The two of them were singled out by Vauxcelles in 1907 as Divisionists who used large, mosaic-like 'cubes' to construct small but highly symbolic compositions. In 1906 Jean Metzinger formed a close friendship with Robert Delaunay, with whom he would share an exhibition at Berthe Weill's gallery early in 1907. Delaunay (a fourteen-year-old-pupil of M. Othon Friesz and Dufy, fauves in attendance. Their dogma amounts to a wavering schematicism that proscribes modeling and volumes in the name of I-don't-know-what pictorial abstraction. MM Derain and Matisse a few dozen innocent catechumens have received their baptism. A chapel has been established, two haughty priests officiating. Vauxcelles described the group of 'Fauves':Ī movement I consider dangerous (despite the great sympathy I have for its perpetrators) is taking shape among a small clan of youngsters.
This is an artistic effect tending toward the abstract that escapes me completely. An ugly nude woman is stretched out upon grass of an opaque blue under the palm trees. Vauxcelles writes on the topic of Nu bleu: Henri Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) appeared at the 1907 Indépendants, entitled Tableau no. As their paintings were exposed in the same room as a Donatello sculpture of which he approved, he stated his criticism and disapproval of their works by describing the sculpture as "a Donatello amongst the wild beasts." He coined the phrase 'les fauves' (translated as 'wild beasts') in a 1905 review of the Salon d'Automne exhibition to describe in a mocking, critical manner a circle of painters associated with Henri Matisse.