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Portrait de Jean Cocteau, 1916

The outbreak of the World War One gave France, in addition to the fighting on the front, a radicalisation of aesthetic positions. The strictly French, that clearly grafted from their tradition, received a tremendous push which was at the same time recognised as a guiding light for a broader tradition, that of Latin cultures. France felt that it was heir to this and its continuance, in other words, being its representative and defender.

Gleizes' painting is a cubist portrait of a person who, at the age of twenty, and after making a name for himself as a prodigy, found himself at a crossroads of not being recognised as anything other than a salon poet by magazines such as Mercure de France, or the much later but obligatory reference, la Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) , which set the pace for this demanding culture. Cocteau had managed to publish seven poems in the NRF, with the help of Gide and against the will of the rest of the editorial committee (only Ghéon was also in favour of him). In a parallel fashion, he had also closely approached the vanguard and its new work, being certain that within its ranks he would find his own voice. At any rate, he felt decided about making a move that would take him from being a "Salon-type" poet to a recognised and important contemporary poet.

At the age of twenty-four Cocteau discovers Apollinaire, and after being terribly critical of the cubists (according to painter Juliette Roches, later Gleizes' wife, and an artist that Cocteau had posed for), in a short time this poet became its most fervent defender. Thus, we would see Cocteau open the pages of Le Mot (the ephemeral magazine that he would found with the cartoonist Paul Iribe in 1914) to Albert Gleizes with a show of preference and privilege. The magazine only published satiric drawings, so the presence of less incidental pieces by a cubist painter could only be seen as an elliptic manifesto. This resulted in more than one protest of indignation from the most traditional sectors of Parisian culture, and especially from those who believed they could see the dissolving presence of the enemy's thinking in Cubism, the tip of the German iceberg, and therefore alien to what was genuinely French and seen as endangered. The truth is that from its first issue on November 28, 1914, the magazine had out rightly defended the French artistic and literary tradition, also stressing the saving role that the war was representing. It was something in the air, and in more than a few traditional French coteries Cubism was spoken of as one more way, subtle as the others that preceded it, of effecting a German invasion in the French cultural world, an invasion that had to be rejected with the same energy as on the battleground with enemy soldiers.

The brilliant polemicist from Action Française, Léon Daudet, had charged against German culture with strong and colourful rhetoric. In addition, from another end of the spectrum, an influential critic, Madame Aurel, insisted that Cubism and its proponents (which were often misspelled; Gleizes became "Glaize") were not at all representative of Frenchness, but indeed, of Germanness. The fight against "la Kultur", seen as the narrow Prussian vision of the world -the Deutschsein) and the defence of civilisation, understood as exclusively French, began to assume fundamental importance in a war with much more at stake than simply the defence of geographical borders. It is amidst this context that Cocteau and Iribe founded their magazine, with the idea of turning it into a propagandistic machine on the spiritual battleground. He was not the only one to act this way. A good number of avant-garde artists grouped around several magazines, decided to use the weapons of words and images. The presence of Gleizes in the magazine (certainly short-lived) of Cocteau and Iribe was a way of insisting on the genuine French nature of the movement, that which many critics had denied it. Angry complaints accused them of insulting "good French taste" by publishing the first Gleizes sketch. The feeling was so widespread that it even became common practice to spell Cubism with a "K", which was supposedly German. There was an endless number of vignettes and articles along these lines. The attacks were not new; for years the cubist painters and their cohorts (Guillaume Apollinaire, Pierre Reverdy and Max Jacob, among others, in Paris; Eugenio d'Ors and José Junoy in Barcelona), had to repeatedly insist on Cubism's classic and Latin filiation while confronting attacks rooted in a lack of understanding of this movement's radical novelty. As early as 1912 Gleizes himself had published a treatise on Cubism (co-written by Metzinger) that began with an unmistakable phrase: "In order to evaluate the importance of Cubism we must refer back to Gustave Courbet", later in the text to recall the important debt of Cubism with Cézanne. Few things could be more French that the new school, and by stating it so clearly many of this school's sympathisers added their efforts.

Moreover, Gleizes had been called up for duty during the war and was at the front, therefore, any doubts regarding his attitude or its sympathies had to be dismissed. Picasso had painted his Vive la France, but he had remained in Paris, just like Matisse, not following the example of Apollinaire, who, as a foreigner, insisted that they accept him as a soldier and was sent to the battlefront as an artilleryman. The presence of Gleizes in Le Mot was the reminder that the artistic vanguard was in alliance with the military vanguard in defence of the French tradition, going beyond mere words. Therefore, a very young Cocteau opened the gates to the vanguard and accepted it, becoming a part of it. I imagine that it was amidst this context that the portrait Gleizes did of Cocteau took on dimension. Cocteau dressed as a soldier is presented to us as defender of Frenchness. At the same time, the style of the painting was a propaganda asset for avant-garde cubist modernism.

