Two Artists, Color & Light! (See also our album "Two Artists Who Loved Color)

One of our favorite past-times here in southern France, is going to art museums. Each of the ones on our circuit are different, but they all produce amazingly intriguing exhibitions each summer. Saturday, June 18, Les & I went to Aix-en-Provence to visit one of our favorite venues, & a new one. Both artists, separated by 50 years, were innovators in their own time. And both were consistently focused on COLOR & LIGHT.

So…Two artists: JW Turner (a 19th century English romantic landscape painter) & Charles Camoin, a French 20th century fauvist.

Let's start with Turner, the more famous of the two. He in often referred to as "the greatest landscape painter of the 19th century". Supposedly he pushed landscape into a genre as important as history painting. And he was also a precursor to Impressionism.

In his early years, he concentrated on different landscape styles. He sold his first painting at age 12. By his middle years, he became less interested in the topography of landscape, & more interested in the luminous, atmospheric aspect of landscape. He was also born in an age where new paint colors were being discovered daily. His favorite color was chrome yellow. He used it so often & with such abandon, that his critics whispered behind his back "pass the mustard" when he walked by in a gallery.

Unlike the early Impressionists (who took their inspirations from him), he was a successful painter, with lots of commissions & sales, readily accepted by the Royal Academy. He also had 2 generous patrons: Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall (Yorkshire) & George Wyndham at Petworth House (Sussex), where he was a frequent guest.

Turner traveled frequently, & on a trip to France, was taken with the light, as were the Impressionists later on. From then on, he became more & more obsessed with light. He experimented with daring, creating almost abstract experiments with color. Sound like the Impressionists? Here's other similarities: 1. He had a special boat outfitted with painting supplies, so he could capture the moment, 2. He was so into the changing light & atmospheric conditions that he would create a number of scenes of the same landscape, & add to them what he saw & felt at a particular moment, & 3. Towards the end of his life, he started painting scenes of rain, steam & speed.

As he grew older, he became more & more eccentric. He had few friends except for his father, with whom he lived for 30 years. After his father's death, he had bouts of depression. He never married, but had an ongoing relationship with a widow, Sophia Booth, & he lived in her house in Chesea for 18 years. Two daughters were born to Mrs. Booth during their time together. He was also an enthusiastic user of snuff.

Eight years before he died, he painted two large square canvases, Shade & Darkness, the Evening of the Deluge, & Colour & Light, the Morning After the Deluge, together referred to as a "progression". They are both based on Goethe's theory of color, a belief that every color is an individualized combination of light & darkness. It's quite a complicated theory, but if you look closely at these 2 pictures (in our album or just google them), your eye will pick up the combinations of light & dark.

The Evening of the Deluge is dark, dark, dark. Depressing, to say the least. The painting is square, which emphasizes the circular whirl of the brushstrokes, over the center horizon line that divides heaven & earth. You get the feeling that you are being sucked into a vortex, along with all the creatures in the painting. Cool colors are dominant.

The Morning after, on the other hand, is bright, bright, bright. Still a circle, or more like an eye, but much more optimistic, with warm colors. But Turner gives you a hint that things may change. Man is not in charge. Once again, there's a line between heaven & earth, & Moses sits above it. The pairs who were saved by Noah are clustered to the right.

This is what the Tate Gallery (owner of the paintings says) about The Morning After: This triumphant explosion of light brilliantly exploits the warm side of the spectrum. It celebrates God's Covenant with Man after the flood. The serpent in the center represents the brazen serpent raised by Moses in the wilderness as a cure for the plague. Here it symbolizes Christ's redemption of man in the New Covenant.

Now to a really good story! Stay with me, because it takes a minute to get through it.

Turner, as he approached his later years, wanted his collection to stay together, so he bequeathed it to Great Britain. But there wasn't one place big enough to hold it all, so the government decided to let pieces of it travel a bit. Then the Tate built on a wing, & most of the collection was to go there to be consistently on display, & all together. Well, things change, don't they? We all know that museums need to monetize their collections, so little by little, pieces went on loan all over the place.

The two "Deluge" paintings were lent to a small Museum in Frankfort, in 1994. Two thieves managed to steal them, & were eventually caught (fingerprints), tried, & sent to prison. But the real mastermind (Mafia, they think?) managed to squiggle out of the accusations, & the Tate's insurers had to cough up 18 million pounds EACH in 1996, with the caveat that they (the insurers) now OWNED the paintings. In 1998, the Tate took a gamble & paid 13 million pounds back to the insurers to retake the title of the paintings, then got permission from the High Court of England to spend 5 million pounds for the recovery of them. I'm not sure who was in cahoots with whom, but they got them back, relatively unharmed. What a story.

Well, the 2 pieces are obviously still traveling. There they were in Aix, right before our eyes.

Now for the second artist, Charles Camoin, less well known but equally fascinating. And another artist obsessed with Color & Light.

Charles Camoin (1879-1965) was born in Marseille, the son of a paint manufacturer. He met Matisse in Paris, along with Marquet & Manguin, who were enrolled together at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Gustave Moreau in Paris. In 1800, Camoin did his military service at Arles & in Aix-en Provence. On a whim one day, he walked into Cezanne's studio in Aix, & "The Master of Aix", even though now old & grumpy (40 years older than Camoin), became a mentor, corresponding with Camoin until Cezanne's death. You will often see Cezanne's influence if you glance through our picture album "Two Painters".

In 1905, along with Matisse & the 2 others, Camoin was part of the "Salon d'Autumne" in Paris. Critics called these artists "La Cage aux Fauves" (the Beasts in their cage). Camoin's art, however, was a little more controlled (maybe due to Cezanne's influence, although he never embraced Cubism), & he was labelled "The most Impressionist Fauve".

He spent time in both Paris (Montmartre) & St. Tropez, & had a brief liason with an artist named Emilie. His painting during this time became darker, & objects were often lined with black. After their explosive break-up, he sank into depression.

He & Matisse traveled together to Tangiers in Morocco, where he seemed to develop a new style & a new outlook (much brighter, back to color) on life. He returned to Paris, & destroyed (or so he thought!) 80 earlier paintings he had stored there. Somebody actually pulled them out of the trash bin, put them back together, & they were being sold at a flea market. Camoin sued to recover them, & won, creating a new law that limits the ownership of unsold paintings to the person who created them. (Another interesting twist on the art world!) However, a few of the "destroyed" escaped to private collections. So beware! If you buy a Camoin, make sure of its provenance! That way the French government can tax you!

When you look through Camoin's art, you will see obvious traces of Cezanne & Matisse, & a few from Renoir. Around 1918, Matisse & Camoin went to Renoir's home in Cagne (where we are going this Saturday) to see the aging Renoir. And that's when Camoin's focus changed from simply color to an emphasis on light, & he became dedicated to painting "en plein air".

In 1920, he married "Lola", & from his work, you can see a new zest for life. My favorite, Lola a l'Ombreille, shows her on the balcony with a parasol (bright yellow!) in her right hand. Still bright colors, still lots of light, but definitely an "impression". And in the background, a little impression of a boat….maybe it's the ghost of JW Turner. And in the real painting, at the museum, the light does have Turner's translucency. It certainly has his color!

More art next week, after we visit Renoir's home, Les Collettes, near Nice, where we'll be this weekend.