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拍品专文
This work will be included in the forthcoming Kees Van Dongen Digital Catalogue Raisonné, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
Women were Van Dongen's primary subject matter, a template for him to explore and celebrate the world of beauty and pleasure. "All women are beautiful," Van Dongen once explained. "They must be allowed to do as they please, for they pose better than men. They know how to arrange themselves so that everything they have shows up to their advantage. Men don't bother; they think they're handsome enough as they are" (quoted in J.-P. Crespelle, The Fauves, London, 1962, p. 224).
Van Dongen's social affinities and connections afforded him a unique vantage point from which he could observe and chronicle the glamour of contemporary life. He was alert to all the subtleties of social display and behavior, and he could cast a sardonic eye on his subjects when he chose to do so. Yet there is little evidence of ambivalence in his treatment of his sitters–he enjoyed the spectacle and moved easily within and largely identified with this world. As a genuine participant in the passing parade of these social scenes, Van Dongen did not seek or play the roles of the detached moralist or critic; he chose instead to let his sitters and subjects speak for this lifestyle and themselves. Louis Chaumeil called Van Dongen "le roi et peintre de son temps" (Van Dongen, Geneva, 1967, p. 216).
Van Dongen frequently courted controversy with the fragrant eroticism of such paintings as Jeune femme au petit bouquet and many others. Indeed, in his review of the 1913 Salon d’Automne, Guillaume Apollinaire remarked that Van Dongen appeared to be making a biannual habit of exhibiting work only to have it swiftly removed from view for the good of the public. This followed the outraged reaction of visitors to the exhibition who, upon seeing Van Dongen’s painting Le châle espagnol (now in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), demanded the work be removed for its salacious portrayal of the artist’s wife. The distinctive eroticism of enchanting sirens such as the sitter of the present work, and the often explicitly sexual nature of their content, proved quite shocking to contemporary audiences, and brought the artist a certain degree of notoriety within the Parisian art world.
Women were Van Dongen's primary subject matter, a template for him to explore and celebrate the world of beauty and pleasure. "All women are beautiful," Van Dongen once explained. "They must be allowed to do as they please, for they pose better than men. They know how to arrange themselves so that everything they have shows up to their advantage. Men don't bother; they think they're handsome enough as they are" (quoted in J.-P. Crespelle, The Fauves, London, 1962, p. 224).
Van Dongen's social affinities and connections afforded him a unique vantage point from which he could observe and chronicle the glamour of contemporary life. He was alert to all the subtleties of social display and behavior, and he could cast a sardonic eye on his subjects when he chose to do so. Yet there is little evidence of ambivalence in his treatment of his sitters–he enjoyed the spectacle and moved easily within and largely identified with this world. As a genuine participant in the passing parade of these social scenes, Van Dongen did not seek or play the roles of the detached moralist or critic; he chose instead to let his sitters and subjects speak for this lifestyle and themselves. Louis Chaumeil called Van Dongen "le roi et peintre de son temps" (Van Dongen, Geneva, 1967, p. 216).
Van Dongen frequently courted controversy with the fragrant eroticism of such paintings as Jeune femme au petit bouquet and many others. Indeed, in his review of the 1913 Salon d’Automne, Guillaume Apollinaire remarked that Van Dongen appeared to be making a biannual habit of exhibiting work only to have it swiftly removed from view for the good of the public. This followed the outraged reaction of visitors to the exhibition who, upon seeing Van Dongen’s painting Le châle espagnol (now in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris), demanded the work be removed for its salacious portrayal of the artist’s wife. The distinctive eroticism of enchanting sirens such as the sitter of the present work, and the often explicitly sexual nature of their content, proved quite shocking to contemporary audiences, and brought the artist a certain degree of notoriety within the Parisian art world.