Three recent Quimper acquisitions

24/10/23 - Acquisitions - Quimper, Musée des Beaux-Arts - "At the moment, they have no rivals at the Universal Exhibition. No spectacle is more unexpected or curious, and our jaded Western eyes are hypnotised by this disturbing kaleidoscope that is as exhilarating and fascinating as the poisonous scent of a mancenilla flower". This is how Frantz Jourdain, architect, art critic and man of letters, described the Javanese dancers at the 1889 Universal Exhibition. In the colonial section, the Netherlands had set up a traditional village, the Javanese kampong, made up of bamboo houses on stilts, occupied by a total of around sixty inhabitants who had come for the occasion, most of whom worked on Dutch tea or coffee plantations. They made colourful batiks and straw hats for the delighted visitors, cooked spicy, exotic dishes and, of course, played music, with an ensemble called the gamelan and that very special instrument, the angklung. Ravel and Debussy were seduced by these sounds, so strange to Western ears. But it was the young dancers who attracted the most attention. Sent by Prince Mangkunegara V of the Royal Palace of Solo, they were called Wakiem, Taminah, Sariem and Soekia and were aged between 12 and 16. They fascinated the public and of course artists, writers and musicians. René Gril composed a vast lyrical poem, "Le Pantoun des Pantoun", Auguste Rodin sought to capture the movements of each of them, as shown in the exhibition "Rodin et la danse" in 2018, and René de Saint-Marceaux captured the haughty Wakiem in the earth.
As for Paul Le Thimonnier, he too chose to depict only one of the Javanese dancers, favouring the portrait rather than the choreographic effect of the group. He painted her full-length, dressed in traditional costume, but out of all context: she stood out against a background that was both neutral and vibrant, like an apparition (ill. 1). The painting, which had been at the Galerie Ballesteros in Saint-Ouen, joined the collections of the…