Geometrical Still Life II

A year on from its companion, this 1920 still life takes the same table of objects and presses it further toward pure geometry. Valmier was months from the step he took in 1921, when he left recognisable subjects behind for arrangements of flat, bright shape. You can feel that pull here. The bottle and the fruit are nearly dissolved into interlocking planes, held together less by what they depict than by their spacing and beat. Valmier was also a working musician, a singer in Paris concert halls, and he set out shapes with something of a composer's feel for interval and rhythm. It is the second of the pair now at the Kroller-Muller Museum in Otterlo. The two were meant to be read together, one year apart.