Deux cavaliers au bois

This lively and vibrant work by Kees Van Dongen, shows a fashionable couple on horseback, riding together through a richly painted landscape. Their encounter takes place in a dream-like atmosphere emphasised by the intense pinks and greens used in the rendering of the sky and forest.
The picture brilliantly showcases two of the most typical traits of Van Dongen’s œuvre: the artist’s profound interest in the representation of contemporary fashionable life and his vibrant and colourful palette.

When looking at this picture, it is certainly not surprising to learn that in 1920 several critics described Van Dongen as ‘un nouveau Boldini’ (A. Hopmans, Van Dongen. Fauve, anarchiste et mondain, exh. cat., Paris 2011, pp. 169-170), comparing him to one of the most fashionable society painters of the time. In the 1920s the artist, then in his fifties, had finally obtained the success he had worked towards throughout his life, enjoying a level of popularity and economic stability that allowed him to come into contact with the more glamorous side of Paris.

Young, elegant horseback riders offered Van Dongen the opportunity to fully render the glamour of Parisian life, a subject that became central to his production during the course of the 1920s. The artist painted several versions of this scene, including a small preparatory study for the present picture. In all these paintings, despite the lively attitude of the reared up horses, their riders appear placid, peaceful and especially refined, a contrast masterfully rendered by Van Dongen through his skillful use of recurring curved and delicate lines.

The artist’s technique, most notably his free brushstrokes and brightly contrasted colours, enhances the joyful tone of the scene, allowing him to convey at once the elegance and light-heartedness of the encounter between the two figures. A comparison with the preparatory study for this work highlights how the artist favoured a much brighter palette in the final version, abandoning the subdued and almost pastel-like tones for far more sumptuous and lustrous colours. Significant remnants of his fauvist years are evident in the contrast between the almost acidic pinks and greens of the sky and trees, while specks of bright yellow further enrich the overall palette of the scene.

The fascinating combination of the sophistication and colourful liveliness exemplified by the subject matter and palette of this work is one that permeates the artistic production of Van Dongen in the 1920s. Approximately four years after the completion of this picture, a critic noted: ‘if Van Dongen is to the eyes of the fashionable a fauve, then he is to the eyes of the fauves a fashionable’ (M. Gauthier, ‘Kees Van Dongen’, in L’Art vivant, no. 129, 15 May 1930, pp. 399-400).