Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism.André Salmon, La Jeune Peinture française, Histoire anecdotique du cubisme, (Anecdotal History of Cubism), Paris, Albert Messein, 1912, Collection des Trente, quoted in His earliest works, from 1900 to 1904, were influenced by the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Henri-Edmond Cross. Between 1904 and 1907, Metzinger worked in the Divisionist and Fauvist styles with a strong Cézannian component, leading to some of the first proto-Cubist works.
From 1908, Metzinger experimented with the faceting of form, a style that would soon become known as Cubism. His early involvement in Cubism saw him both as an influential artist and an important theorist of the movement. The idea of moving around an object in order to see it from different view-points is treated, for the first time, in Metzinger's Note sur la Peinture, published in 1910.Jean Metzinger, October–November 1910, "Note sur la peinture" Pan: 60 Before the emergence of Cubism, painters worked from the limiting factor of a single view-point. Metzinger, for the first time, in Note sur la peinture, enunciated the interest in representing objects as remembered from successive and subjective experiences within the context of both space and time. Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes wrote the first major treatise on Cubism in 1912, entitled Du "Cubisme". Metzinger was a founding member of the Section d'Or group of artists.
Metzinger was at the center of Cubism both because of his participation and identification of the movement when it first emerged, because of his role as intermediary among the Bateau-Lavoir group and the Section d'Or Cubists, and above all because of his artistic personality.Daniel Robbins, Jean Metzinger: At the Center of Cubism, 1985, Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, The University of Iowa Museum of Art, p. 22 During the First World War, Metzinger furthered his role as a leading Cubist with his co-founding of the second phase of the movement, referred to as Crystal Cubism. He recognized the importance of mathematics in art, through a radical geometrization of form as an underlying architectural basis for his wartime compositions. The establishing of the basis of this new perspective, and the principles upon which an essentially non-representational art could be built, led to La Peinture et ses lois (Painting and its Laws), written by Albert Gleizes in 1922–23. As post-war reconstruction began, a series of exhibitions at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de L'Effort Moderne were to highlight order and allegiance to the aesthetically pure. The collective phenomenon of Cubism—now in its advanced revisionist form—became part of a widely discussed development in French culture, with Metzinger at its helm. Crystal Cubism was the culmination of a continuous narrowing of scope in the name of a return to order; based upon the observation of the artist's relation to nature, rather than on the nature of reality itself. In terms of the separation of culture and life, this period emerges as the most important in the history of Modernism.
For Metzinger, the classical vision had been an incomplete representation of real things, based on an incomplete set of laws, postulates and theorems. He believed the world was dynamic and changing in time, appearing different depending on the observer's point of view. Each of these viewpoints was equally valid according to underlying symmetries inherent in nature. For inspiration, Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist and one of the founders of quantum mechanics, hung in his office a large painting by Metzinger, La Femme au Cheval,Abraham Pais, Niels Bohr's Times: In Physics, Philosophy, and Polity, Clarendon Press, 1991, p. 335, a conspicuous early example of "mobile perspective" implementation (also called simultaneity).Miller, A., 2002, Einstein, Picasso: space, time and the beauty that causes havoc, Basic Books, New York, 2001, pp. 166–169, 256–258
Early life
Jean Metzinger came from a prominent military family. His great-grandfather, Nicolas Metzinger (18 May 1769 – 1838), Captain in the 1st Horse Artillery Regiment, and Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, had served under Napoleon Bonaparte.Leonore, culture.gouv.fr database, Nicolas Metzinger A street in the Sixième arrondissement of Nantes (Rue Metzinger) was named after Jean's grandfather, Charles Henri Metzinger (10 May 1814 – ?). Following the early death of his father, Eugène François Metzinger, Jean pursued interests in mathematics, music and painting, though his mother, a music professor by the name of Eugénie Louise Argoud, had ambitions of his becoming a medical doctor.Jean Metzinger, 1883–1956: exposition, Nantes, École des beaux-arts, Atelier sur l'herbe, 4 au 26 janvier 1985 Jean's younger brother Maurice (born 24 Oct. 1885) became a musician, excelling as a cellist. By 1900 Metzinger was studying painting under Hippolyte Touront, a well-known portrait painter who taught an academic, conventional style of painting. Metzinger, however, was interested in the current trends in painting.Jean Metzinger, Le Cubisme était né, Souvenirs, Chambéry, Editions Présence, 1972
Metzinger sent seven paintings to the Salon des Indépendants in 1903, and subsequently moved to Paris with the proceeds from their sale. From the age of 20, Metzinger supported himself as a professional painter. He exhibited regularly in Paris from 1903, taking part in a group show with Raoul Dufy, Lejeune and Torent, from 19 January-22 February 1903 at the gallery run by Berthe Weill, with another show November 1903.
