Focus on Passy, Bridges of Paris and explore the Description.
Passy (Bridges of Paris) is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 60.5 x 73.2 cm (23.8 by 28.8 inches), signed and dated Alb Gleizes, 1914, lower left.The works represents an upscale cartier de Paris known as Passy located in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, one of the most wealthy districts of the French capital, and traditionally the home of well-known personalities, including Honoré de Balzac, Benjamin Franklin during the nine years that he lived in France, William Kissam Vanderbilt, and the artist Jacques-Emile Blanche.
Les Artistes de Passy was a diverse grouping of avant-garde artistes (painters, sculptors and poets), including several who previously held meetings in 1910 at the rue Visconti studio of Henri Le Fauconnier. Their first diner (Premier dîner des Artistes de Passy) presided over by Paul Fort was held at the house of Balzac, rue Raynouard, in the presence of Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marie Laurencin, Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger, André Mare, Francis Picabia, Henry Valensi, and Jacques Villon. Albert Gleizes chose to Passy as the subject of this painting.
Instead of depicting a bowl of fruit or a man playing a guitar under the influence of African art, Gleizes turns toward a non-Euclidean model of geometry as a source of inspiration for Passy. This work signified the rejection of Euclidean geometry and its correlate; the quantitative measurement of spatial depth governing perspective invented during the Renaissance, an unquestioned principle of academic painting that had persisted to date.
Vanishing points have been abolished. A perspectival grid is gone. Forms are not clearly delineated. Colors are synthetic and limited, not overpowering. Light and reflected light do not come from a consistent unidirectional source. There is no precisely clear relationship between structures (e.g., buildings, bridges) based on overlapping or on diminished scale with distance to show depth of field as objects recede from the foreground. Here Gleizes brakes all the rules. Perhaps for this reason Passy was chosen as an example of new painting for publication in their manifesto; Du "Cubisme".
Euclidean geometry Jacques Villon André Mare Benjamin Franklin 16th arrondissement of Paris Honoré de Balzac Guillaume Apollinaire Albert Gleizes Henry Valensi avant-garde Jacques-Emile Blanche Marie Laurencin Cubism William Kissam Vanderbilt perspective depth of field Du "Cubisme" non-Euclidean Jean Metzinger Francis Picabia Fernand Léger Henri Le Fauconnier house of Balzac Raymond Duchamp-Villon Paul Fort