How does The Blue Bird (Metzinger) elucidate its Diversity and inspiration?
It is difficult to ascertain to what extent Metzinger was influenced, moved, provoked or inspired by the works of Maeterlinck, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky or d'Aulnoy. What does emerge is the closer iconographic detail visible in Metzinger's painting with the original version of L'Oiseau bleu (the first version, that also happens to be French, of 1697) by Madame d'Aulnoy. In fact, it is the only version of L'Oiseau bleu that appears to be mirrored iconographically in Metzinger's painting.
The fact that the difficulty even exists attests to the diversity of Metzinger's interest in widely disparate subjects, widely faceted interests and sensitivities, ranging from women to fashion, from literature to science, in passing through mathematics, geometry, physics, metaphysics, philosophy, nature, classical music, opera, dance, theater, cafés, travel and poetry. He was open to all the idioms that he considered genuinely popular.
'The art that does not pass leans on mathematics' Metzinger wrote, 'Whether the result of patient study or of flashing intuition, it alone is capable of reducing our diverse, pathetic sensations to the strict unity of a mass (Bach), a fresco (Michelangelo), a bust (antiquity).""Jean Metzinger, then" wrote art historian Daniel Robbins, "was at the center of Cubism, not only because of his role as intermediary among the orthodox Montmartre group and right bank or Passy Cubists, not only because of his great identification with the movement when it was recognized, but above all because of his artistic personality. His concerns were balanced; he was deliberately at the intersection of high intellectuality and the passing spectacle."
Daniel Robbins fashion Madame d'Aulnoy literature right Cubism Jean Metzinger Montmartre