BERNARD BOUTET DE MONVEL (1881-1949)

The present group of three drawings imagine the character ‘Luc’ visiting the 1919 Jean Metzinger exhibition, presented by Léonce Rosenberg at the Galerie de l'Effort moderne, located in Rue de La Baume in Paris. The illustrations were published in the Gazette du Bon Ton (volume I, 1920, p. 41) to accompany the article by Henri Bidou entitled: 'Absolute painting'.

In the story Luc studies each canvas closely, and greatly admires Metzinger’s technique and rigorous compositions. Luc meets an old man who describes the work as ‘la peinture absolue’. He points out to Luc that Metzinger is not painting the thing but the idea of the thing, and that one must not copy, but paint the essence of things ('Il ne faut pas copier. Monsieur, il fait peindre l'essence même des êtres, et leur prototype éternel.’). Luc replies that he used to think this way in his youth, but then he became an Impressionist, and it is for this reason that his soul is not pure, unlike that of Metzinger. Luc departs the gallery with his vision of the universe altered, viewing everything he sees on the street in terms of lines, angles and geometry, and becomes a Cubist.