Focus on Passy, Bridges of Paris and explain the Cubist factions.
Disparate inspirations during a proto-Cubist phase had already yielded several related methods of expressing the geometric experience (what Gleizes and Metzinger would soon attribute to mobile perspective). Cubism was in the eye of the beholder; it could be seen as a process, a system, a state of mind, an inspired attitude that would develop a new symbolic structure, a reflection of the changing world.
Despite their similarities, works produced by diverse artists were neither homogeneous nor isotropic. This venture was essentially nonlinear. Cubism was omnidirectional, growing like a tree with many branches. The progression of each artist was unique. Even when paths would cross, artists would not necessarily fall under one another's influence. Despite a growing awareness, a 'collective consciousness' based on a nonacademic passion for structure and mobility, and despite the sense of group unity that would attain a maxima circa 1912, deep-seated differences arose sporadically, often fueled by critics and dealers.In Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum curator and art historian Daniel Robbins writes of Passy:A synthesis of the modern city with its smoke, river and steel bridges, this work probably refers also to the spirit of solidarity among the newly formed "Artists of Passy". In this sense it indicates an awareness of factions within Cubism. (Robbins, 1964)
The participation of many artists, in addition to Metzinger, Gleizes and the Duchamp brothers, in the formation of the association Les Artistes de Passy in October 1912 was an attempt to transform the Passy district of Paris into yet another art-centre; a further sign of a growing emphasis on communal activity that would culminate in the Section d'Or exhibition. Les Artistes de Passy was a further sign too, as Robbins points out, of the growing rift that separated the Salon Cubists (Metzinger, Gleizes, Le Fauconnier, Delaunay, Léger and others) from the Gallery Cubists (Picasso and Braque). There was a distinct difference between the Salon Cubists and Kahnweiler’s Cubists. The latter had mostly been seen by a small group of artists and connoisseurs in a small private gallery, generating only modest reviews in the press, while the impact of the Salon group in the printed press and general public was enormous. Kahnweiler had exclusivity contracts with his artists and sold only to a small circle of collectors from his small "boutique" (Gleizes' term) comparatively hidden behind La Madeleine. Works of the Salon Cubists were seen by tens of thousands of spectators during well-publicized, conspicuous and prominent events such as the Salon d'Automne and Salon des Indépendants. Picasso and Barque were kept away from the Salons by Kahnweiler for fear of ridicule and for financial reasons (exclusivity guaranteed commission).
Metzinger's Le goûter (Tea Time) "was far more famous than any painting that Picasso and Braque had made up until this time; because Picasso and Braque, by not showing at the Salons, have actually removed themselves from the public... For most people, the idea of Cubism was actually associated with an artist like Metzinger, far more than Picasso." (Michael Taylor, 2010, Curator Philadelphia Museum of Art)While financial support from Kahnweiler's gallery sales gave Picasso and Braque the freedom to experiment in relative privacy, the highly publicized Salon Cubists were free to experiment in public and sell works directly from their studios and Salons.
The immense Cubist manifestation called Salon de la Section d'Or of 1912 (an exhibition organized by Metzinger, Gleizes and the Duchamp brothers) took place at the centrally located Galerie de la Boétie in a prominent gallery district of Paris. This gallery showing by Salon Cubists may have been seen as a threat by Kahnweiler, since it marked the beginning of decades of personal attacks targeting artists not associated with his gallery.
At stake, beyond commercial speculation and financial profit, were the questions of when Cubism began, who led the way in its development, what distinguishes Cubist art, how it can be defined and who can be called Cubist. By marginalizing the contribution of the artists who exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne, Kahnweiler's attempted to focus attention on Picasso and Braque, those who played a leading if independent role in the development of this new mode of expression. To some extent Kahnweiler had succeeded in his endeavor, prompting historians such as Douglas Cooper to coin the term ‘true’ Cubism to describe the work of Picasso and Braque. The implied value judgement was intentional.This restricted view of Cubism has since been replaced by more contemporary alternative interpretations of Cubism, more complex and heteroclite; formed to some degree in response to the more publicized Salon Cubists, whose methods were too distinct from those of the Gallery Cubists to be considered merely secondary to them.
