Albert GLEIZES analyzes his artistic youth and his Cubist colleagues.

Albert GLEIZES (1881.1953)

Autograph letter signed to his cousin.

Two pages in-4° on paper stamped with his name and address. Wetness on the front.

Saint-Rémy de Provence. July 19, 1947.

“Who is now discussing the Impressionists, Van Gogh, Cézanne…etc. ? Almost all of them are dead, if not ignored, at least vilified, denied.

We were exceptionally lucky. »

Rich and fascinating letter from the Cubist painter looking back on his artistic youth.

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“My dear Geo, if in order to come and chat with you, as you invite me, I had to wait here for rainy days, we would immediately have to ask the sky to change the climate of Provence. Especially in summer. When it rains in our regions for an hour or two at the moment everyone hides. We are a little happy about it for the crops but it is never enough. So it’s not the rain that makes me write to you, but simply the desire to “have a little chat” with you. So I can't resist it.

Have you received my book “Life and Death of the Christian West”? This is obviously not a very uplifting book. But at least he'll give you my temperature. Moreover, he is not pessimistic because my conclusions are on the contrary oriented towards resurrection and only underline, in contrast with evil, what can alone bring health to a very sick country! This book written almost twenty years ago has just been translated and published in London. People write to me “you were right in the past and you will be even more right in the future ”. I feel it well. I will not dwell on this subject. You will link and you will tell me your opinion.

I was very happy to receive the charming and kind letter from your mother. Her writing still has the same authority as the one I knew and her serious and amused state of mind is still that of Aunt Jacqueline of yesteryear. You know that I always have in my ear the very pleasant sound of his voice, so unusual, so singing. I would very much like to see her again and we would evoke together a host of memories, a little childish on my part, understandably, but all the same which have their price. And despite their insignificance, I am certain that she would see backgrounds that escaped me. Childhood souvenirs ! A few years ago, a Parisian publisher asked me to write “my memoirs”, a tribute to age and circumstances. I did not want to stick to my artistic and intellectual adventures and I went to the beginning, thinking that beyond myself, there were many things to bear witness to. The atmosphere in which I spent my first years, the appearance of these Parisian suburbs then, so rural, so peaceful, which have become hell today, and then the family environment. You think that your family has a good place there and that your father is in the forefront. These returns to the past, I bring them into the present through reflections in relation to my current thinking and its progress. I strive to understand states of mind very far from my own and to do them justice. We are quick to condemn anyone who does not think like us, especially in these aesthetic groupings, which overall make a fantastic basket of crabs . In a word we touch on oppositions which would require, to be heard, patience and good will, discernment and that elementary charity which consists of paying homage to each person according to their works . I know it's sometimes difficult. I have often fallen into this error that I denounce today and I have often been unfair .

But it is a question, as we mature, of dominating our passions or, rather, of using them for other enrichments. By writing these memories, I was led to seriously meditate on all these things: I had all the elements to conclude. Childhood spent in a conformist environment of which your father was the main figure. My father was on your side. So you can imagine the struggles I had to undertake, the assaults I had to endure when, with the paint, almost without realizing it, I turned to the other side of the barricade . It takes faith, tenacity, and a certain spirit of adventure to hold on, to go alone into unknown lands, under general disapproval and mockery. Fortunately I was able to be materially free and that, very early on, I discerned what was fascinating and decisive in the research in which I was engaged ; when I was able, in a way, to go beyond painting while discovering in it virtues of experience of incredible richness and preserving them, and going for a walk in more broadly human domains. And, today, when I look back at the past I forget these little miseries and, deep down, these oppositions encountered were necessary and strengthen the faith. I don't know what your tastes are now, but I imagine that if you like Debussy, Ravel... you may not have the same feeling towards Massenet or Gounod that you may have had in the past. It’s like in poetry; when we like Mallarmé and Apollinaire, we are rather lukewarm towards Sully-Prudhomme and François Coppée . In the visual arts, it's obviously the same thing. But what I understand now and what I didn't see before is that we must not confuse talent and state of mind. All these men have talent, Massenet as well as Debussy, Apollinaire as well as François Coppée. However, what attracts us to some and distances us from others is quite simply that we like a state of mind in some and we do not like that of others. And when we understand this, it becomes interesting to try to guess why these two mentalities could have met almost at the same time. I tried hard on the painting and it allowed me to take stock. Who is now discussing the Impressionists, Van Gogh, Cézanne…etc. ? Almost all of them are dead, if not ignored, at least vilified, denied. We were exceptionally lucky. The concern of the time with regard to all these values? maybe. Still, in our lifetime we are entering History ; it's quite funny. For me, it is certainly not yet tranquility; some approve of me, others discuss me. God grant that it continues like this until the end. I ask no more. I fear more than anything the craze, and this support from the crowd which is nothing but wind. I am also wary of criticism that is so ignorant and confusing everything. Even those among its members who make an effort to be lucid soon prove insufficient. What mistakes of all kinds they make.

I will send you, typed, this first part of my memories. You will read the pages, above all, where yours appear and you will give me your feelings. I would be very happy. I don't want to pay you a longer visit today. I had hoped to go to Paris in July, for the opening of the Salon des Réalités nouvelles. I won't make the trip, too much work keeps me here. I told your mother that perhaps, if I was in Paris in July, I would naturally go to Vésinet. I regret it immensely but that will be for a little later. Tell him how sorry I am for this inconvenience. Give all my affectionate regards to you, kiss your mother for me and believe me, my dear Geo, your cousin and I hope your friend. »