70 f. O 4- PTIn f$z IU% v □□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□I Origins and development of Kinetic Art !□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□ Frank Popper translated from the French by Stephen Bann New York Graphic Society © English translation Studio Vista 1968 Published in the United States of America by New York Graphic Society Ltd, Greenwich, Connecticut 06830 and in Great Britain by Studio Vista Ltd Blue Star House, Highgate Hill, London N19 Library of Congress catalog card number 69-10920 Set in 10 pt Plantin, one point leaded Made and printed in Holland by the Hooiberg Printing Co. Ltd, Epe Contents Introduction 7 Part I 1 Movement and the Impressionist generation 11 2 Movement in the Post-impressionist era 22 3 Movement in the arts around 1910 37 4 Movement in the age of surrealism and geometrical abstraction 71 Part II 5 The origins of kinetic art: virtual movement 93 6 Three-dimensional works in movement 121 7 Light and movement 156 8 Recent developments in kinetic art 190 Part III 9 The typology of movement: simple procedures for the expression of movement in the plastic arts 215 10 Sketch for an aesthetic of movement 224 Conclusion 244 Appendices The generations of artists 249 Classification of kinetic art 251 Movement in art 253 Bibliography 255 List of illustrations and acknowledgments 262 Index 267 . Introduction The date 1860 is a good point of departure for a study of movement in the plastic arts for several reasons. It was in the 1860s that the new way of seeing which later became known as Impressionism contributed its first significant works. This period also marks the first stage in the ‘isolation1 of sense data - colours, lines, tones and eventually movement - that was to be the indispensable stage in the preparation of a pure or abstract art. In the scientific field, Fechner’s Elemente der Psychophysik appeared in 1860. In the May of the same year, Herbert Spencer wrote his First Principles and the new theory of evolution was born. From this point onwards, there is a kind of chronological parallelism in the way in which the arts and the sciences evolve, or rather mutate. The date 1860 is also highly significant in the history of photogra¬ phy: witness the lively interest aroused by the photography of objects in movement and by stereoscopic vision, which was later to have important repercussions on ci ne matograp hy. If the historical aspect is relatively clear, it is much more difficult to set boundaries to this subject from the purely logical point of view. There seem to be six different ways of envisaging movement which are of interest to the aesthetician. First of all we have the element of movement in the work: this element that can be perceived could be called the ‘image’ of movement in the widest sense, extending further than the notion of ‘representation1. Then there is the movement of the artist’s hand, and of his whole body: the way in which these are involved closely affects the genesis of the work, and perhaps even its structure. Thirdly, there are the eye movements of the spectator, who registers the successive perceptions and finally comes to a judgement of aesthetic value. Obviously these movements can be subordinated to the actual movement of the spectator himself, as in the case of a walk around a sculpture or within an architectural monument. There are three other problems involved in the logical classification of movement: the relationship between movement in the plastic arts and movement in the other arts, the relationship between physical, psychological or biological moveme?it and movement in the arts in general, and finally the highly contemporary problem of real movement in the plastic arts. This study will be confined as far as possible to the analysis of movement in the work of art, but it will necessarily involve the treatment of spectator movement up to a certain point, especially where it is a question of experiencing the mobility 7 of the work and identifying with this aspect. Only incidental reference will be made to the difficult problem of eye movements, and the problem of the artist’s gestures, since both of these topics require a completely separate study. But there will be some consideration of the three categories which were mentioned above: analysis of works in real movement, in particular, will occupy a substantial part of the book. As far as the different arts are concerned, this study is devoted almost exclusively to painting and sculpture (and in a lesser degree to the graphic arts). These are treated in close conjunction, and it is the main intention of the author to show how the evolution of the use of movement during the period results in an entirely new category of art, which is frequently termed ’■kinetic’. In this new category, the traditional division between the plastic arts loses a great deal of its relevance. Although the other arts are formally