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拍品专文
Abandoning purism in the last few years of the 1920s, Le Corbusier's art began to incorporate rounder, organic forms and, increasingly, the human figure. In the early 1930s this focus would shift almost exclusively to the female form; substituting bottles and glasses for the human figure, Le Corbusier is no less involved in exploring the relationship of elements within the composition, both to each other and to the composition as a whole.
Although the architectural principles which so powerfully informed his work of the 1920s have given way to a softer, more decorative aesthetic, Le Corbusier's underlying preoccupations of spatial relationship still play themselves out in his work of the 1930s. Thus in Deux femmes au bord de la mer the two figures of the title fit together in a lyrical conjunction of body parts and an exploration of movement and form. The two figures flow into one another in places, overlap in others and become indistinguishable in parts, complementing and contrasting in equal measure and with visually stunning results.
Le Corbusier's figures in the present work are, typically, set against a landscape of semi-abstracted elements. Thus behind the figures one can see a line of hills on the horizon and an expanse of blue that depicts the sea of the title, while the lines of black and white at the lower left represent the natural rhythms of sand. Above the sand, taking up the entire left side of the composition, is an interesting three-dimensional object, curious both in its form and colour. This object first appears a few years earlier, in Tête de femme grise, 1931 (J.126; Kunsthaus, Zurich) and seems to have been inspired by the shape of a bone that the artist had sketched in 1930 (Cahier de dessins no. 2). However, by the time Le Corbusier included the same shape in Deux femmes au bord de la mer, it has not only become a more regular form but is also now coloured, green on the outside, red inside the two holes, suggesting a more man-made structure. In fact, in its form if not in its colouration, it recalls the smooth, monumental, lyrical figures and abstractions that Henry Moore was producing in the early 1930s. Le Corbusier's inclusion of this standing shape at the left serves both to mirror the twisting, sinuous forms of the figures and to anchor the composition but it also introduces another dimension into the painting, a mystical element that adds to the lyricism and monumentality of the subject.
Although the architectural principles which so powerfully informed his work of the 1920s have given way to a softer, more decorative aesthetic, Le Corbusier's underlying preoccupations of spatial relationship still play themselves out in his work of the 1930s. Thus in Deux femmes au bord de la mer the two figures of the title fit together in a lyrical conjunction of body parts and an exploration of movement and form. The two figures flow into one another in places, overlap in others and become indistinguishable in parts, complementing and contrasting in equal measure and with visually stunning results.
Le Corbusier's figures in the present work are, typically, set against a landscape of semi-abstracted elements. Thus behind the figures one can see a line of hills on the horizon and an expanse of blue that depicts the sea of the title, while the lines of black and white at the lower left represent the natural rhythms of sand. Above the sand, taking up the entire left side of the composition, is an interesting three-dimensional object, curious both in its form and colour. This object first appears a few years earlier, in Tête de femme grise, 1931 (J.126; Kunsthaus, Zurich) and seems to have been inspired by the shape of a bone that the artist had sketched in 1930 (Cahier de dessins no. 2). However, by the time Le Corbusier included the same shape in Deux femmes au bord de la mer, it has not only become a more regular form but is also now coloured, green on the outside, red inside the two holes, suggesting a more man-made structure. In fact, in its form if not in its colouration, it recalls the smooth, monumental, lyrical figures and abstractions that Henry Moore was producing in the early 1930s. Le Corbusier's inclusion of this standing shape at the left serves both to mirror the twisting, sinuous forms of the figures and to anchor the composition but it also introduces another dimension into the painting, a mystical element that adds to the lyricism and monumentality of the subject.