name, Lecorbésier), but it was not until 1928 that he began to sign his paintings as such.
Echoing Le Corbusier's basic architectural principles, both he and Ozenfant advocated a modernisation and mechanisation of art, in which form is subject to proportional and ideal systems. Thus objects are represented in a purely conceptual manner, tending towards abstraction and nearing a pure compositional synthesis of elements, always based on an underlying framework of squares, symmetry and the golden section. Towards the end of 1926 and the beginning of 1927, separated from Ozenfant, Le Corbusier's art took a more representational turn, and he began to depict objects in his compositions in a more direct, often more figurative manner, marking the beginning of the period often referred to as that of the 'objets à réaction poétique'.
The composition of Nature morte à l'accordéon is based around the central carafe and strongly recalls the right hand side of another composition from 1926, Le dé violet (Jornod 49). In another work from 1926, Nature morte à la pipe (Jornod 57), Le Corbusier replicates almost the same composition as in the present work, but drastically alters the palette, creating a less dramatic contrast between the different elements of the composition. In Nature morte à l'accordéon Le Corbusier includes both dice and a pipe in his composition, this time integrating them into the body of the bottle in the background. As in so many of his paintings from this late purist phase, individual elements of the composition are subsumed into the design of the whole, rendering many of them largely conceptual and assigning to many a dual, and often unclear identity. Thus the crenellated lower half of the glass at the lower left, whose depiction recalls many of the jugs and carafes that appear in his compositions from the 1920s, also becomes the accordeon of the title, a reference to another painting of this period, Accordéon, carafe et cafetière (Jornod 55). This glass is echoed in the upper part of the composition where the neck of the carafe is amalgamated into a pair of glasses and the necks of another carafe and a bottle on the right hand side partially hidden behind the central element.
The second carafe, which largely dominates the left hand side of the composition, demonstrates one of Le Corbusier's strongest architectual principles and one that would characterise his work and his influence on future generations of architects more than any other; the description of space in order to complement the defined areas of the building. As well as using the space around a building to balance it, Le Corbusier was a great advocate of designing the facades of his buildings to include large expanses of uninterrupted window space and of leaving exterior walls not filled by windows as pure white space with no decorative or ornamental elements. The flat carafe on the left, interrupted decoratively only at the bottom, as well as the expanse of background around it, serve to define the more complex structures of the composition, while at the same time suggesting volume and perspective in the rest of the painting.