DISSECTING ROOM
The Fauves went a stage further.
They noticed that the mast of a boat or
a tree trunk changes its colour according
to its background. Thus a tree trunk, as
it rises from the ground, appears lighter
when seen against distant foliage or a
hill side and turns darker when seen
against the brightness of the sky. The
Fauves registered this change, not with
a change of tone, but with a change of
hue, as can be seen in Vlamincks Banks
of the Seine where the red tree trunk
turns an abrupt green. By transposing
the colours in nature into a higher, at
times non-naturalistic key, the Fauves
freed painting, not of its representative
role, but of tired illusionism. This
approach gave their work a radical
freedom. As Vlaminck said, I wanted
to burn down the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
with my cobalts and vermilions. This
liberation of colour was to resonate far
and wide. At a stroke the whole art of
painting had been altered. It now
sought to create, not an imitation of
reality, but an equivalent to reality.
Painting, it was asserted, had a reality of
its own, quite independent of what it
chose to represent. And just how
energised painting could become can
be seen from the rich colour harmonies
found in this exhibition.
What comes across is a youthful
vitality. But in addition there is a
surprising sophistication in the way
these artists balanced one hue against
another, finding tender blues and greens
to hold in position their violent oranges
and reds. These paintings are strong,
often hot pictures, but they are not
brash or crude. And when the latecomer
Georges Braque joined the movement,
his broken, chopped brushwork
explored some very subtle chromatic
passages: the complex fragmentation of
colour in his Boats at Estaque looks for-
ward to his involvement with Cubism.
Behind this art lies a deep-seated
commitment to individual freedom.
Several of these artists, among them
Raoul Dufy and Henri Manguin, found
encouragement in the work of so-called
primitives and folk art. Their shared
distrust of accepted systems and
received beliefs unifies these painters;
but it also may explain the groups
amorphousness and its failure to
develop. Matisse said that the aim was
to search beneath this succession of
moments which constitutes the superfi-
cial existence of things . . . to search for
a truer, more essential character, which
may partly explain why posterity has
acclaimed this movement one of the
most exhilarating and liberating
moments in the history of painting.
Frances Spalding
e-mail: fs236@cam.ac.uk
592
For personal use. Only reproduce with permission from The Lancet Publishing Group.
From the medical museum
Larmessins apoticaire
he subject of this
T
striking engraving is
a delightful hybrid
figure, standing with great
vitality between three visual
traditions: the anatomical
drawing, the trade engraving, and the
portraits formed from judiciously
arranged fruits and other objects
by, among others, the renowned
Renaissance artist Guiseppe Archim-
boldo (152793). The apoticaires
stylish dress and wig date his concep-
tion. He is the creation of Nicolas
Larmessin II (163894), one of a
dynasty of Parisian engravers whose
collective working life spanned the
17th and 18th centuries.
Nicolas Larmessin, Habit dApoticaire
Old prints of pedlars and tinkers
show that in real life, peripatetic
vendors would often attach their
wares to their bodies, particularly
dangling from the waist, as a form
of portable display. This apoticaire
has gone further, and is actually
composed of the tools and the
ingredients of his trade, a sort of
animated medicine cabinet with
all its riches on display. Yet he looks
us in the eye. His facelike those
of the dissected bodies found in
old anatomical printsconvincingly
suggests the presence of a
consciousness.
The apoticaire embodies
both alchemic and empiric
pasts and the scientific
future. With the emblem of
the laboratorya stillfor
headgear, he bears both magical
ingredients, such as coral (believed to
ward off evil) and modern pharma-
ceutical ingredients, like pomphologos
(zinc).
Around his neck, a horse-collar
(bourrelet) represents the apothe-
carys traditional subservience to
the profession of physic. Accou-
trements of trade form his parts:
his shins and upper arms are ointment
jars, his cuffs the waxed paper circlets
used to seal them. His
thighs are mortars for
grinding ingredients,
and a single pestle
hangs with more than a
suggestion of potency,
between his legs.
Artfully arranged
spatulas adorn his
shoes, and phials that
contain all sorts of
pharmaceutical ingredi-
ents dangle from his
elbows and knees, alter-
nating with the small
scoops used to calibrate
quantities in drachms
and scruples. At the
apoticaires waist are
interspersed the slender
tubular rolls of com-
pounded mixture from
which pills were individ-
ually cut by hand. In
place of ribbons, the
Prof B Hurwitz collection
apoticaire has snakes,
whose venom is a
powerful coagulant and
whose fat was used in
ointments and restora-
tive concoctions.
A physic garden,
burgeoning with the many healing
gifts of naturealoes (purgative),
aniseed, rosemary and sage (carmi-
natives), melissa (antispasmodic),
belladonna (analgesic), and mallow
(diuretic)is the apoticaires
habitat. With a clyster for the admin-
istration of therapeutic enemas
in his left hand, he gestures with the
medicine cup in his right: Votre
Sant!
Ruth Richardson
C/o The Lancet, London, UK
THE LANCET Vol 358 August 18, 2001