ABSTRACT ART BETWEEN THE WARS. CUBIST AND SURREALIST REACTIONS.
|
|
|
Braque, Picasso and Gris came very close to abstraction in 1914, as can be seen through looking at a few histories of the art of that period. In his Vision in Motion Moholy-Nagy set side by side a Braque collage of 1914 and a Malevitch composition of 1921, showing a striking resemblance between the two works. This must have been accidental, since Braque never intended to go in for abstraction, while Malevitch had no use for figuration after 1913. For example when Braque said "Let us forget about things, and only consider relationships" he was certainly far from realising how close he was to Mondrian. Words often outstrip thought: did not Picasso once remark about Juan Gris that the disciple often sees things more clearly than his master?
Léger gave much more thought and time to the claims of an integral abstract art, and for a time, between 1913 and 1919, he seems to have been very strongly tempted by it. His admirable series of Contrasting Forms of 1913-1914 is not abstract art in the strictest sense of the term, but comes within an ace of it. I have no idea who or what deflected Léger from what would have been his normal evolution. Towards 1924 he interrupted his usual style of painting to produce some mural compositions which were entirely abstract and, indeed, very much in line with Neo-plasticism. Two of them were given prominent places at the Cercle et Carré exhibition in 1930.
During the nineteen-twenties, when it was directed by Léger and Ozenfant, the Académie Moderne turned out a large number of young abstract artists. Thanks to their youth they were Thanks to their youth they were not slow in pushing Cubism to its logical conclusions, and I know that they were not discouraged by Léger in their pursuit of abstract art. He wrote some years later, "Of all the different directions in which the plastic arts have developed in the past 25 years, abstract art is the most important as well as the most interesting.
It is no mere freak of experiment, but an art with its own intrinsic value. It has proved itself and also satisfies a demand, since so many collectors are enthusiastic about it. It is therefore a tendency arising out of life. Maybe future generations will class this form of art as an artificial paradise, but I do not think so. The abstract programme is governed by that desire for perfection and for complete liberty which turns men into saints, heroes or madmen. It is an extreme position in which few artists or their supporters can thrive.
|
