The Blue Bird (French: L'Oiseau bleu) is an oil painting created in 1912–1913 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger. L'Oiseau bleu, one of Metzinger's most recognizable and frequently referenced works, was first exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1913 (cat. no. 2087),Société des artistes indépendants. 29, Catalogue de la 29e exposition, 1913 : Quai d'Orsay, Pont de l'Alma, du 19 mars au 18 mai inclus / Société des artistes indépendants (cat. no. 2087) several months after the publication of the first (and only) Cubist manifesto, Du "Cubisme", written by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes (1912). It was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin (titled Der blaue Vogel, cat. no. 287).Herwarth Walden, Erster deutscher Herbstsalon, Berlin 1913, No. 287, p. 25
Apollinaire described L'Oiseau bleu as a 'very brilliant painting' and 'his most important work to date'. L'Oiseau bleu, acquired by the City of Paris in 1937, forms part of the permanent collection at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.Jean Metzinger, L'Oiseau bleu, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris
Description
L'Oiseau bleu is an oil painting on canvas with dimensions 230 × 196 cm (90.5 by 77.2 in). The work represents three nude women in a scene that contains a wide variety of components. L'Oiseau bleu, writes Joann Moser, uses a wealth of anecdotal detail "which comprises a compendium of motifs found in earlier and later paintings by Metzinger: bathers, fan, mirror, ibis, necklace, a boat with water, foliage and an urban scene. It is a mélange of interior and exterior elements integrated into one of Metzinger's most intriguing and successful compositions."Joann Moser, 1985, Jean Metzinger in Retrospect, Cubist Works, 1910–1921, The University of Iowa Museum of Art, J. Paul Getty Trust, University of Washington Press. p. 43.
The central standing 'foreground' figure is shown affectionately holding in both hands a blue bird (thus the title of the painting). The reclining figure wearing a necklace shown in the lower center of the canvas is placed next to a pedestal fruit bowl and another bird with the unmistakable coloration of the rare Scarlet ibis (L'Ibis rouge), a rich symbol for both exoticism and fashion. Costume designers for Parisian cabarets such as Le Lido, Folies Bergère, the Moulin Rouge and haute couture houses in Paris during the 1910s used the feathers of the scarlet Ibis in their shows and collections. The Ibis is a bird to which the ancient Egyptians paid religious worship and attributed to it a 'virgin purity'.The Ibis in myth, science and palaeontology, by David Bressan, 2011Georges Cuvier, 1831, A discourse on the revolutions of the surface of the globe, and the changes thereby produced in the animal kingdom and Full text here (translated from French, Le Règne Animal..., the first edition of which appeared in four octavo volumes in 1817. In 1826 Cuvier would publish a revised version under the name Discours sur les révolutions de la surface du globe) A mysterious pyramidal shape is seen as if through a porthole to the right of the reclining figure's head, though it remains a matter of speculation whether there exists any relation to the ibis or pyramids of ancient Egypt. In front of the pyramid appears a shape that resembles a sundial, perhaps meant as the element of time, or 'duration', as the clock placed in the upper right hand corner of his Nu à la cheminée (Nude) of 1910.Jean Metzinger, Nu à la cheminée (Nude), exhibited 1910, Salon d'Automne, reproduced in Les Peintres Cubistes, Guillaume Apollinaire, 1913
Two other birds, in addition to the blue bird and scarlet ibis can be seen in the composition, one of which resembles a green heron. A large steamship can be seen bellowing gaseous vapor from its funnel in the distant sea or ocean, and a smaller boat (or canot) is visible below.
On the left half of Metzinger's L'Oiseau Bleu, holding in her right hand a yellow fan (éventail) is a sitting nude who in her left hand holds a mirror into which she gazes. In the rest of the scene, various items and divers elements are placed, including in the upper center (practically at the highest point of the painting) the Sacré-Cœur Basilica, located at the summit of the butte Montmartre, the highest point of the city. This popular monument is just up the hill from where Metzinger lived and worked (Rue Lamarck) prior to his move to Meudon around 1912. It is also a short distance from Le Bateau-Lavoir, widely known as the birthplace of Cubism.
