PUIG NEULOS PAINTED BY ANDRE DERAIN

ANDRE DERAIN (1880-1954)   

Puig Neulos (1,256m - 4,121ft)

Montagnes à Collioure, 1905 

 National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

The mountain 

The Puig Neulós (1,256m - 4,121ft) (or peak Neulos  or Néoulous) is the highest point  of the Albera Range. Puig Neulós is a Catalan name that has been kept as it is in French. Puig refers to a summit or a mountain rounded, Neulós is analogous to the French "nebulous" or "clouded". There is a mention of the summit in a 1322 text in the Latin form Nebuloso Podio, which has exactly the same meaning.

Puig Neulós marks the border between France and Spain, divided between the towns of Laroque-des-Albères, Sorède in the Pyrenees-Orientales and La Jonquera in the province of Girona (Spain). On the summit, there are some antennas for a digital TV and radio transmitter and there is a paved road on the French side (from el Perthus) restricted to military use. 

Below Puig Neulos, on a line of ridges, is the Roc du Midi, very visible, and on the west  the Fouirous rock southwest exposed outcrop. The summit, as well as most of the southern side of the range is part of the National  Park of Albera Range Natural Reserve.

The painter

André Derain was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.

Derain and Matisse worked together through the summer of 1905 in the Mediterranean village of Collioure;  the painting above  showing Collioure mountains and Mount Puig Neulos in the background is dated precisely from that year. Later that year they displayed their highly innovative paintings at the Salon d'Automne. The vivid, unnatural colors led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to derisively dub their works as les Fauves, or "the wild beasts", marking the start of the Fauvist movement. In March 1906, the noted art dealer Ambroise Vollard sent Derain to London to produce a series of paintings with the city as subject. In 30 paintings (29 of which are still extant), Derain presented a portrait of London that was radically different from anything done by previous painters of the city such as Whistler or Monet. With bold colors and compositions, Derain painted multiple pictures of the Thames and Tower Bridge. These London paintings remain among his most popular work. Art critic T.G Rosenthal: "Not since Monet has anyone made London seem so fresh and yet remain quintessentially English. Some of his views of the Thames use the Pointillist technique of multiple dots, although by this time, because the dots have become much larger, it is rather more simply the separation of colours called Divisionism and it is peculiarly effective in conveying the fragmentation of colour in moving water in sunlight."

In 1907 art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler purchased Derain's entire studio, granting Derain financial stability. He experimented with stone sculpture and moved to Montmartre to be near his friend Pablo Picasso and other noted artists. 

At Montmartre, Derain began to shift from the brilliant Fauvist palette to more muted tones, showing the influence of Cubism and Paul Cézanne.(According to Gertrude Stein, there is a tradition that Derain discovered and was influenced by African sculpture before the Cubists did.  Derain supplied woodcuts in primitivist style for an edition of Guillaume Apollinaire's first book of prose, L'enchanteur pourrissant (1909). He displayed works at the Neue Künstlervereinigung in Munich in 1910, in 1912 at the secessionist Der Blaue Reiter and in 1913 at the seminal Armory Show in New York. He also illustrated a collection of poems by Max Jacob in 1912.

During the German occupation of France in World War II, Derain lived primarily in Paris and was much courted by the Germans because he represented the prestige of French culture. Derain accepted an invitation to make an official visit to Germany in 1941, and traveled with other French artists to Berlin to attend a Nazi exhibition of an officially endorsed artist, Arno Breker. Derain's presence in Germany was used effectively by Nazi propaganda, and after the Liberation he was branded a collaborator and ostracized by many former supporters.

A year before his death, he contracted an eye infection from which he never fully recovered. He died in Garches, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France in 1954 when he was struck by a moving vehicle.

Derain's London paintings were the subject of a major exhibition at the Courtauld Institute from 27 October 2005 to 22 January 2006.