1. Aristide Maillol, La Nuit, 1909, Plâtre de fonderie, 106 x 108 x 57 cm,
Paris, Fondation Dina Vierny - musée Maillol, photo © J.-L. Losi
Outlines, lightness and simplicity, how Maillol define himself as a modernist
Until the start of 2023, the Kunsthaus Zürich present the work of the French painter, sculptor and modernist Aristide Maillol in the name of the quest to harmony. While the show tries to showcase his oeuvre, thematically and chronologically, it also suggest the context he was in, always compared to the most important French sculptor of his time: Auguste Rodin.
More or less compared to Rodin during his whole lifetime, his not as radical in his practice. Rodin was shapeshifting his model, constructing and deconstructing it, while Maillol is more or less influence by the figure, the classical poses and the balance of forms and tradition.
Does a sculptor be always
renown for his bronze?
2. Aristide Maillol, Femme à l’ombrelle, ca. 1895, Oil on canvas, 190.5 x 149.6 cm,
Paris, musée d’Orsay, © RMN Grand-Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
At the start of his career, Aristide Maillol plan to become a painter after he graduated from the École des Beaux-arts in Paris. His influence from the works of Courbet shifted to the work of Cézanne, and more precisely to the landscape of the French artist. While Cézanne is more classical in his depiction of a landscape, his encounter with Gauguin will lead him to the importance of shapes and forms, to simplicity and clarity which he will apply in his earliest work.
All of those earliest works are scenes from everyday life, still-life and portrait, which are characterised by a flatness and decorative aspect.
His next experimentation will be around embroidery. The artist created design, which will be produced by needlewomen from the 1890 until 1904. During that time, he will continue to create and experiment with wood carving, ceramics and statuettes.
This will lead him to the importance of materials and how his environment will dictate his practice. At the time, the artist was still living in Banyuls (Pyrénées-Orientales - South of France) and the local stone was a white clay. This clay will be the first material he encounters as a sculptor.
Maillol, a man of public
and private commission
3. Aristide Maillol, Le Cycliste, 1907–1908 Bronze, 32 x 23 cm,
Kunstmuseum Basel, purchased 1938, photo © Kunstmuseum Basel
On many occasions, Aristide Maillol was asked to make a commission for the grand public or for a private person. All of those public commission was generally conceived and governed by a group of artists and politics to approve the project. But not like every artist, each commission of Maillol will become a challenge of it's own. Maillol will present disconcerting female allegories, disorientated and full of movement and softness.
In one of his well-know commission, the Monument to Cézanne, the project was launched in 1907 in the town of Aix-en-Provence (South of France). After the war and after many years of work, the monument will be installed in 1929, in Paris. In the course of his life, he will finish other commissions such as a war Memorial for Port-Vendres, in the Roussillon (1923), Mediterranean in marble (1923-1927), and The Mountain in stone for the Universal Exhibition of 1937, made at a later stage of his life.
Since the start of his practice in 1895, the artist focus on the women body. At that time, he moved to Paris, and Parisian models were too expensive but young women coming from Banyuls were too fragile and anxious. But, Maillol find his perfect model in the form of Clotilde. She's the one who posed for one of his fist major sculpture: Mediterranean, Night, and Action in Chains, which are characterised by the iconic shapes of a woman, who wanted to look like every women of the time.
For private use, his patron Count Kessler ask the artist to create a male figure in 1904. But due to the higher price of the model and the man model, the patron decided to use a young model and his boyfriend, Gaston Colin. Maillol was so fascinated by this body that he statted "it’s a lot easier. With a man there is always something, a muscle, to fix on. With women, there is nothing, no shapes, you have to invent it all".
Due to his work, the oeuvre of Aristide Maillol was celebrated by the Vichy government as the leading figure in French sculpture. However, France was not the first courtly who helped him, Switzerland and Germany had great collectors and patron of his artworks.
Count Kessler in Germany (1905) Ivan Morozov in Russia (1910), Oskar Reinhart in Switzerland and his first comprehensive exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of New York and at the Kunstmuseum in Basel just before the Second World War establish the fame of the artist until his death in 1944.
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Kunsthaus Zürich
Date: 7.10.2022 – 22.1.2023
Curators: Philippe Büttner and Ioana Jimborean
Ticket: Available on the website of the Kunsthaus Zürich OR at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Kunsthaus Zürich
Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz
CH-8001 Zürich
Phone: +41 44 253 84 84
Mail: info@kunsthaus.ch
© Lucas GASGAR / Lucas Art Talks 2022