Cocteau became the embodiment of a radical patriot, decided upon fighting on the battle front. In truth, however, he had been declared unfit for combat. Among other duties, he spent his time hunting for milk on farms to supply it to the mobilised troops at train stations. He also made flights with Roland Garros, until he was finally declared fit for auxiliary service, and worked as a volunteer in the recently created ambulance service conceived by Étienne de Beaumont, with technical and aesthetic contributions of certain importance. Notwithstanding, he spent most of the war years in Paris, during which time he liked to stroll around dressed in various military uniforms, as pure fantasy and product of his prolific imagination. André Gide would say in his diary the Cocteau "has dressed almost like a soldier, and the sudden turn of events has made him look even better." Half harlequin and half soldier, he first tries to have his portrait done by Picasso. In September of 1915 he writes to Picasso: "My portrait must be painted in haste, because I am dying." This does not seem to be effective with Picasso. It wouldn't be until a year later with this painting by Gleizes that his wish would be fulfilled. However, in 1916 Cocteau finally manages to have Picasso draw him, "in the style of Ingres", dressed in one of his pseudo uniforms.

In Gleizes' painting Cocteau appears, indeed, dressed in one of his fantasy creations of the military. With this, I imagine, he wanted to unite trench combat with the aesthetic vanguard, showing the rejuvenating and salvaging role of the war for a France that was renewed after its victory. In this France the new aesthetic work would have a substantive value, as innovating and fecundating as the war itself. The less violent avant-garde of Italy would have to play an important role in this innovation as well.

Since the beginning of the war, two movements substantially different in their aesthetic content -Cubism and Italian Futurism- looked for necessary points of contact to ally themselves against a common enemy. This is how Cubism and Futurism joined forces, albeit ephemerally. Therefore, the futurist presence evident in this painting by Gleizes can be understood not only through the notable importance of colour, but also through the dynamism of the figure's adopted position; more conceptually, through the Italian futurist feature that exposes the strong harlequin-style of the fabric through the endless multicoloured geometric figures (more realist than imaginative) that make it up.

The painting was exhibited in Spain. The Dalmau Galleries in Barcelona, noted for its continued involvement in avant-garde art (already in 1912 cubist painters had exhibited publicly there) organised a Gleizes exhibit, which opened on September 29, 1916. The portrait, which must have been very recent, was included in the exhibit, and thus, we would imagine, it received its first extensive criticism. One of the critics most attentive to the Parisian artistic and literary vanguard, Barcelona-born Josep Maria Junoy, published a text dedicated to the painting in La Veu de Catalunya. After years of silence, he spoke to join his voice with those that defended France and Latinism (probably following the instructions from Max Jacob in his Small Pratical Guide to Amateurs of Cubism). This was one of Junoy's first texts during this period, therefore, at least for him, the painting must have had a remarkable value for its defence of French art and the vanguard, that I just spoke of. I cannot resist reciting it now. It was entitled "The Jean Cocteau of Albert Gleizes":

"Cerebral shaping of verticality in complex cadence that vibrates magic with the smooth tilting of a slender palm -an inherited trait. This intelligent perpendicular imagination appears beautifully involved in a polyphonic mosaic of broad quadrilaterals and cut triangles - multi-coloured...

(Two cut precious stones from the Orient. . . .) Here is the poet Jéan Cocteau who wears a dalmatic in French military horizon blue, well adjusted gaiters of grey leather and the ochre-coloured leather equipment -standard issue.

Notice, my geographic friends, the most obvious anecdote in the wavy head of hair that festoons the cruel face.

A face that is cruel for its extreme subtly, heraldic fleur-de-lis, emerging from a Murano curve, tubular. . .

Finally.

Curious and perhaps also fitting, the extra-pictorial technique of moving from the background a certain snow-white porcelain dish to incrust it in discretely polished relief into the right of the incredibly thin character...

(We like to imagine a type of immaculate shield.)"

J. V. P.

Title, signature, date and place of creation on the lower right corner: "Albert Gleizes 1916 Barcelona".

ORIGIN

Ullmann collection, United States / Daniel Malinge Gallery, Paris / Leandro Navarro Gallery, Madrid.

EXHIBITS

Albert Gleizes , Barcelona, Galerías Dalmau, 1916 / A Retrospective Exhibition of Modern Paintings by Albert Gleizes, Nueva York, Galería René Gimpel, 1936-1937 / Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition , Nueva York, Passedoit Gallery, 1949 / Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition , Nueva York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1964 / Albert Gleizes, Le Cubisme en majesté , Barcelona, Museo Picasso, 2001, moving to Lyon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

JUNOY, J. M., «El Jean Cocteau d'Albert Gleizes», La veu de Catalunya, Barcelona, 1916 / GOTH, M., «Odeurs de partout», Barcelona, nº1, 1917 / Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, A Retrospective Exhibition , Nueva York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1964, nº cat. 102, rep. c. p. 82 / VARICHON, A., Albert Gleizes, catalogue raisonné, Ed. Somogy-Fondation Albert Gleizes, 1998, vol I, nº cat. 601, rep. c. p. 209 / Albert Gleizes, Le Cubisme en majesté , Barcelona, Museo Picasso, 2001, nº cat. 88, rep. c. p. 84-85 / HARAMBOURG, L., «De Musées en Galeries: Albert Gleizes», La Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, París, nº 41, noviembre 2001, p. 41.