The Burning Red of Montmartre
Kees van Dongen painted a fire, not a dancer. In Paris in 1907 the air in Montmartre tasted like stale absinthe and reeked of cheap perfume. He took a brush and loaded it with a red pigment so aggressive it actually vibrates on the canvas. This is the Fauve movement pushed to its absolute breaking point. It’s violent. It‘s expressive. It is exactly how the nightlife felt when the sun went down and the masks came off.
The Red Dancer stands against a dark green background that feels less like a wall and more like an abyss. There is a physical weight to her. Van Dongen used heavy brushstrokes and thick paint to make sure you felt the gravity of her body. This is not some ethereal ballerina floating on a cloud. This is a woman working in the trenches of the Parisian clubs. She is gritty. She is real. You can almost hear the music crashing around her while the paint dries.
When this work hit the Salon d'Automne in 1907 people were used to beauty. Van Dongen gave them heat instead. He stripped away the polite fictions of the upper class and showed the frantic energy of the streets. The color choices were meant to shock. Red against green creates a visual tension that never lets your eyes rest. It was a declaration of war against the quiet tones of the past. The world was changing and the art had to get louder to keep up. Van Dongen was the loudest one in the room and he did not care if you liked the noise. He captured the seedy heart of the city and pinned it to the canvas with heavy oil and raw nerve.
References
Van Dongen, Kees. The Red Dancer. 1907. Oil on canvas. 99.7 x 81 cm. State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.
Giry, Marcel. Fauvism. New York: Alpine Fine Arts Collection. 1982.
Whitfield, Sarah. Fauvism. London: Thames and Hudson. 1991.