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Lot Essay
This work will be included in the forthcoming Maurice de Vlaminck Digital Database, currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc.
I had no wish for a change of scene. All these places that I knew so well, the Seine with its strings of barges, the tugs with their plumes of smoke, the taverns in the suburbs, the colors of the atmosphere, the sky with its great clouds and its patches of sun, these were what I wanted to paint. (Vlaminck quoted in Judi Freeman, Fauves, 1995, p. 220)
Vlaminck participated in the controversial 1905 Salon d'Automne exhibition. Critics were not receptive to the boldly coloured canvases of Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, André Derain and others, and art critic Louis Vauxcelles mocked the painters by calling them "fauves" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known, Fauvism.
By 1907, however, Vlaminck was to abandon Fauvism, as he felt the danger of it lapsing into pure decoration: “The decorative spirit was going to make me forget painting” (Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, London, 1961, p. 15) . The three or four following years represent his époque Cézannienne, during which he painted the present work, although works as late as the early twenties would exhibit Cézannesque tendencies on occasion.
Vlaminck particularly enjoyed painting landscapes, as he felt they gave him a wider freedom of expression, much more than painting people or objects. He loved more than anything to paint snowy landscapes, which is a genre that, after Bruegel, was not widely explored by artists. He loved the strong contrast of shadow and light, of black and white, adding shades of gray and sometimes introducing bright colours. He particularly liked the sombre feeling, the impression of the nature in mourning, where the sky lies heavily on the land, with spectral houses and bent trees.
I had no wish for a change of scene. All these places that I knew so well, the Seine with its strings of barges, the tugs with their plumes of smoke, the taverns in the suburbs, the colors of the atmosphere, the sky with its great clouds and its patches of sun, these were what I wanted to paint. (Vlaminck quoted in Judi Freeman, Fauves, 1995, p. 220)
Vlaminck participated in the controversial 1905 Salon d'Automne exhibition. Critics were not receptive to the boldly coloured canvases of Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, André Derain and others, and art critic Louis Vauxcelles mocked the painters by calling them "fauves" (wild beasts), thus giving their movement the name by which it became known, Fauvism.
By 1907, however, Vlaminck was to abandon Fauvism, as he felt the danger of it lapsing into pure decoration: “The decorative spirit was going to make me forget painting” (Vlaminck, Dangerous Corner, London, 1961, p. 15) . The three or four following years represent his époque Cézannienne, during which he painted the present work, although works as late as the early twenties would exhibit Cézannesque tendencies on occasion.
Vlaminck particularly enjoyed painting landscapes, as he felt they gave him a wider freedom of expression, much more than painting people or objects. He loved more than anything to paint snowy landscapes, which is a genre that, after Bruegel, was not widely explored by artists. He loved the strong contrast of shadow and light, of black and white, adding shades of gray and sometimes introducing bright colours. He particularly liked the sombre feeling, the impression of the nature in mourning, where the sky lies heavily on the land, with spectral houses and bent trees.