excluded from this study, there are occasional references to the cinema, music, drama and choreography in the historical section. Frank Popper 8 Part 1 1 Movement and the Impressionist generation The first part of this study centres upon the conflict between subjective and objective movement which renews itself in every generation - or did so, at any rate, until the early 1950s, when the element of movement became autonomous and so resolved the dilemma. Our starting point for this investigation is around the year 1860, when the revolutionary concerns of the Impressionist group first became apparent. The Impressionists dealt above all else with visual data, and consequently with movement as an objective phenomenon. Among their most frequent themes were horses, railways and railway bridges, barges, sailing boats, crowds, flags, smoke, clouds, water and its reflections, and, of course, dancers. These subjects can be traced back through history, and related in particular to the immediate predecessors of the Impressionists: Turner, Jongkind, Boudin, Courbet, Corot and even Ingres and Delacroix. But the various threads were drawn together quite distinctively in the personalities, aims and ideas of the Impressionist generation. By examining a few selected works by Manet, Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Sisley, Cezanne, Guillaumin, Bazille and Berthe Morisot, we can gain some idea of what has been called ‘the progressive conquest of light’ taken as the major theme of Impressionism. • Manet - Impressionist vibration and conventional movement Manet’s position in relation to Impressionism proper is rather hard to define. If we choose three pictures at random from the time at which his style was emerging, and analyse them summarily from the point of view of movement, we come to realize that Manet’s art, while remaining close to the classical and even academic manner, contributes in certain ways to the development of the new style - and in particular to the very first stages of the liberation of the element of movement in painting. Le Ballet espagnol, which dates from 1862, clearly takes as its theme the art of choreography depicted through the classic medium of character attitudes. But the procedure which Manet has used conveys a new sense of movement. He makes contour coincide with gesture in such a way that the lack of equilibrium in the subject matter is strongly accentuated. The same thematic and plastic procedures are to be seen in the famous Dejeuner sur I’herbe of 1863, in which Giacomo Baila La Bambina che corre su/ balcone, 1912 conversation and weekend activity as an expression of movement combine with 11 the major preoccupation of Impressionism, the open air - represented by the nude in the landscape. Here we already have a new interpretation of light, and the spots of colour perform an entirely new function. Finally, in VExecution de Vempereur Maximilien of 1867, a picture which hardly seems impressionistic except in the sense in which the word could be applied to Velasquez, the different motifs of movement - rifles, smoke etc. - convey in a dramatic and, at the same time, visually objective way the flight of the bullets and the act of execution. The plastic procedure is no different from that of the Renaissance (Uccello, Piero della Francesca) - except for the blurring of the atmosphere which dominates certain parts of the picture, particularly on the left. This is also the direction in which our eyes are led by the line of the rifles, a tendency reinforced by the diagonal counterpoint of the rifle which an officer (probably General Dias) is in the process of reloading. • Degas - a modern collection of themes involving bodies in movement Degas goes further than Manet in his investigation of subjects involving move¬ ment. His favourite themes coincide in at least two respects - race-horses and subjects from modern life - with those of the Impressionists. But it was his remarkable variations on the theme of the dance, pursued over several decades, that influenced subsequent painters most considerably and gave the greatest impetus towards the popularization of the Impressionist vision. In expressing himself principally through the arabesque, Degas also stands at the head of a tradition which leads to Toulouse-Lautrec and the artists of the Jugendstil. Jeunes Spartiates s’exergant d la lutte, a painting by Degas which dates from 1860, belongs recognizably to the lineage of David. But the kinetic theme of nudes in a landscape which was characteristic of the early 1860s is brought out in the placing of the bodies and the use of dramatic gesture, both of which combine to suggest an interpretation of youth in movement. Degas’ two favourite themes, the horse and the dancer - which were to domi¬ nate his work as a painter and as a sculptor - appear together in a picture dating from 1868 which is entitled Mademoiselle Fiocre dans le ballet de la source.