Rhythm
- Artist:
- Type: Painting
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Production Date: 1911
- Description: 'Rhythm' was a key modernist concept, based on the philosophy of Henri Bergson, and this painting is perhaps Fergusson's first modernist masterpiece. The young John Middleton Murry met Fergusson in 1910 and remembered 'one word in all our strange discussions - the word 'rhythm'. We never made any attempt to define it....for F. it was the essential quality in a painting or a sculpture; and since it was at that moment that the Russian Ballet first came to Western Europe....dancing was obviously linked, by rhythm, with the plastic arts'. Middleton Murry subsequently founded a literary magazine with Rhythm as the title, and Fergusson became art editor - a design based on this painting was used as the cover design. The painting itself shows a proud healthy Eve-like woman, complete with apple, though she seems more self-assertive than alluring or guilty. The figure is static but dynamic, poised to leap. Tension is introduced by the juxtaposition of verticals with more fluid lines, and movement through the shape and colour of her body and of the tree and drapes which surround her. Rhythm was first exhibited in Paris, at the Salon d'Automne, in1911.
The University of Stirling has re-published a catalogue about Fergusson, with images of all of the works in the Art Collection, and with added accompanying essays, including an essay by Angela Smith which discusses this period of Fergusson's life. Entitled 'Colour, Light, Freedom: Fergusson at Stirling', it can be purchased online for £6 here: https://shop.stir.ac.uk/product-catalogue/development-external-affairs/art-collection - Dimensions: Canvas: 163 cm (H) x 114 cm (W). Frame: 191 cm (H) x 142 cm (W).
- Acquisition Note: The J D Fergusson Memorial Collection was presented to the University of Stirling by Margaret Morris, the artist's lifelong partner, and the J D Fergusson Art Foundation.
- Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Pathfoot Gallery 1 Large case left
- Related Material: AC/AF/F/4
- Related Material: AC/OF/1968/10
- Accession Number: 1968.10
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
