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Lot Essay
‘In the works from Estaque painted at the end of the summer of 1907, Friesz again shows himself as structured and approaching
Cezanne, whose art represented everything that he wished to achieve: a weightiness of form, rigour of composition, modulation of space, and submission to colour.’
Exh. cat., Éclats de fauvism, St. Tropez, 2005, p. 28.
Painted circa 1907, during an intense collaboration with Georges Braque, Paysage du Midi demonstrates Emile-Othon Friesz’s distinctive Fauvist style, using bold colour to create pictorial structure and form. Friesz and Braque were from Le Havre, a coastal town in northern France. Both artists were struck by the Fauvist works of Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, and Friesz who had, until this moment, been working in an Impressionist style, converted to Fauvism from this point onwards.
Painted in the Midi region of France, Paysage du Midi was inspired by Friesz’s travels to this area in 1906 and again in 1907. Together with Braque, Friesz visited L’Estaque and La Ciotat, towns on the Mediterranean coast. The south of France was a hallowed area for artists, having inspired Matisse and Derain, as well as Paul Signac and Paul Cézanne before them. Here, amidst the luminous light and saturated colours of Provence, Friesz employed a new pictorial vocabulary, which, instead of faithfully rendering the landscape, enabled him to express a direct sensation inspired by nature, a concept he felt was essential in moving away from an Impressionist style. Friesz stated that ‘It seemed to me that [Impressionist] pictures were not constructed, but merely amounted to an active documentation of nature: they were arrangement and not composition’ and he continued: ‘Colour appeared as our saviour’ (O. Friesz quoted in, S. Whitfield, Fauvism, London, 1991, p. 134). In Paysage du Midi, Friesz has used angular brushstrokes to apply a range of harmonious colours, including shades of green, violet and yellow. Friesz remained tied to the traditions of painting and has retained a sense of pictorial depth in the painting through the two large trees that dominate the foreground, leading the viewer’s eye into the scene, towards the receding whitewashed houses in the background.
‘In the works from Estaque painted at the end of the summer of 1907, Friesz again shows himself as structured and approaching Cezanne, whose art represented everything that he wished to achieve: a weightiness of form, rigour of composition, modulation of space, and submission to colour.’
Exh. cat., Éclats de fauvism, St. Tropez, 2005, p. 28.
Cezanne, whose art represented everything that he wished to achieve: a weightiness of form, rigour of composition, modulation of space, and submission to colour.’
Exh. cat., Éclats de fauvism, St. Tropez, 2005, p. 28.
Painted circa 1907, during an intense collaboration with Georges Braque, Paysage du Midi demonstrates Emile-Othon Friesz’s distinctive Fauvist style, using bold colour to create pictorial structure and form. Friesz and Braque were from Le Havre, a coastal town in northern France. Both artists were struck by the Fauvist works of Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, and Friesz who had, until this moment, been working in an Impressionist style, converted to Fauvism from this point onwards.
Painted in the Midi region of France, Paysage du Midi was inspired by Friesz’s travels to this area in 1906 and again in 1907. Together with Braque, Friesz visited L’Estaque and La Ciotat, towns on the Mediterranean coast. The south of France was a hallowed area for artists, having inspired Matisse and Derain, as well as Paul Signac and Paul Cézanne before them. Here, amidst the luminous light and saturated colours of Provence, Friesz employed a new pictorial vocabulary, which, instead of faithfully rendering the landscape, enabled him to express a direct sensation inspired by nature, a concept he felt was essential in moving away from an Impressionist style. Friesz stated that ‘It seemed to me that [Impressionist] pictures were not constructed, but merely amounted to an active documentation of nature: they were arrangement and not composition’ and he continued: ‘Colour appeared as our saviour’ (O. Friesz quoted in, S. Whitfield, Fauvism, London, 1991, p. 134). In Paysage du Midi, Friesz has used angular brushstrokes to apply a range of harmonious colours, including shades of green, violet and yellow. Friesz remained tied to the traditions of painting and has retained a sense of pictorial depth in the painting through the two large trees that dominate the foreground, leading the viewer’s eye into the scene, towards the receding whitewashed houses in the background.
‘In the works from Estaque painted at the end of the summer of 1907, Friesz again shows himself as structured and approaching Cezanne, whose art represented everything that he wished to achieve: a weightiness of form, rigour of composition, modulation of space, and submission to colour.’
Exh. cat., Éclats de fauvism, St. Tropez, 2005, p. 28.