“I aspire to ripeness of form. I should like to succeed in making it so full, so juicy, that nothing could be added.”
In its voluptuous curves and full-bodied forms, Les Ondines is a majestic example of monumental sculpture from a highly desirable period in Laurens’ career. Conceived in 1933, it reflects the artist’s move towards a more feminine and classical depiction of the human figure. Following his Cubist period of the 1920s, Laurens adapted his style to align with the rappel a l’ordre that had influenced the artistic vision of post-war France. His forms, as evidenced by the present work, adopted a more poetic style and their fluidity echoes the work’s strong affiliation with the natural world, and most probably inspired its mythical title.
“When I begin a sculpture, I only have a vague idea of what I want to do. For instance, I have the idea of a woman or of something related to the sea. Before being a representation of whatever it may be, my sculpture is a plastic act and, more precisely, a series of plastic events, products of my imagination, answers to the demands of the making. That, in short, is all my work amounts to. I provide a title right at the end.”
Laurens refrained from naming his sculptures until they were complete, instead giving himself over entirely to the sculptural process. Consequently, many of his titles, such as Les Ondines, reflect the biomorphic, feminine shapes of this new sculptural direction.
In their interlocked limbs and raised arms, the figures of Les Ondines lift above the waves in a complex compositional arrangement suggestive of synchronized movement. Their elongated bodies stretch sinuously atop waves that mirror their curves, and there is a fleshly ampleness to their forms evoking a strong sense of their physicality. Werner Hoffman has described the formal necessities that preoccupied Laurens during the 1930s as: ‘opening up the volume and creating a flowing interpenetration of torso and limbs’ (W. Hofmann, The Sculpture of Henri Laurens, New York, 1970, p. 42). The result is the more tangible and dynamic sense of the three-dimensional evident in the present work. These flowing shapes that obsessed Laurens also draw strong similarities with the work of Henri Matisse. Matisse was adapting his portrayal of the human figure to incorporate a more stylized and lyrical representation of the body: ‘Incidentally, the early thirties were a period of looking backward for Matisse just as they were for Laurens […] In 1931 Matisse began his great frieze La Danse, with which he abandoned his mundane hedonism of the 1920s and found a generous, arabesque rhythm for the moving body. Related to Matisse’s dancers are the two wave-like Small Ondines’ (W. Hofmann, ibid., p. 42-43). The same can of course be said of the monumental Les Ondines, whose harmonized movements reflect the lyrical atmosphere of the frieze, whilst also sharing a resemblance with Matisse’s sculpture, such as his Grand nu assis.
Ondines are a mythical water nymph associated with Ovid’s Metamorphoses and later adapted in modern literature. Their classical source rendered them a popular subject matter in both academic and modern art.
Laurens’ decision to title his work in such a manner is test.mes nt to his skillful blending of formal revolution with a nostalgic homage to the past. As the figures in Les Ondines look out beyond the waves, Laurens carves out an optimistic future for sculptural innovation. Other casts of this work are on view in public collects ions including the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, the Norton Simon Art Foundation in Pasadena, Marabouparken in Sweden, The Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Gardens in New York and the Meyerson Symphony Center Garden in Dallas.