Salon Cubists produced a different kinds of Cubism. It is not clear to what extent these Cubists depended on Picasso and Braque for their development of such techniques as faceting, ‘passage’ and multiple perspective. They could well have arrived at such practices with little knowledge of Picasso and Braque, guided by their own understanding of Cézanne. The works produced by these other Cubists exhibited at the 1911 and 1912 Salons extended beyond the conventional Cézannian range of subjects chosen by Picasso and Braque to include large-scale allegoric and modern-life subjects. "Aimed at a large Salon public", writes art historian Christopher Green, "these works made clear use of Cubist techniques of faceting and multiple perspective for expressive effect in order to preserve the eloquence of subjects that were richly endowed with literary and philosophical connotations". The Salon Cubists were attuned to the philosopher Henri Bergson's notion of ‘duration’, according to which life is subjectively experienced as a continuous forward movement in time, with the past flowing into the present and the present merging into the future. In Du "Cubisme" Gleizes and Metzinger explicitly related this sense of time to multiple perspective. "The one major innovation that one can be sure was made independently by the Salon Cubists, that of ‘simultaneity’, came of a conviction also rooted in their understanding of Bergson that the divisions of space and time should be comprehensively challenged." Green continues: "The conjunction of such subject-matter with simultaneity aligns Salon Cubism with early Futurist paintings by Umberto Boccioni, Gino Severini and Carlo Carrà; these Italian works, though themselves made in response to early Cubism, led the way in the application of techniques of simultaneity in 1911–12".
'What is necessary', writes Gleizes, 'is to take everything up again from the foundations and to start out from the unquestionable reality of two currents which, unaware of each other, were finally enfolded under a single heading, the movement that was called 'Cubism'. You can then avoid confusion if, right from the start, you make the distinctions that must, in all honesty, be acknowledged. The history of the 'Bâteau Lavoir' belongs to those who were part of that particular grouping. Personally, I only know what has been said about this history; I do not know the details, nor did my comrades of the other group Metzinger, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier and Léger... But what I do know well, because I lived it and remember it perfectly, is the origin of our relations and their development to 1914, passing by the notorious Room 41 of the Indépendants of 1911, which provoked the 'involuntary scandal' out of which Cubism really emerged and spread in Paris, in France and through the world... (Albert Gleizes
Gleizes continues in an unpublished 1917 paper:Speculators with their own interests and the idiocy [sottise] of painters who played their game created a legend which up to now has never openly been challenged. It proclaimed that the entire movement of plastic art of our time had been thrown into confusion by the discoveries above-mentioned. Their inventor was made into the pivot of the movement which was being built. Everything came from him, he had foreseen everything and outside his genius the rest was nothing but pastiche and followers. The truth, however, is that it was the appearance of a group that gave the twist of the helm to the new aspirations. It was not the work of an isolated figure who presided over the mystery of a boutique, who surrounded himself with thick veils and acted on some sniffer dogs [flaireurs] and dupes, but rather the brutal appearance in broad daylight of a coherent group [ensemble homogène] who did not claim to be displaying masterpieces but wanted to witness a fervent discipline, a new order. [...] On one side, the talk was all of the moderns and the negroes, on the other it was of the cathedrals and the solidity [sureté] of David and Ingres. (Albert Gleizes)
Daniel Robbins Gino Severini Albert Gleizes La Madeleine Cubist Cubism Salon d'Automne perspective Kahnweiler Du "Cubisme" Henri Bergson Umberto Boccioni Section d'Or Le goûter (Tea Time) Futurist Carlo Carrà proto-Cubist Salon des Indépendants