Paysage avec cheval was painted around 1882-83 and is one ofGeorges Seurat's so-called croquetons, pictures created onwooden
panels that he could carry through the countryside, workingdirectly from the motif. It was in these croquetons that Seuratdeveloped the visual language that would lead to his celebratedmasterpiece, Une baignade, Asnières, now in the National Gallery,London, in which he would move gradually towards a new concept ofpainting based on colour theories. The Neo-Impressionism thatSeurat would come to spearhead would have a marked effect on colourtheories for a number of artists, bringing about new understandingsand confidence in the avant garde, resulting in the embrace ofPointillism and thence Divisionism, indirectly paving the way forE. Paysage avec cheval was one of the works still in Seurat'spossession at the time of his untimely death, at the age of only31; when his estate was divided, at his request, by Félix Fénéon,Paul Signac and Maximilien Luce, this picture was allocated toSeurat's aunt, Alexis-Antoine Chevallot. On its reverse are themarks made by Luce, his friend and fellow Neo-Impressionist, duringthe period spent inventorising and allocating his works.
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
For his croquetons, Seurat used small pieces of wood commonlydescribed as cigar box lids. This appears to be an allusivereference rather than a literal one. Instead of the cedar-woodcommonly used for cigar boxes, the croquetons are largely walnut ormahogany. Often, Seurat would not prime them, allowing the richcolour of the wood to add its own warm ground to thecompositions.
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
Paysage avec cheval presents the viewer with a scene that was,at the end of the Nineteenth Century, commonplace. In Seurat'sworld, horses were often a reflection of labour and industry ratherthan recreation, and this may be the case here. Certainly, there isan agricultural feel to the view. The expeditions on which Seuratcreated croquetons such as Paysage avec cheval largely took placein the countryside, for instance near Barbizon, the village by theForest of Fontainebleau previously immortalised by a generation ofpainters whom he admired greatly. Indeed, John Leighton and RichardThomson pointed out that Barbizon, Mortefontaine and Ville d'Avray,where Seurat painted a great deal during this phase, were all areasassociated with Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (see J. Leighton &R. Thomson, Seurat and The Bathers, exh. cat., London, 1997, p.29).
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
In his croquetons, Seurat was exploring the entire nature ofthe relationship between colour and form, using his studies of theever-advancing science of perception to help inform him. In Paysageavec cheval, those advances are clear in some of the unusualcolours that he has used to evoke shade, especially in the body ofthe horse itself: the lower areas of the creature are flecked withblues and burgundies alike. Seurat's near-hatched brushwork becomesincreasingly fine in the white of the horse's body, allowing thosecolours to seep upwards, evocatively capturing the play of lightand shadow on the haunches and back. The tail has largely beenrendered with a bold, playful stroke of cream paint, thecorrugations of the bristle marks of the brush lending the sense ofthe horse's hair. Meanwhile, much of the surrounding countrysidehas been built up with larger, criss-crossing brushstrokes whichallow the colours to intermingle, heightening both the vibrancy andthe volume of the composition.
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
Seurat has managed to capture light, colour and form alikethrough brushstrokes that are almost hatched, darting this way andthat. In this way, he has succeeded both in lending a shimmering,almost Impressionistic air to the composition while also buildingup a complex sense of monumentality that belies the quotidiannature of the scene. In his drawings, in which he often modelledform through the deft use of charcoal, Seurat managed to investeveryday, often interior scenes of suburban life with grace andpoise while also lending them a near-plastic sense of sculpturalform. In the landscape croquetons such as Paysage avec cheval, thatsame transformation has been brought outdoors in a different guise.There is a vivid sense of the mass of the horse itself. At the sametime, the composition of the painting as a whole appears almostformal in its use of horizontal bands of green and yellow, with thegleaming white horse thrust into relief by its contrast with thatbackdrop. This hints at the developments that would lead to Unebaignade, Asnières and would subsequently result in the rigorousfusion of art and scientific theory of highNeo-Impressionism.
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
Paysage avec cheval is one of several studies in which Seuratexplored different light effects, colour combinations and senses ofvolume through motifs featuring animals, often beasts of burden. Insome of these, for instance the picture of a black cow which is nowin the collection of Yale University Art Gallery, the sketchednature of the work is apparent in the far broader brushstrokes, asSeurat raced to capture an impression, working with a freedom andspontaneity to record a fleeting effect, in that case, the brightsunlight on the ground contrasting with the rich, blue-fleckedshadows. In a work from 1884 in the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,New York, a brown horse is shown pulling a carriage into thecomposition; there is more sky, allowing a contrast between thelight of the backdrop and the darker animal. Animals are alsopresent in some of the studies for Une baignade, Asnières itself,for instance the example in the Scottish National Gallery,Edinburgh. In these works, there is a variety of touch: some ofthem appear to be working studies, others, such as Paysage aveccheval, with its denser brushwork, more finished.
乔治·修拉风景与马 Paysage avec cheval 局部
Croquetons such as Paysage avec cheval were the cutting edgearenas of experimentation that would result in various sea-changesin the development of the avant garde. Looking at Seurat'sall-too-short career, cut short by his death in his early thirties,it is astonishing to see the advances that he made in the briefperiod of his so-called maturity. Paysage avec cheval was paintedonly a couple of years after Seurat had been released from hismilitary service. While he had already been an art student beforebeing conscripted to join the armed forces, it was after his returnhome in November 1880, having had his way paid out of militaryservice, that he approached art with a new-found passion, and withnew-found confidence. Within a short time, only in his earlytwenties, he was drawing and painting works which were unique intheir vision, bold and trailblazing stepping stones towardsNeo-Impressionism.
乔治·修拉（GeorgesSeurat，1859～1891），新印象主义的创始者和卓越代表。生于巴黎一个宗教气息很浓的保守家庭里，在这样的家庭里他养成了孤僻的性格。曾学习过雕塑，后进入巴黎美术学院学习造型和绘画。受到化学家谢弗勒尔的色彩光轮原理的引导，创造了在画面上精密安排人物，合理安排细密色点的“点彩画法”，将色彩、线条的表现性与感情的特质结合了起来。他的代表作有《大碗岛星期天的下午》、《阿涅尔的浴场》、《马戏团的一幕》、《喧闹》等。
Paysage avec cheval
成交總額
GBP 1,202,500
估價
GBP 600,000 - GBP 800,000
拍賣 2352Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale
紐約|2010年11月3日
拍品 24
oil on panel
6¼ x 9.7/8 in. (16 x 25.2 cm.)
Painted circa 1882-1883
來源
The artist's estate (inventory no. L 54; inscribed byMaximillien Luce on the reverse of thepanel).
Marie-Christine Chevallot (the artist's aunt), Dampierre,Aube, by descent from the above.
Constant-Augustave Chevallot, Dampierre, by descent from theabove.
Clémentine Mason, Dampierre, by descent from the above.
Jeanne Gerbier, Dampierre, by descent from the above.
Marguerite Richard, by descent from the above.
Richard Wildenstein, Paris, by descent from the above circa1982.
Private collection, France.
