I have no idea what Kees van Dongen (1877-1968) had on his mind once he attained commercial success with stylized paintings of women featuring exaggeratedly large eyes outlined in dark paint. He was perfectly capable of painting in a traditional manner and probably could have gone even further in a modernist direction than he already had, so there were creative options. On the other hand, he enjoyed having money and loved to entertain fellow artists and others, so he continued to paint in the van Dongen style, but within a range of variations. Examples of his paintings that edged in the representational direction are shown below.
I wrote about van Dongen here, and here is a biographical sketch.
This is one of van Dongen's most famous paintings in his classic style.
Arletty was a singer and movie star.
No van Dongen dark eye outlines here, but the general treatment is clearly from his brush.
Even further removed from his style; only the handling of the dress suggests van Dongen.
Again the dress is the stylistic tip-off, the face and visible body bits being rendered quite tightly (for van Dongen).
More in the van Dongen vein, especially the large eyes.
A bit of his old Fauve color treatment, but otherwise largely conventional.
More crisply done than usual, but T's arms seem too large.
Unlike the previous paintings, this was probably done after the 1930s and has few van Dongen traces.
Interesting how the artist dealt with this issue.
ReplyDeleteUnless an artist had wealthy parents to support him, he would have been very wise to stick to a winning formula. Van Dongen was lucky enough or clever enough to find a keen market and the idea of going back to being a starving artist in a bleak attic did not appeal.
Yes, I agree that re-doing old themes over and over must have been a bit limiting to his creativity. I wonder how Tamara Lempicka handled the same issue.