Metzinger exhibited at Weill's gallery 23 November-21 December 1905 and again 14 January-10 February 1907, with Robert Delaunay, in 1908 (6–31 January) with André Derain, Fernand Léger and Pablo Picasso, and 28 April-28 May 1910 with Derain, Georges Rouault and Kees van Dongen. He exhibited again at Weill's gallery, 17 January-1 February 1913, March 1913, June 1914 and February 1921. It is at Berthe Weill's that he met Max Jacob for the first time. Berthe Weill was the first Parisian art dealer to sell works of Picasso (1906). Along with Picasso and Metzinger, she promoted Matisse, Derain, Amedeo Modigliani and Maurice Utrillo.
In 1904 Metzinger exhibited six paintings in the Divisionist style at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'AutomneSalon d'automne; Société du Salon d'automne, Catalogue des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, dessin, gravure, architecture et art décoratif. Exposés au Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, 1904 (where he showed regularly throughout the crucial years of Cubism).
In 1905 Metzinger exhibited eight paintings at Salon des Indépendants. In this exhibition Metzinger is directly associated with the artists soon to be known as Fauves: Camoin, Delaunay, Derain, van Dongen, Dufy, Friesz, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse, Valtat, Vlaminck and others. Matisse was in charge of the hanging committee, assisted by Metzinger, Bonnard, Camoin, Laprade Luce, Manguin, Marquet, Puy and Vallotton.
In 1906 Metzinger exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. Once again he was elected member of the hanging committee, with Matisse, Signac and others. Again with the Fauves and associated artists, Metzinger exhibited at the 1906 Salon d'Automne, Paris. He exhibited six works at the 1907 Salon des Indépendants, followed by the presentation of two works at the 1907 Salon d'Automne.Salon d'automne; Société du Salon d'automne, Catalogue des ouvrages de peinture, sculpture, dessin, gravure, architecture et art décoratif. Exposés au Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, 1907
In 1906 Metzinger met Albert Gleizes at the Salon des Indépendants, and visited his studio in Courbevoie several days later. In 1907, at Max Jacob's room, Metzinger met Guillaume Krotowsky, who already signed his works Guillaume Apollinaire. In 1908 a poem by Metzinger, Parole sur la lune, was published in Guillaume Apollinaire's La Poésie Symboliste.Guillaume Apollinaire, La Poésie symboliste. L'Après-midi des poètes: la Phalange nouvelle, p. 131-242, Paris, 1908
After a brief period aligned with a small circle of Fauve artists from 1905 to 1907, experimenting with a bold chromatic palette and dynamic brushwork, he produced an intensely expressionistic brand of proto-Cubism from 1907 to 1908, which, by 1909, crystallized into a fully articulated Cubist vision. It was Metzinger who first pronounced the dynamic pictorial and theoretical underpinnings of Cubism—the notion that artists could physically move around their subject, capturing temporally successive viewpoints and synthesizing them into a single, multifaceted total image.
Metzinger developed the concept of mobile perspective in 1909 and 1910, while further elaborating on the principle in 1911 and culminating in 1912. Central to this theory was the notion that classical perspective was insufficient to represent the true nature of reality. Instead, Metzinger sought to capture multiple dimensions simultaneously, not merely depicting physical space but also invoking an additional, unseen fourth dimension—a reflection or apparition of the internal attributes of consciousness, the spirit, and the imperceptible forces shaping perception.
From 21 December 1908 to 15 January 1909, Metzinger exhibited at the gallery of Wilhelm Uhde, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs (Paris) with Georges Braque, Sonia Delaunay, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Auguste Herbin, Jules Pascin and Pablo Picasso.Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris 1937, L'Art Indépendant, ex. cat. , Paris-Musées, 1987, p. 188
1908 continued with the Salon de la Toison d'Or, Moscow. Metzinger exhibited five paintings with Braque, Derain, van Dongen, Friesz, Manguin, Marquet, Matisse, Puy, Valtat and others. At the 1909 Salon d'Automne, Metzinger exhibited alongside Constantin Brâncuși, Henri Le Fauconnier and Fernand Léger.
Jean Metzinger married Lucie Soubiron in Paris on 30 December of the same year.
Neo-Impressionism, Divisionism
By 1903, Metzinger was a keen participant in the Neo-Impressionist revival led by Henri-Edmond Cross. By 1904–05, Metzinger began to favor the abstract qualities of larger brushstrokes and vivid colors. Following the lead of Seurat and Cross, he began incorporating a new geometry into his works that would free him from the confines of nature as much as any artwork executed in Europe to date. The departure from naturalism had only just begun. Metzinger, along with Derain, Delaunay, Matisse, between 1905 and 1910, helped revivify Neo-Impressionism, albeit in a highly altered form. In 1906 Metzinger had acquired enough prestige to be elected to the hanging committee of the Salon des Indépendants. He formed a close friendship at this time with Robert Delaunay, with whom he shared an exhibition at Berthe Weill early in 1907. The two of them were singled out by one critic (Louis Vauxcelles) in 1907 as Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions.