Le Corbusier and the Salon D´Automne of Paris. Architecture And

avant-gardes, succeeding and mixing phases, plans, he met Charles Plumet, Pierre Paquet, Le Corbusier and the genres, currents and contexts1. Throughout Henri-Léon Baudouin, Henri Sauvage, the century, it exhibited Brancusi, Braque, Eugène Grasset and, in particular, Frantz Salon d´Automne of Chagal, De Chirico, Delaunay, Derain, Van Jourdain, architect and art critic, president Paris. Architecture Dongen, Duchamp, Kandinsky, Léger, Matisse, of the Salon. All of them were his art and Ozenfant, Picabia, Picasso, Rodin, Raoul Dufy, architecture referents. At their request, he and representation Utrillo and a long etcetera of other artists. The visited the main exhibitions of the moment: José Ramón Alonso Pereira enumeration reveals the internationality of the Salon Beaux Arts, open from April to July, the Salon, whose artists made Paris the capital the Automobile and Bicycle Exhibition and of art. In 1914 the Salon was consolidated the Salon d’Automne, both of them held that and unanimously recognized (CORET autumn at the Grand Palais, where, in 1909, 2003). Despite a very clear modernity he visited the first Aeronautics Exhibition tendency during its early years, the Salon and in November, before leaving Paris, the always sought a dialogue between modern new Salon d’Automne of that season. During and ancient, far from the dogmatic excesses his training years at La Chaux de Fonds, of some avant-gardes. The Salon´s basic L’Eplattenier had restrained his pictorial originality led in the fact that it was a house vocation, directing him towards architecture. Introduction to all artistic manifestations, bringing together However, Le Corbusier continued painting all sorts of artists: painters and sculptors, watercolours and making drawings in form The Salon d’Automne in Paris was the locus glassmakers and ceramists, decorators and of sketches, studies and travel impressions. of the new arts; an annual contest created architects, allowing all of them to freely Most are typical of an architect in training, in 1903 to offer the artists a plural field of exhibit their creations. It often had specific but anothers reveal a young painter who encounter and to show to the public the sections destined to posters and books, to was very much in contact with his time, for present there, the tendencies and new arts. religious art, theatrical decoration, dance, whom images –far from being banal - were Cradle of vanguards, the Salon stood out for fashion, urbanism or urban art. Architecture a starting point for reflection. In his process spreading all kinds of artistic genres, from had a continued presence throughout the of personal and artistic maturation, the trips painting and sculpture, to photography, years. Jourdain, Plumet, Sauvage, Lurcat, he made between 1908 and 1911 to Italy and engraving, design, architecture and applied Mallat-Stevens, Le Corbusier and the all of Central Europe and, in particular, to the arts. Le Corbusier attended it on several best architects presented their works there. East were key. They led to many visual and occasions between 1912 and 1929, both with Decorative arts took also a preferential place, cultural references, then used in his articles his paintings and his architecture; with whose presence would be amplified until and books. Orient gave rise to a sample of his urban planning and his interior design it then links to the 1925 Decorative Arts 16 watercolours painted in the course of proposals. He went with his drawings of Exhibition. Although the first Salon took place the trip, shown under the poetic title of the Orient journey before the European within the Petit Palais, the success led it to ‘Le Langage des Pierres’ at Neuchâtel in War and he returned after to showcase his occupy the Grand Palais in 1904, the house for April and May 1912, within the Peintres, works and make his Ville Contemporaine or such exhibition of arts which would occupy Sculpteurs et Architectes Suisses Exhibition, his Équipement de l’habitation well-known this space uninterruptedly since that moment and afterwards ---as a reduced version-- at examples of his architecture. then. The Petit Palais and the Grand Palais the Zurich Kunsthaus, during 1913 Spring were the jewels of the 1900 Paris, designed (BROOKS 1997). When he returned to La The Salon d’Automne as part of a vast programme thought out for Chaux, he stayed in contact with Perret the Universal Exhibition. Symbols of the and Jourdain, to whom he frequently At the beginning of the century, there social taste of the time, both of them shared wrote. Thus, wishing to exhibit at Paris his were several art salons in Paris: Beaux their urban character and their expository watercolours, he begged Perret “s’est temps Arts, Artistes Français, Independants, etc. will. However, they were diverse in their encore, de m’inscrire comme