au Lido. 1924

Henri Reidel created "Au Lido" with delicate watercolour on paper. The composition, with its pale blues, creams and pinks, evokes a serene, sun-drenched day at the beach. The figures are stylized, their forms simplified to geometric shapes, suggesting a modern sensibility. Reidel's use of line is particularly striking. Crisp outlines define each figure, creating a sense of clarity and order. The arrangement of the figures, carefully positioned across the horizontal plane, offers a frieze-like quality, reminiscent of classical art yet imbued with a distinctly modern spirit. The stylized forms and decorative patterns challenge traditional notions of representation, embracing a new aesthetic that values flatness and abstraction over illusionistic depth. The artwork destabilizes established meanings of pictorial space, replacing it with surface pattern and design. This approach reflects broader cultural shifts towards abstraction, which aimed to challenge fixed meanings and encourage viewers to engage in new ways of thinking about space and perception. Ultimately, Reidel's formal qualities function not just aesthetically but also as part of a larger cultural and philosophical discourse.