![Signatur: rücks.u.bez. "JL [ligiert] '18"](/sites/default/files/styles/960_breit/public/digitalisate/LS23_MOS_2018.jpg?itok=6fuM0GG9 "Arlequin à l’accordéon")
Jacques Lipchitz
(1891-1973)
Jacques Lipchitz
(1891-1973)Arlequin à l’accordéon
Intro
The »Harlequin with Accordion« originates from the Russian-born artist’s early Cubist phase. Having moved to Paris in 1909, Lipchitz quickly came into contact with the French avant-garde, meeting, among others, Diego Rivera (1886–1957) and Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), as well as Juan Gris (1887–1927), with whom he became friends. Lipchitz translated into the medium of sculpture the Cubist formal experiments which Georges Braque (1882–1963) and Picasso were pioneering in their painting.
His harlequin is a compact, self-enclosed figure composed of individual angular components of Cubist elements. The body, but also details such as the accordion, have been reduced to basic geometrical forms. Here, Lipchitz pursues the Cubist undertaking of rethinking the representation of a body in space, while also including one of its most popular motifs—musical instruments—in the form of an accordion.
By virtue of the diagonal arrangement of lines (the edges of the individual cubes) extending throughout the figure, from feet to head, Lipchitz generates a formal dynamic, with its division into individual surfaces connected at different angles creating a lively play of light and shadow.
Transkription
Here’s a compact, self-contained figure made up of angular parts, where individual shapes pervade each other while struggling upwards along a vertical axis. Can you make out the jester? A harlequin holding an accordion in his hands?
Jacques Lipchitz reduces the human figure and musical instrument to basic geometric shapes while both remain clearly discernible. A mere touch of a collar and hat in the upper part characterize the harlequin, a small circle looks like an eye.
His hands and the accordion are particularly prominent in the middle of the sculpture where the artist even hints at fingers by some grooves in the material which seemingly glide over the keys. By combining individual angular surfaces and cubic elements aligned in various angles towards each other, Lipchitz creates an interplay of light and shadow which provides his sculpture with a special depth, and even liveliness.
This »Harlequin with Accordion« was created during the early Cubistic period of the artist. Lipchitz took the central elements of that art movement and transformed these into sculpture. Body and space are reinvented, a simplified but highly complex representation of body in space is born. Who would have recognized the person and his instrument at first view?
On loan from the State of Baden-Württemberg since 1965
Kunsthalle Mannheim / Cem Yücetas
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