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Artist or Maker: Albert Gleizes (1881-1953)

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Description: Albert Gleizes (1881-1953)
Paysage cubiste
signed and dated 'Alb Gleizes 1914' (lower left)
oil on paper laid down on canvas
26 x 32 in. (66 x 81.3 cm.)
Painted in 1914

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Provenance: Acquired by the family of the present owner, circa 1950s.

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Notes: Anne Varichon has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

In 1912, Gleizes and Jean Metzinger co-authored a groundbreaking treatise on the nature of Cubism, Du Cubisme . They were the first to propose that Cubism was based on principles of relativity, simultaneity, and four-dimensionality. These ideas would soon become widely accepted in critical circles and still form the basis of our understanding of Cubist art. In this treatise, Gleizes and Metzinger refer to Gustave Courbet and Paul Cézanne as the spiritual ancestors of Cubism, in that they were the first artists to wish to obliterate from their art all symbolic, literary and historical dimensions. As did Courbet and Cézanne before him, in the present work Gleizes chose a subject matter that was nearly emptied of symbolic content: the landscape. This allowed Gleizes to focus on qualities of form, rather than those of texture and color.