Les Saltimbanques

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Les Saltimbanques
Pablo Picasso , 1905
Oil on canvas
212 × 229 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

Les Saltimbanques (German Die Gaukler ) is a painting by the Spanish painter Pablo Picasso from 1905 ; it is considered to be his main work from the time of the Pink Period . The 212 × 229 centimeter painting is held by the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

description

The oil painting on canvas shows a desolate dune landscape under a heavily cloudy blue sky, in which a group of five jugglers is standing, who are obviously getting ready to move on. Among them is a little girl in a short skirt, whose right hand is touching a basket of flowers, while her left hand is held by a harlequin in a diamond-adorned suit. Both turn their backs on the viewer. Next to them stands a sturdy older man in a red clown robe with a matching pointed cap , shouldering a sack. A short distance behind is a young man wearing only dark shorts and carrying a drum on his shoulders. He dominates the center of the picture. A boy in a blue robe and pointy black shoes stands with his arms hanging next to him. At the right edge of the picture sits a young girl with a straw hat, who is noticeably separated from the group of people, she looks into the distance as if she does not belong to the group. A clay jug is placed next to her long, red skirt. The emptiness of the landscape increases the plasticity of the group.

About the history of the painting

Pablo Picasso, 1904

Picasso had begun the first sketches towards the end of 1904. As his studies show, it was initially not clear whether the design was aimed at a single scene or a group portrait. Some designs show a horse race in the background. Remains of overpainting or corrections can be seen on the painting, some of which the artist left visible. Pictorial elements such as an oven or circus wagon have been deleted so that the group is depicted in an abandoned landscape. It is possible that impressions manifest here that Picasso had made from a trip to Holland in June and July 1905 , where he saw dune landscapes for the first time. The idea for this trip came from the Dutch painter Kees van Dongen , who like Picasso had his studio in the Bateau-Lavoir in Paris, and the journalist Tom Schilperoort. Today's version suggests a self-portrait of Picasso in the harlequin figure on the left, while the strong figure next to him is referred to as the clown El Tio Pepe from the Médrano Circus .

Picasso's friend, the poet Guillaume Apollinaire , had sent him excerpts from his volume of poetry Alcools , published in 1913 , namely the poems Saltimbanques and Crépuscule , in 1905 , the verses of which may have additionally influenced his interest in artistic subjects through lyrical images of the traveling people and the Harlequin Picasso .

The work was acquired in 1905 by the collectors' group “La Peau de l'Ours” (The Bear's Skin), largely managed by André Level, for the then relatively high price of 1,000 francs. Picasso was considered a promising modern painter, but was still far from the fame of later years. In 1914, the work was auctioned on March 2, as part of the collection of 145 works in the auction house Hôtel Drouot . It was the first auction dedicated to modernism and thus the acid test for Picasso and modernism in general. Picasso himself had already entered the cubist phase, which means that the work was already considered a major work of the earlier phase. Les Saltimbanques was called up at 8,000 francs and ultimately bought by Heinrich Thannhauser and his Munich gallery for a spectacular 11,500 francs at that time (a current equivalent of over € 100,000). His bid outdid other important art dealers such as Alfred Flechtheim from Düsseldorf and Georg Caspari, also from Munich. For contemporaries as well as for the modern art trade, this award marked the victory of new painting in France before the First World War. While the traditionalists saw it as a sign of the approaching “end of art”, Picasso's friends, especially Max Jacob , rushed out of the auction room with the battle cry “Off to Picasso!” To report the sensation to him.

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke studied the picture with the writer Hertha Koenig , who had acquired the painting in 1915 from the Thannhauser Gallery in Munich on a tip from Rilke and was inspired by the melancholy mood in his fifth Duinese elegy to write the following verses: "But who are they, tell me, the travelers, these a little fugitives even more than we ourselves [...]?" Hertha Koenig owned the painting until 1931. After the sale of Les Saltimbanques to an Oldenburg art dealer, it was sold to the American entrepreneur Chester Dale and his collection came to the National Gallery in Washington, where he was one of the benefactors.

The printed series of graphic sheets Les Saltimbanques followed in 1913 , for which Picasso had already made the etchings in 1904/05.

Titling

The French painter Gustave Doré created a painting of the same name in 1874. "Saltimbanque" means exactly translated "somersault over a bench".

Under the same name there is an Opéra-comique in three acts, which was premiered in the Théâtre de la Gaîté on December 30, 1899 in Paris. The libretto is by Maurice Ordonneau, the music by Louis Ganne.

The Dutch Folkert de Jong created an installation of the same title, which was exhibited in 2007 at the James Cohan Gallery in New York . The inspiration for this work can be derived from Picasso.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Siegfried Gohr: I don't look, I find . DuMont, Cologne 2006, p. 51 f
  2. ↑ Justin Beplate: Apollinaire and Picasso in the Dock. Times Literary Supplement, July 30, 2008, accessed March 19, 2009 .
  3. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of September 2, 2018: Das Syndikat vom Bärenfell , Rainer Stamm, Feuilleton
  4. ↑ See the web link to Hertha Koenig
  5. ^ Founding Benefactors of the National Gallery of Art: Chester Dale. Archived from the original on March 4, 2009 ; Retrieved March 25, 2009 .