The flag
Edward F. Fry writes in Cubism (1978): "Three female nudes are in various postures, and the blue bird is held by the uppermost figure; in other parts of the composition are numerous birds, grapes in a dish on a table, the striped canopy of a Paris cafe, the dome of Sacre-Coeur in Montmartre, and a ship at sea."Edward F. Fry, Cubism, Oxford University Press, 1978 (Bold added). Noticeably, the 'striped canopy' to which Fry refers has the same color pattern as the American flag. Recall that L'Oiseau bleu was painted as the International Exhibition of Modern Art (the Armory Show) in New York was beginning to materialize; when Arthur B. Davies and Walt Kuhn came to Paris in the fall of 1912 to select works for the Armory Show, with the help of Walter Pach. The paintings of Metzinger, however, did not appear at the exhibition (to the surprise of many in his entourage); and this despite Picasso's 1912 recommendation. In a note to Kuhn, Picasso's handwritten list of artists recommended for the Armory Show include Gris, Metzinger, Gleizes, Léger, Duchamp, Delaunay, Le Fauconnier, Laurencin, La Fresnaye and Braque.Archive of American Art Picasso's handwritten list of artists recommended for the Armory Show He did however exhibit at the Exhibition of Cubist and Futurist Pictures, Boggs & Buhl Department Store, Pittsburgh, July 1913. His Portrait of an American Smoking (Man with a Pipe), 1911–12 (Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin) was reproduced on the front cover of the catalogue. It is highly likely, since Walter Pach knew practically all the artists in the exhibition (a good friend of Metzinger and other members of the Section d'Or group; e.g., Gleizes, Picabia and the Duchamp brothers), that he had something to do with the organization of the show. Sponsored by the Gimbel Brothers department store from May through the summer of 1913 the Cubist and Futurist show toured Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York.Laurette E. McCarthy, Walter Pach (1883–1958). The Armory Show and the Untold Story of Modern Art in America, Penn State Press, 2011
Metzinger had already been interviewed, circa 1908, by Gelett Burgess for his Wild Men of Paris article, published in The Architectural Record, May 1910 (New York).Gelett Burgess, Wild Men of Paris, The Architectural Record, May 1910 (New York), documents p. 3 In 1915 (8 March – 3 April) Metzinger exhibited at the Third Exhibition of Contemporary French Art—Carstairs (Carroll) Gallery, New York—with Pach, Gleizes, Picasso, de la Fresnaye, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Derain, Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon and Villon.Third Exhibition of Contemporary French Art, Carstairs (Carroll) Gallery, New York, 8 March - 3 April, 1915. Metzinger exhibited five works: At the Velodrome (33), A Cyclist (34), Woman Smoking (35), Landscape (36), Head of a Young Girl (37), The Yellow Plume (38)
Metzinger would soon exhibit six works in New York at the Montross Gallery, 550 Fifth Avenue (4–22 April 1916) with Gleizes, Picabia, Duchamp, and Jean Crotti.The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Jean MetzingerAmerican Archives of American Art, Montross Gallery exhibition, New York, Jean Crotti papers, 1913-1973, bulk 1913-1961Montross Gallery exhibition catalogue, New York In 1917 Metzinger exhibited at the People's Art Guild (founded in 1915 to disseminate art to the masses) in New York, with Pach, Picabia, Picasso, Derain and Joseph Stella. In December 1917 Metzinger exhibited at the Exhibition of Paintings by the Moderns, held at Vassar College (located in the heart of the Hudson Valley in New York), with Pach, Derain, Edward Hopper, Diego Rivera and Max Weber.
Duchamp, Picabia, Gleizes and his wife (via Hamilton Bermuda) would soon leave for New York where they would stay an extended period of time. Maurice Metzinger, Jean's brother, made several trips to the United States, in 1906, 1910 and would soon move there permanently in pursuit of his career as a Cellist.The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., Maurice Metzinger In light of the turmoil surrounding his non-acceptance at the Armory show, his brother's experiences in New York, his soon to be exposition at the Cubist Exhibition, Boggs & Buhl's, and the representation of a steamship in the upper right quadrant of L'Oiseau bleu, it would not be out of the question that Metzinger made reference to the American flag (as opposed to a red and white stripped canopy of a Parisian café as suggested by Fry).
This would be remarkable in light of the growing trend of Nationalism surrounding modern art exhibitions in Paris, within which Metzinger was recognized as a French Cubist, and his work, in the French tradition: 'cubisme dans une tradition française'.Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, Histoire & Mesure, no. XXII -1 (2007), Guerre et statistiques, L'art de la mesure, Le Salon d'Automne (1903-1914), l'avant-garde, ses étranger et la nation française (The Art of Measure: The Salon d'Automne Exhibition (1903-1914), the Avant-Garde, its Foreigners and the French Nation), electronic distribution Caim for Éditions de l'EHESS (in French) Painting an American flag might have been seen as provocative, especially so as Roger de La Fresnaye was painting French flags: Fourteenth of July, 1913–14 (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX), and The Conquest of the Air, 1913 (Museum of Modern Art, New York),Roger de La Fresnaye, The Conquest of the Air, 1913, 235.9 × 195.6 cm, depicting a French flag, Museum of Modern Art, New YorkÉchos artistiques de la conquête de l'air : Roger de la Fresnay et la modernité two of his most original contributions to the diverse salons.Eric Hild-Ziem, MoMA, From Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press, 2009 André Lhote appears to show both the flag of the United Kingdom and the stripes of the American flag in his L'Escale, of 1913 (Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris). The Futurist Gino Severini, too, included the French flag in his 1913 painting Train of the Wounded.Gino Severini, Train of the Wounded, 1913, includes the French flag
Divisionism to Multiple perspective
As in the works of Étienne-Jules Marey and Eadweard Muybridge there is no smooth transition between the elements and sections of Metzinger's painting, but when sutured together (with the eye) in succession or simultaneously a dynamic ensemble emerges. The composition is divided, fragmented, splintered or faceted into series, not only of individual rectangles, squares or 'cubes' of color, but into individual planes or surfaces delineated by color and form. Just as other paintings by Metzinger of the pre-war period (such as En Canot, 1913) there is some continuity that transits between the foreground and background, blending perspective of objects close and far, the notion of depth perception has not been abolished, i.e., the spatial attributes of the scene have not been flattened, yet there is no absolute frame of reference.