The Easel

26th October 2021

Cartier’s hidden debt to Islamic art uneathed in new Exhibition

Around 1900, Europe’s interest in Islamic art was shifting from idle curiosity to avid appreciation. Cartier, famous for its opulent ‘garland’ style – romantic bows and rounded shapes – picked up this change and started to incorporate Islamic geometric designs. It was not a passing fad but an abrupt and sustained aesthetic shift – “there’s no evolution … they used all these Islamic patterns all the time”. More images are here.

Sword fights on canvas: Georges Mathieu at Perrotin and Nahmad Contemporary

Postwar European abstraction leaned toward the geometric which didn’t enthuse Mathieu. Visiting New York, he met Pollock and others who, like himself, were exploring gestural abstraction. Thus encouraged, Mathieu built his career on flamboyant gestural paintings, executed at top speed. A revealed liking for painting for an audience did not enhance his reputation. Neither does it diminish his role in pioneering a European expression of “testosterone-driven, postwar angst”.