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work of the month

Autumn Landscape, 1907

Othon Friesz ( French, 1879-1949)
Oil on canvas
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
© Chrysler Museum of Art

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As the bountiful foliage of summer begins to turn from plush greens and robust reds to golden yellows, burnt oranges, and seas of dark green, autumn is soon to follow. Long, lazy warm days will be replaced by the shorter and cooler days of fall. With the changing season, preparation for the pending weather must take place. In the painting, people begin to ready themselves with the fall activity of gathering. Along the slight concave path, a woman kneels to gather wood. In the foreground, another woman bends at the waist to gather branches near her feet. With careful observation, three additional people can be seen picking up, toting, and pushing wood. All of their attention appears to be focused on the immediate task at hand.

Émile-Othon Friesz began a series of autumn paintings at Honfleur in Normandy in 1906. Before leaving Paris for La Ciotat in 1907, he completed the unfinished series. Several of those paintings were landscapes created with the intense palette and style of Fauvism.

What is Fauvism?

Fauvism was a flourishing style of painting in France from 1898-1908, after Impressionism. Like the Impressionists, Fauves used nature as a subject for their paintings. Pure, brilliant colors were applied directly from paint tubes in an aggressive manner to create emotion, using color for its expressive possibilities. An object was not necessarily painted in the familiar color scheme it appears in nature, but as an expression of its inner qualities. Colors exploded off the canvas to evoke emotion.

An expressionist use of color refers to an artist's deliberate use of color for its ability to invoke emotion, rather than copying colors exactly as they are in nature. To use color expressively, an artist might paint the sky black or the grass red, in order to achieve a certain impact on the viewer of the painting.

Three circles of artists constituted the Fauve movement: students from Gustave Moreau's studio and the Académie Carrière; a group from Chatou; and a group from Le Havre. Interestingly, Henri Matisse created the movement and remained its leader through each circle. Artists included in the movement were Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, Georges Rouault, André Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque. Othon Friesz was considered a "latecomer" as a member of the Le Havre group.

Unlike other art movements, Fauvism did not have a common theory, defined boundaries, or announced intent. Loosely formed from associations and friendships, the group did not necessarily lend itself to a continuous set of rules or regulations. The group did, however, share the use of non-naturalist color, defined space with color, and eventually transitioned to other post-Impressionist movements.

Did you know?

Fauvism did not gain a public reputation until 1905. French avant-garde critic Louis Vauxcelles viewed the Paris Salon d'Automne of 1905. Upon admiring the work of various artists, he viewed several paintings with intense, violent brushstrokes and vibrant colors. He then labeled these artists Les Fauves, or "wild beasts." The Fauves enjoyed their newfound status in the art community. Just as quickly as they exploded onto the scene in 1905, the group quietly dissipated in 1907.

Painting as a "Fauve" was only one style of many for Othon Friesz. Born in the town of Le Havre in Normandy, Othon began his career as a figure painter. He completed his training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1904 and worked in the Impressionist style until 1905. That summer, Othon visited with Georges Braque and became enveloped in the Fauve style of painting. Less than two years later, Friesz returned to painting in the Impressionist style.

Have you seen?

The painting initially included seven figures gathering wood. Using your investigating eyes, can you find seven figures in this work of art? Take a close look at the foreground in the large section of the path. Two figures are pentimenti.

Pentimenti-underlying images in a painting or an original draft that show through in the final work.

-Channon M. Humphrey

RESOURCES

Elderfield, John. The "Wild Beast": Fauvism and Its Affinities. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford University Press, 1976.

Harrison, Jefferson C. The Chrysler Museum: Handbook of the European and American Collections. Norfolk, VA: Teagle & Little, Inc., 1991.

Leymarie, Jean. Fauvism. Paris: Syndicat de la Propriété Artistique, 1959.

Sotriffer, Kristian. Expressionism and Fauvism. New York: MacGraw-Hill Book Company, 1972.