participant However, Paris lacked a plural place for architectural forms and in their capacity au Salon d’Automne, section peinture”. all the arts and their innovative currents to hold events, notably larger was the one In October and November he exhibited to gather. Some artists and critics such as corresponding to the Grand Palais. his Orient watercolours, with the same Carrière, Desvallières, Guimard, Valloton, Neuchâtel title: ‘Langage de pierres’. They Vuillard, Rambosson and Frantz Jourdain, This is a singular work by Deglané, Thomas were located in one of the great halls at the who was thr Salon’s first president, worked and Louvet which brings together the top of the stairs, next to those of Van Dongen. hard to make it a reality (JOURDAIN 1926). formalism of its plant and its facades with There they remained between October 1 and some spatial advances such as a large glazed November 8 (SOCIETÉ 1912, GRESLERI In October 1903, the general public of Paris hall, whose background is occupied by a 1988) He would have liked to see them could see within the Petit Palais, the works monumental staircase. Louvet took care of the exhibited, however, he was not able to make of Bonnard, Blanche, Gleizes, Marquet and new structures, worth mentioning because of it to Paris until December and he could only Villon under an electric light, a significant their complex and well-studied design, and collect them. In October he wroted to Karl novelty of the times. The contributions of the grand staircase, a compromise between Ernst Osthaus, banker and maecenas, creator made during the year 1903, were confirmed classicism and art nouveau that was originally of the Wesphalia Folkwang Museum, whom in 1904. The 1905 Salon was the scene of a large hall of honour. Between 1900 and 1940 he had visited before his trip: “J’ai exposé a spectacular presentation. Upon entering it was the framework of art and technology, of quelques acquarelles du voyage au Salon the room, one could see Henri Matisse’s ‘La automobile and aeronautics; the framework d’Autumne et cose qui m’a fait plaisir elles femme au chapeau’, it scandalized some by of the Salon d’Automne and of many other on été placées en bonne place et Maurice the violence of its shapes and colours. The annual exhibitions. It was the framework of Denis leur a accordé son éloge. Lorsqu’elles art critic Louis Vauxcelles when he first Le Corbusier’s dioramas: interior framework avaient paru ici, en une exposition régionale, saw the paintings actually exclaimed: “It of the Ville Contemporaine in 1922, external on m’avait taxé de fou, et très malmené dans is a cage of beasts!” (A “cage aux fauves”). framework of the Voisin Plan in 1925. les journaux” (6). Apparently, at the time Fauvism, the first pictorial revolution of he had an offer to buy his watercolours but the century, had emerged. If Impressionists Its presence in the years before the war he refused to sell them. Nowadays, these reflected the light and its variations as watercolours have been valued as true essence of painting, Matisse’s chromatic Le Corbusier arrived in Paris in the spring of creative artistic efforts, independent of their cry was a step forward where subject and 1908, and remained there almost two years, architectural studies (DUCROS 2002). In that form were pretexts for drawing attention until December 1909 (ALONSO 2015). From same 1912 Salon, Fernand Léger exposed his to the chromatic essence of art. The Salon the early days of his stay, he established a painting “Passage à niveau”, while Duchamp- reflects and gives back to the 20th century relationship –even if indirectly - with the Villon exhibited a socalled Maison Cubiste, the image of itself. Open to all formulas and Autumn Salon. Before getting to work with whose facade said to be inspired by the talents, it presented all artistic trends and all Auguste Perret, and within his training homonymous painting. The presence of such JOSÉ RAMÓN ALONSO PEREIRA 169 a diverse mixture of arts moved the critic 1922 Salon: Ville contemporaine the city and its image, which entails not to qualify the 1912 Salon d’Automne as the only a new sense of space and new means to “salon bourgueois” (MARÉ 1912, PÉLADAN That autumn, when he was 35 years old, Le build it, but also new ways of representing it. 1912). That year, Le Corbusier had opened Corbusier exhibits in the Salon d’Automne “a There were three levels in which he offered a studio in La Chaux de Fonds. He designed decorative fountain and a city of three million the city’s image. A scientific level, through Jeanneret-Perret’s and Favre-Jacot’s villas, inhabitants behind”. It was a provocative abstract planes. A representative level, with and published ‘Etude sur le mouvement response to a dismissive invitation. In his book perspectives, sketches, drawings and photos, d’art décoratif en Allemagne’.

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