How does Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon elucidate its Description?
Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 146.4 cm × 114.4 cm (57.6 in × 45.0 in), signed and dated 'Albert Gleizes 1911' (lower right); signed again and titled 'Alb Gleizes Paysage' (on the reverse). This work, painted at the outset of 1911, represents a human figure walking through a hilly landscape with trees, houses or villas, a bridge over the Seine river, and a town with a church (possibly the Paroisse de Saint-Cloud) on the 'horizon', consistent with elements of the town in the southwestern suburbs of Paris, Meudon.
The term 'Cubism' was employed for the first time in June 1911 by Guillaume Apollinaire, speaking in the context of the Indépendants exhibition in Brussels which included this work by Gleizes, along with others by Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger, and Henri Le Fauconnier. During the summer, Gleizes was in close contact with Jean Metzinger, who had recently moved to Meudon. Gleizes too lived and worked in the western suburbs of Paris (la banlieue ouest), 24 Avenue Gambetta, Courbevoie. The Gleizes' family moved to Avenue Gambetta in 1887. Both artists were discontent with the conventional perspective mechanism. They had long conversations about the nature of form and perception. They agreed that traditional painting gave a static and incomplete idea of the subject as experienced in life. Things, they would conclude, are in fact dynamic, observed to move, are seen from different angles and can be captured at successive moments in time.
Meudon Guillaume Apollinaire Albert Gleizes banlieue Seine Cubism Robert Delaunay Jean Metzinger Courbevoie Fernand Léger Henri Le Fauconnier