The Farmer MBAM(4s) - a photo on Flickriver

IDENTIFY THE ARTIST XVIII
Week 6 Sue Roe: In Montmarte Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art Part 1 (1326 -1330) 3/12 – 3/16/2023

ID 1330

Maurice de Vlaminck French 1876 - 1958

The Farmer, 1905

On loan from the Ogden Fine Arts Collection, inv 332.2012

Vlaminck was, along with Derain and Matisse, one of the founders of the Fauvre movement, a group of modern artists who, in the years from 1904 to 1908, opted for the use of intense colours. The 1905 painting The Farmer, is very representative of the Fauve artists’ work.

The minimalist composition shows two wide horizontal planes on which can be seen a quickly painted figure—the only one in this canvas—firmly implanted in the landscape. Experimenting here with “deconstruction,” Vlaminck transforms the physical world by giving an impression of movement. The organization of space, highly innovative for its time, was considered provocative by Vlaminck’s contemporaries, who saw in it a lack of respect for the subject and a total disregard of line. “I expected to till and sow my field on my own! But I came up against unsurmountable difficulties, obtaining results that seemed to me to only barely match all our fine words and hopes.” Leaving details aside, the dynamic use of colour in this painting indicates the direct influence of Van Gogh in the development of the same type of composition. Through aggressive colours and brush strokes, the landscape becomes a pretext for expressing a mood. Indeed, The Famer shows the major role Van Gogh’s work played in the history of Fauvism.

From the Placard: Musée Des Beaux-Arts Montréal

www.mbam.qc.ca/

In the same year (1901), the Bernheim-Jeune brothers mounted a small exhibition of paintings by van Gogh. Matisse visited both Vollard’s exhibition of the Dutch painter’s work, and the brothers’. In the Bernheim-Jeune gallery, at 8 rue Lafitte, he ran into André Derain, the tall, loping student with the ‘primitive’ style of painting he had met at the Académie Camillo. Derain was talking to a hugely built young man with pale-blue eyes and flame-red hair who was extolling with great animation the virtues of painting with strong, pure colours—cobalts, vermilions, veronese. Despite Derain’s height, his friend towered over him, his voice so powerful he seemed to be shouting rather than talking, throwing back his head when he laughed. The colossal stranger was Maurice Vlaminck, Derain’s neighbour in Chatou, whom he now introduced to Matisse.
All three were bowled over by van Gogh’s paintings, especially Vlaminck. He had seen works by Renoir, Monet and Sisley in the gallery of the Impressionist dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, where he had admired their nuanced depictions of the landscapes and wished he had the facility to paint as they did; van Gogh was another matter. These vivid, imaginative colours, these expressive brushstrokes…Now this was exactly how Vlaminck felt when he had been frustrated—so far—by his own attempts to depict strong feelings for those familiar places in his own paintings. Perhaps if he allowed himself to paint those same landscapes more freely, like this…van Gogh’s work was a revelation. Derain shared his enthusiasm.

Sue Roe: In Montmarte Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art, Penguin Press, 2016 pg. 42-43

Some rights reserved

Taken on: August 12, 2019

Tags:

Maurice de Vlaminck

ID 1330

Musée Des Beaux-Arts Montréal

ART

Art Gallery and Museums « less

Camera: Sony ILCE-6300, f/4.0, 1/60 sec, 26mm (=39mm), ISO 1000 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony ILCE-6300
Lens:	E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS
Aperture:	f/4.0
Exposure Time:	0.017 sec (1/60)
Focal Length:	26mm (35mm equivalent: 39mm)
ISO:	1000
Exposure Bias:	-0.7 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto bracket
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 15.0 (Windows)
Show full info

Stats: 636 views

go back

Link to this photo view:
Link to this photo large view: