The bodies of nude bathers and the landscapes that they are portrayed in have been a platform for exploring of humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Fauvist and expressionist painters, including Henri Matisse, André Derain, Max Pechstein, and others have explored nature and humanity through this motif as well, but these modernist artists have also departed from the traditions of the bather scene, and have used it as a vehicle for the expression of their own subjective styles and ideas. Through examining the paradisiacal environments and bather scenes of French and German expressionist artists, this exhibition will reveal the modernist techniques, ideas, and historical milieu that both engage with this traditional subject and re-conceptualize it with new modernist techniques.
Max Pechstein’s Day of Steel is a seamless introduction to this exhibition, as it displays a very traditional landscape and figural composition, and because the artist actively engages with the work of his predecessors and that of his contemporaries in order to achieve this idyllic scene. Day of Steel features many recognizable art historical tropes, including classicized female nudes, the turbulent grey and white sky reminiscent of El Greco’s View of Toledo (1596, fig. 4), as well as the thick brushstrokes and contours of Van Gogh’s landscapes. These references are also remixed with truly modernist brushwork and coloring, and also a reference to Henri Matisse’s blue nudes in the right corner. Much Max Pechstein’s work is highly influenced by his place in art history as well as his place among his contemporaries, and all of these elements thus combine in order to produce the anxiety and wariness that this particular bathers scene provides.
Matisse’s Bathers with a Turtle (1907-08, fig. 2) brushwork, coloring and subject matter are similar to Day of Steel, but in this painting the viewer very clearly sees the drastic departure from the traditional bather landscape. The landscape itself is reduced to large, affective color blocks that both collapse any depth in the painting and draw all attention to the shapely, deformed bodies of the bathers. These bathers, like Pechstein’s, are removed from all society and modernity, and while this was a common idea in Arcadian landscapes, Bathers with a Turtle isolates the bathers from the tropes of the motif itself. Their strange, lumpy bodies and the isolating background give the painting a surreal vibe, and reflect Matisse’s own development as a painter in response to the changes in art and during the time he worked.
Lastly, Max Beckmann’s Lido (1924, fig. 3) presents quite a different take on the subject of bathers. Beckmann shows a leisurely beach scene on the coast of Italy, a scene that is not directly a reference to primitivist Arcadias or traditional bathers, but one that is similar to the other two works in this exhibition in the way that it depicts figures interacting in an environment. The green waves in the painting resemble the contoured topography in Day of Steel (1911, fig. 3), and the bodies of the swimmers are immersed and positioned in this flattened environment in an almost surreal way. Lido presents the modern world which painters like Matisse and Pechstein attempted to leave through their depictions of bathers and Arcadias, but Beckmann’s piece able to emit a similar energy and wariness of style and art history as Day of Steel and Bathers with a Turtle. The juxtaposition of Lido with the other more primitivist works provides an interesting perspective of modernity as it is explored through the bather motif.
Credits
Julia Curbera