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拍品專文
Executed circa 1950, Van Dongen’s Le Cirque captures the energy and excitement of the circus as it revives the artist’s engagement with a subject that had pre-occupied him since the beginning of his career. Deftly joining the flamboyance and flair of subject and style, Le Cirque portrays the showmanship of a circus in the artist’s characteristic expressive style.
Like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, and Georges Seurat before him, Van Dongen took on the spectacle of the circus as his subject depicting acrobats, clowns, and exotic animals. To the artists concerned with capturing it, acts such as Raoul Donval’s Nouveau Cirque and the famed Cirque Medrano were paragons of the magic and modernity of life in Paris. van Dongen, too, was drawn in by this excitement, but while his contemporaries’ engagement with the circus was primarily vicarious, van Dongen’s was informed by personal experience. Shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1897, van Dongen supported himself with a series of odd jobs including stints as a wrestler, a carnival roustabout, and a porter with the Chez Marseille circus troop; his proximity to its action brought the circus fully into his work as he executed early drawings and watercolors depicting its acrobats, clowns, and bareback riders.
Van Dongen’s study of the circus further developed when in 1906 he moved into Montmartre’s famed Bateau-Lavoir and became acquainted with fellow resident Pablo Picasso. The two artists shared a love of the circus’ striking costumes and larger-than-life characters and often attended the Cirque Medrano together to sketch its performers in action. In contrast to Picasso, however, Van Dongen was captivated chiefly by the color and movement of the spectacle; his renditions of the circus became studies in complementary color and exercises in expression, laying the foundations for the style of painting he later developed.
Le Cirque, executed nearly half a century later, revives Van Dongen’s early interest in the circus in brilliant fashion as it dovetails its ebullient subject with the artist’s mature style. Just as the small scale of the circus allowed for an atmosphere of intimacy between spectators and performers, Le Cirque too, with its cropped perspective, creates a sense of closeness and places the viewer directly on the stage to join in the performance. The artist also imbues the scene with elements of fantasy to enhance the spectacle: as a dashing rider trots proudly on his white stallion across the dusty red sand of the circus tent, a clown, flanked by white doves, removes its own head while balancing on a ball. Van Dongen’s circus challenges the viewer to make sense of the scene as he toes the line between reality and fantasy, just as the real-world circus would.
Like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Edgar Degas, and Georges Seurat before him, Van Dongen took on the spectacle of the circus as his subject depicting acrobats, clowns, and exotic animals. To the artists concerned with capturing it, acts such as Raoul Donval’s Nouveau Cirque and the famed Cirque Medrano were paragons of the magic and modernity of life in Paris. van Dongen, too, was drawn in by this excitement, but while his contemporaries’ engagement with the circus was primarily vicarious, van Dongen’s was informed by personal experience. Shortly after his arrival in Paris in 1897, van Dongen supported himself with a series of odd jobs including stints as a wrestler, a carnival roustabout, and a porter with the Chez Marseille circus troop; his proximity to its action brought the circus fully into his work as he executed early drawings and watercolors depicting its acrobats, clowns, and bareback riders.
Van Dongen’s study of the circus further developed when in 1906 he moved into Montmartre’s famed Bateau-Lavoir and became acquainted with fellow resident Pablo Picasso. The two artists shared a love of the circus’ striking costumes and larger-than-life characters and often attended the Cirque Medrano together to sketch its performers in action. In contrast to Picasso, however, Van Dongen was captivated chiefly by the color and movement of the spectacle; his renditions of the circus became studies in complementary color and exercises in expression, laying the foundations for the style of painting he later developed.
Le Cirque, executed nearly half a century later, revives Van Dongen’s early interest in the circus in brilliant fashion as it dovetails its ebullient subject with the artist’s mature style. Just as the small scale of the circus allowed for an atmosphere of intimacy between spectators and performers, Le Cirque too, with its cropped perspective, creates a sense of closeness and places the viewer directly on the stage to join in the performance. The artist also imbues the scene with elements of fantasy to enhance the spectacle: as a dashing rider trots proudly on his white stallion across the dusty red sand of the circus tent, a clown, flanked by white doves, removes its own head while balancing on a ball. Van Dongen’s circus challenges the viewer to make sense of the scene as he toes the line between reality and fantasy, just as the real-world circus would.