MONT PUGET - LES CALANQUES BY LUCIEN LEVY DHURMER

LUCIEN LEVY-DHURMER (1865-1953)

Mont Puget (563m - 1,847ft)

France (Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur) 

1. In Mont Puget, Calanques (6 heures du soir),1930-36, oil on canvas, Musée d'Orsay, Paris 

2. In Mont Puget, Les Calanques (midi) , 1930-36, oil on canvas,  Musée d'Orsay, Paris  

3. In Les Calanques (lever de soleil), pastel, Musée d'Orsay, Paris 

The mountain
Mount Puget (563m - 1,847ft) is the highest point of the Massif des Calanques, between Marseille (northwest) and Cassis (east). It lies to the east of the massif Marseilleveyre. Overlooking the city, which spreads at its feet, it offers a unique view on the harbors North and South of Marseille. Puget is the diminutive of the Provencal word "puech" which comes from the Latin "podium" and designates an eminence, a high place.
Mount Puget can provide interesting climbing and walking routes. The most common starting point is the Luminy faculty site at the bus terminal. A very good track, which has been set up for the firemen, leads to the summit in about two hours. One can also climb directly through several "ways". One of these is actually a scree, with a slope of 45 degrees. From the summit, you have a panorama of the Grande Candelle, the Calanques, Cap Canaille, the city of Marseille, the Garlaban massif, and even the Sainte-Baume Massif.
The Massif of the Calanques (also know as Calanques of Marseille), are a massive coastline, extending over twenty kilometers of coast on the Mediterranean Sea between the village of La Madrague (district of the south-west of the city of Marseille) to Cassis, via Les Goudes and Callelongue. It is one of the most remarkable natural sites in France, and a major natural resource area for its one million annual visitors. The word calanque (Provencal Calanco) refers to a valley dug by a river and then recovered by the sea. The Calanques benefit from the protection of the National Park of the Calanques created in April 2012 and which is the first national peri-urban park in Europe. In order to repopulate the waters, certain areas of the future park are forbidden to fish to serve as natural nurseries.

The Painter 
Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer  was a French Symbolist/Art Nouveau artist whose works include paintings, drawings, ceramics, furniture and interior design.
He was born Lucien Lévy to a Jewish family in Algiers, Algeria in those days a French colony. In 1879 he began studying drawing and sculpture in Paris. He first exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1882 where he showed a small ceramic plaque. In 1887 Lévy began making his living near Cannes in southern France, overseeing the decoration of ceramics. From 1886 to 1895 he worked as a ceramic decorator and then as artistic director of the studio of Clément Massier. Around 1892 he signed his first pieces of ceramics, which were influenced by Islamic Art.  In 1895 he left for Paris to begin a career in painting; around this time he visited Italy and was further influenced by art of the Renaissance. In 1896 he exhibited his first pastels and paintings under the name Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer; he'd added the last two syllables of his mother's maiden name (Goldhurmer), likely to differentiate himself from other people named Lévy. His paintings soon became popular with the public and among fellow artists as well. He earned high praise for the academic attention to detail with which he captured figures lost in a Pre-Raphaelite haze of melancholy, contrasted with bright Impressionist colouration. His portrait of writer Georges Rodenbach is perhaps the most striking example of this strange and extraordinary synergy.
After 1901 Lévy-Dhurmer moved away from expressly Symbolist content, incorporating more landscapes into his work because of his travels in Europe and North Africa. He continued to draw inspiration from music and attempted to capture works of great composers such as Beethoven in painted form.