Le Corbusier - Le Poème de l'Angle Droit

Le Corbusier is admired as one of the greatest and most influential architects of the 20th Century. Less well known is the fact that he was a painter and printmaker and one of the founders of Purism.

His suite of lithographs Le Poème de l’Angle Droit is seldom seen. The Goldmark Gallery is delighted to present this signed and numbered set.

Catalogue £7.50

visit lecorbusierprints.co.uk

Le Corbusier (1887-1965)

Although Swiss born, Charles-Edouard Jeanneret became a French citizen and adopted the pseudonym Le Corbusier under which he became internationally famous as an architect and artist. He is generally regarded as one of the most influential, if sometimes controversial, architects and urban planners of the twentieth century, particularly as a pioneer in the Modern Movement or International Style. Some of his most renowned buildings and urban projects include the Villa Schwob (1916), the Plan Voisin, Paris (1925), the Villa Savoye (1929), the Unité d’Habitation, Marseilles (1946-52), the town plan and buildings for Chandrigarh, India (1950-65) and the church of Notre Dame-du-Haut, Ronchamp (1950-55).

Le Corbusier was interested in art from at least his teenage years as he studied in his hometown at the La Chaux-deFonds Art School from 1902. However his first serious attempts at painting started in 1918 when he met the Cubist artist Amédée Ozenfant and they began a period of collaboration during which they rejected Cubism and published a manifesto entitled Après le Cubisme.

Their new art movement was called Purism and in their manifesto they rejected the romantic, decorative aspects of Cubism in favour of a return to clear, ordered forms expressive of the modern machine age.

From 1918 to 1922 Le Corbusier concentrated almost exclusively on painting and thereafter continued to paint and make prints throughout his career. He claimed that his art, usually private and often unrecognised, gave his architecture its main moral and formal support.

By the late 1920s Le Corbusier was replacing the Purist symbolism in his art with an increasing interest in the female nude and organic forms, such as rocks and seaside objects, and the influence of Surrealism. After the Second World War Le Corbusier, in the words of the art historian Tim Benton, . . . developed an iconographic language, which reinvested his work with a suitably momentous range of references. The high point of this attempt to create a set of universal modernist myths was Le Poème de l’Angle Droit.

Front cover unsigned lithograph ÂŁ2000

Diagram unsigned lithograph ÂŁ2000

Lithographs 1 - 19

signed and numbered 43/60 ÂŁ4500 each Prices include frame, vat and uk delivery

Le Poème de l’Angle Droit (1955)

The right angle was a recurring and important philosophical theme in Le Corbusier’s architecture and art throughout his career. It has been said that he discovered the importance of the right angle whilst studying Michelangelo’s Capital in Rome but, be that as it may, he often used the right angle as a major component in his use of proportions in architecture, for example in the villa at Garches (1927).

However his philosophical poem and set of lithographs Le Poème de l’Angle Droit was, in the words of his biographer Kenneth Frampton, . . . executed as a seven part sequence over a seven year period from 1947 to 1953, and structured after the format of the Eastern Orthodox iconostasis, the traditional screen of icons separating the altar from the nave that serves as a veil between the congregation and the celebrants of the Eucharist (see Le Corbusier, Kenneth Frampton, 2001, p. 209).

In outline and based upon Frampton’s detailed analysis Le Corbusier’s overall scheme consisted of seven rows of

iconic squares with each row having a different number of images, namely 5,3,5,1,3,1 and 1. Each row in turn related to the first seven letters of the alphabet, each with a different theme and colour as follows: A - environment - green.

B - spirit/mind - blue.

C - flesh - violet.

D - fusion - red.

E - character - clear.

F - offering - yellow.

G - instrumentality - purple.

Le Corbusier’s philosophy of the right angle was quite complex and readers wishing for a detailed explanation are referred to Kenneth Frampton’s book (see pp. 209-213). The final square in row G shows the right angle drawn by Le Corbusier’s hand and in Frampton’s words . . . is the ultimate representation of the right angle, as an intersection of two opposed conditions, the horizontal and the vertical . . . depicted as a prerequisite for the creation of a rational new condition, existing in harmony with the surrounding natural world.

TO ORDER PHONE 01572 821424 GOLDMARK UPPINGHAM RUTLAND

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6. visit lecorbusierprints.co.uk

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Lithographs 1 - 19

signed and numbered 43/60

ÂŁ4500 each

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TO ORDER PHONE 01572 821424 GOLDMARK UPPINGHAM RUTLAND

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14. visit lecorbusierprints.co.uk

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Lithographs 1 - 19

signed and numbered 43/60

ÂŁ4500 each

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Lithographs 1 - 19

signed and numbered 43/60

ÂŁ4500 each

Le Corbusier produced a suite of 19 coloured lithographs to illustrate his own text Le Poème de l’Angle Droit. The edition comprised 250 copies on Velin d’Arches numbered 1-250, 20 Hors Commerce copies numbered I-XX and 60 signed and numbered copies of the lithographs only.

The suite offered here is numbered 43 of 60, each lithograph being signed in pencil by the artist. The paper size is 47.4 x 36.5 cm.

These prints are extremely scarce.

All prices include frame, vat and uk delivery.

TO ORDER PHONE 01572 821424 GOLDMARK UPPINGHAM RUTLAND

CETTE SUITE DES DIX-NEUF LITHOGRAPHIES ORIGINALS EN COULEURS DE LE CORBUSIER ILLUSTRANT LES POÈMES DE L’ANGLE DROIT, A ÉTÉ TIRÉE A SOIXANTE EXEMPLAIRES. TOUTES LES ÉPREUVES ONT ÉTÉ SIGNÉES PAR L’ARTISTE. ÉDITION DE LA REVUE VERVE, PARIS 1955.

EXEMPLAIRE NUMÉRO

43

Catalogue published by Goldmark Gallery 14 Orange Street Uppingham Rutland LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 ISBN 978-1-870507-73-8 2010 visit lecorbusierprints.co.uk

GOLDMARK GALLERY UPPINGHAM RUTLAND LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 Open Monday to Saturday 9.30 - 5.30, Sunday 2.30 - 5.30 and Bank Holidays www.goldmarkart.com info@goldmarkart.com