Derain [antikvár]

The Dance, 1905-1906. Canvas 73"x9o" Collection Pedro Valenilla Echcverria, Caracas, Venezuela FACE TO FACE WITH AN ENIGMA André Derain died as the result of a motor accident on September 8''\ 1954. Almost immediately after his death the veil of public indifference or mute distaste which had surrounded the artist and his work was lifted and tributes, exhibitions of his art, articles and books about him appeared in many parts of the world. No such spontaneous interest in the artist had been shown during his lifetime. Call we conclude, as many people have suggested, that Derain's art presents the historian with a problem and that the time has come to investigate and perhaps revise the opinions already reached; Little could be gained by resorting to so radical an analysis. It would be far better to situate Derain, the artist, against the background of modern art as a whole rather than cause offence to those who were his contemporaries even if, in time, they became his rivals. It should, however, be recognised that we are still too close to the artist in time to judge dispassionately. The best course is to treat his works objectively not forgetting that there have been others who have found it difficult to keep his own particular charm within proper proportions. It is common knowledge that Derain was deeply affected by the extent to which he was ostracised after the Liberation. But that had no connection with the pictures he had deliberately withdrawn from the Salons since 1910. It is therefore quite unnecessary to use this pretext to embark on a totally unnecessary process of rehabilitation. Who could argue against the established facts today and claim that his pictures are unimportant; In spite of doubts expressed by Sutton, I do not think any impartial historian or critic would refuse Derain the status he deserves. He cannot, today, be held responsible for the exaggerations committed in his name and the intentions which zealous detractors of modem art claim were liis. It is no less intolerable now to witness the wrangle over the dismemberment of his art. On the basis of their preconceived notions some accept, others reject such and such a period or part of a picture. Such elements are indivisible. Of little importance are personal preferences for some work or other. The real value of a picture lies in its structural unity, its gradual development probing left and right and occasionally losing its way. I shall try to show that a painter's natural artistic evolution is affected by the extent to which he is troubled by everyday preoccupations. Everything the painter undertook is shown to be closely allied with what his artist or writer friends were engaged in at the time. This is borne out by the many prophetic associations found in Apollinaire's writings from La Chanson du mal aimé to the various notes or texts dealing with Derain's own works. All the drama that Derain, the artist, felt; the blind, exaggerated agony of his pre-war pictures, the painful change of style later on and the arrogance of a life, fast disappearing, should be taken as the hall-mark of a generation and, in a way, that of the whole of society which the war had rocked to its very foundations. All that can be done is to discover the deep meaning of the artist's work in relation to an epoch of which he is ignorant and to evaluate the proud, determined style from which he never deviates. It is particularly difficult to obtain a clear vision of the man. He was consciously verbose in his letters and full of self-justification in his early years. It was not long before he turned into an intellectual recluse m spite of his affable exterior when the only glimpses allowed of liis true self were his brilhant aphorisms.