In The Blue Bird (Metzinger), how is the Divisionism to Multiple perspective discussed?
As in the works of Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge there is no smooth transition between the elements and sections of Metzinger's painting, but when sutured together (with the eye) in succession or simultaneously a dynamic ensemble emerges. The composition is divided, fragmented, splintered or faceted into series, not only of individual rectangles, squares or 'cubes' of color, but into individual planes or surfaces delineated by color and form. Just as other paintings by Metzinger of the pre-war period (such as En Canot, 1913) there is some continuity that transits between the foreground and background, blending perspective of objects close and far, the notion of depth perception has not been abolished, i.e., the spatial attributes of the scene have not been flattened, yet there is no absolute frame of reference.
Though not the first painting by Jean Metzinger to employ the concept of multiple perspective—three years had passed since he first propounded the idea in Note sur la peinture, published in 1910—L'Oiseau bleu arguably exemplifies the extreme, a maxima, a summum bonum of such pictorial processes, while still maintaining elements of recognizable form; the extreme activity of geometric faceting visible in L'Oiseau bleu is not frenzied to the point that any understandable link between physicality or naturalness is lost. Yet, what is achieved is, of course, fundamentally anti-naturalistic; at great distance from the appearance of the natural world.Aimed at a large audience (the Salon des Indépendants, rather than a gallery setting), L'Oiseau bleu deliberately sets out to agitate and confront the standard expectation of art, in an attempt to implicated the viewer, to transfer beauty and elegance into a fresh cohesive dialogue that most accurately represents Modernism—one that is in tune with the intricacies of modern life, one that describes Cubism, his Cubism, whose order was only a phase in a continuous process of change.
To achieve his goal, Metzinger raises the concept of mobile perspective (as opposed to single-point perspective of the Renaissance) to a poetic principle: a form of literary art which uses the aesthetic qualities of iconography to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning. L'Oiseau bleu contains something that Metzinger spoke of as early as 1907; a "chromatic versification", as if for syllables. The rhythm of its pictorial phraseology translates the diverse emotions aroused by nature (in the words of Metzinger). L'Oiseau bleu no longer represented nature as seen, but was a complete byproduct of the human 'sensation.' A departure from nature it was, and a departure from all that had been painted to date it was too.
Metzinger's Divisionist technique had its parallel in literature. For him, there was an emblematic alliance between the Symbolist writers and Neo-Impressionism. Each brushstroke of color was equivalent to a word (or "syllable"). Together the pigments formed sentences (or "phrases") which translated the various emotions that nature would pass on to the artist. This is an important aspect of Metzinger's early work, and an important aspect of Metzinger's entire artistic output (as a painter, writer, poet, and theorist). Already then, Metzinger coupled Symbolist/Neo-Impressionist color theory with Cézannian perspective, beyond not just the preoccupations of Paul Signac and Henri-Edmond Cross, but beyond too the preoccupations of his avant-garde entourage.
"I ask of divided brushwork not the objective rendering of light, but iridescences and certain aspects of color still foreign to painting. I make a kind of chromatic versification and for syllables I use strokes which, variable in quantity, cannot differ in dimension without modifying the rhythm of a pictorial phraseology destined to translate the diverse emotions aroused by nature." (Metzinger, 1907)An interpretation of this statement was made by Robert L. Herbert: "What Metzinger meant is that each little tile of pigment has two lives: it exists as a plane where mere size and direction are fundamental to the rhythm of the painting and, secondly, it also has color which can vary independently of size and placement." (Herbert, 1968)
During Metzinger's Divisionist period, each individual square of pigment associated with another of similar shape and color to form a group; each grouping of color juxtaposed with an adjacent collection of differing colors; just as syllables combine to form sentences, and sentences combine to form paragraphs, and so on. Now, the same concept formerly related to color has been adapted to form. Each individual facet associated with another adjacent shape form a group; each grouping juxtaposed with an adjacent collection of facets connect or become associated with a larger organization—just as the association of syllables combine to form sentences, and sentences combine to form paragraphs, and so on—forming what Metzinger described as the 'total image'.
summum bonum Paul Signac meaning Henri-Edmond Cross Modernism depth perception Eadweard Muybridge aesthetic multiple perspective Divisionism literature war Cubism literary art Neo-Impressionism prosaic Symbolist En Canot Jean Metzinger Cézannian Divisionist iconography Étienne-Jules Marey frame of reference Salon des Indépendants