Focus on Bords de la Marne and discuss the History.
Gleizes' preoccupation for solidly constructed form is already manifest in his Fauve-like works between 1907 and 1909. Under the influence of Paul Cézanne, Symbolism, Pont Aven and Les Nabis, Gleizes produced some of his first Proto-Cubist paintings.
Bords de la Marne and other painting by Gleizes during this phase are close to the work of Henri Le Fauconnier, though the artist did not know each other at the time.
Gleizes and the former members of the Abbaye de Créteil (notably Jules Romains, Henri-Martin Barzun and René Arcos) dreamed of a synthetic concept of the possibilities of the future, one of "collectivity, multiplicity and simultaneity" writes art historian Daniel Robbins: "Their vision invariably encompassed broad subjects which, although dealing with reality, were restricted neither by the limitations of physical perception nor by a separation of scientific fact from intellectual meaning—even symbolic meaning. Even their images of simultaneity were synthetic because scope was too vast, both physically and symbolically, for one man's limited participation".
Abbaye de Créteil Henri Le Fauconnier Jules Romains Les Nabis Paul Cézanne