 | Mediterranean
From Courbet to Matisse
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Claude Monet
"Antibes"
1888 - Oil on painting 65.5 x 92.4 cm
© Londres, Courtauld Galleries (Courtauld Collection)
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Pablo Picasso
La Flûte de Pan
1923 -
Oil on painting 205 x 174 cm
© Paris, Musée Picasso
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Paul Guigou
"Environ de Marseille"
1866 - Oil on board 30 x 46 cm
© Périgeux, Musée du Périgord
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| | Pablo Picasso
"Marine"
1896 -
Oil on painting 12 x 19,2 cm
© Barcelone, Musée Picasso
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Until the middle of the XIXth century, the mediterranean coast is mostly the favorite vacation site for the upper social class where sicks and personalities spend their winter.
If they claim the mildness of the climate and the beauty of the nature, they do not really pay attention to the sea and its harbor, thought salty and sordids.
The twenties give a new turn in the discovery of the Mediterranean discovery. For the first time, the hotels are open during summer.
But it is only in the middle of the century that it is easier to reach the south of France : the train Paris-Lyon-Marseille (P.L.M.) reaches Marseille in 1856 and Nice in 1864.
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The writers were the first who promoted the beauty of the Provençal coast and at last talk about the sea : George Sand, settled in 1861 next to Toulon, Juliette Adam, Hippolyte Taine…The same time the sea appears in litterature in the middle of the century, some painters started to leave aside the traditional trip to Italy, or the one to the picturesque Orient; they will also head the south.
The artists' fascination for the Mediterranean is no more for orientalism or a taste for exoticism, the antique or the picturesque. The light and colors of the mediterranean coast are from then a school of freedom, of sensual and pictorial delights : lux, calm and pleasure, with reference to Baudelaire's verse which were also chosen by Matisse to be the title of one of his masterpiece.
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