LA MONTAGNE SAINTE VICTOIRE PEINTE PAR NICOLAS DE STAËL

 

 

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955),
Montagne Sainte Victoire  (1, 011m )
France Provence)

 In ciel de Vaucluse,  huile sur toile, 16 x 24 cm,  1953, Collection privée  

A propos de cette toile
Titré "Ciel de Vaucluse" on a supposé qu'il s'agissait d'une évocation de la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, hommage à Cézanne que Stael admirait beaucoup,  bien que cette montagne ne se trouve pas dans le Vaucluse mais dans les Bouches du Rhône.  La logique voudrait qu'il s 'agisse du Mont Ventoux, mais la silhouette de montagne évoquée ici rappelle définitiveent plus la Sainte Victoire que le Ventoux ! 

La montagne
La montagne Sainte-Victoire (1, 011m ) en provençal Mont Venturi selon la norme classique ou Mount Ventùriselon la norme mistralienne, est un massif calcaire  dans la région Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Située à l'est d'Aix-en-Provence, elle a connu une notoriété internationale en partie grâce aux 87 œuvres du peintre Paul Cézanne dont elle est le sujet. Elle accueille de nombreux randonneurs, grimpeurs et amoureux de la nature, et elle est un élément majeur du paysage aixois.
Le massif de la Sainte-Victoire s'étend sur 18 kilomètres de long et sur 5 kilomètres de large10, suivant une stricte orientation ouest-est. Il se situe principalement dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône et en partie dans celui du Var, et, avec ses abords, sur les communes de Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet, Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues et Rians. Les D 10 et D 17 (Route Cézanne) sont les principales routes qui permettent de longer le massif. Sur le versant septentrional, la D10 franchit le col de Claps (530 m) et le col des Portes (631 m). Sur le versant méridional, la D 17 chemine sur le plateau du Cengle et franchit le collet Blanc du Subéroque (505 m).  Le massif culmine au pic des Mouches (1 011 m pour l'IGN), près de l'extrémité est de la chaîne, et non pas à la Croix de Provence (946 m pour l'IGN) proche de l'extrémité ouest et visible d'Aix. Le pic des Mouches est l'un des plus hauts sommets du département des Bouches-du-Rhône, après le pic de Bertagne qui atteint l'altitude de 1 042 mètres13 et qui se situe sur le massif de la Sainte-Baume. 6 525 ha du massif de la Sainte-Victoire sont classés depuis 1983.

Le Peintre
Nicolas de Staël (prononcé [stal) baron Nikolaï Vladimirovitch Staël von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн), est un peintre français originaire de Russie, issu d'une branche cadette de la famille Staël von Holstein. La carrière de Nicolas de Staël s'étale sur quinze ans, de 1940 à sa mort. Artiste prolifique, il réalise au cours de sa carrière 1120 tableaux aux influences diverses — Cézanne, Matisse, Van Gogh, Braque, Soutine et les fauves, mais aussi les maîtres néerlandais Rembrandt, Vermeer et Seghers. Sa peinture est en constante évolution. Des couleurs sombres de ses débuts (Porte sans porte, 1946 ou Ressentiment, 1947), elle aboutit à l'exaltation de la couleur comme dans le Grand Nu orange (1953). Ses toiles se caractérisent par d'épaisses couches de peinture superposées et un important jeu de matières, passant des empâtements au couteau (Compositions, 1945-1949) à une peinture plus fluide (Agrigente, 1954, Chemin de fer au bord de la mer, soleil couchant, 1955). Refusant les étiquettes et les courants, tout comme Georges Braque qu'il admire, il travaille avec acharnement, détruisant autant d’œuvres qu'il en réalise.  Nicolas de Staël meurt à 41 ans en se jetant de la terrasse de la maison où il avait son atelier à Antibes. Cette maison fut classée monument historique en mars 2014. Il est enterré au cimetière de Montrouge. Par son style évolutif, qu'il a lui-même qualifié d'« évolution continue », il reste une énigme pour les historiens d'art qui le classent aussi bien dans la catégorie de l'École de Paris, que dans les abstraits ayant inspiré les jeunes peintres à partir des années 1970, ou encore dans la catégorie de l'art informel. Il a maintes fois créé la surprise notamment avec la série Les Footballeurs, entraînant derrière lui des artistes d'un nouveau mouvement d'abstraction et les artistes du néo-formalisme new-yorkais, ou de l'expressionnisme abstrait de l'École de New York, parmi lesquels se trouve notamment Joan Mitchell.

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2023 - Wandering Vertexes ....
Errant au-dessus des Sommets Silencieux...
Un blog de Francis Rousseau 

THE MONT VENTOUX BY NICOLAS DE STAËL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)
Mont Ventoux (1,911 m - 6, 270 ft )
France (Provence)

In Carte de vœux illustrée from a colored  lithograph printed by Fequet et Baudier.
Feuillet ,  21 x 16, 5 cm. Private collection


HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022
This is the 1525th mountain paintings published in this blogs since 2011
Many thanks to have followed us trought all these years.
 

About this work
No certitude about what represent that drawing made for a postcard but it could possibly be a view of the Mont Ventoux (the upper line in grey)  from the Luberon (in blue) a place in Provence Nicolas de Staël Lived many years, particularly in Menerbes where he had a house. It could be as well a woman breast...

The painter
Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922)...
- More about Nicolas de Stael biography

The mountain 
Mont Ventoux (Ventor in Latin) is located in the French department of Vaucluse (Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur). Culminating at 1,911 meters - 6, 270 ft, it is about 25 kilometers long on an east-west for 15 kilometers wide on a north-south axis. Nicknamed the Giant of Provence, it is the culmination of the Monts du Vaucluse, the ultimate link of the Southern Alps and the highest peak of Vaucluse. Its geographical isolation makes it visible over great distances.
Mont Ventoux is as well the linguistic border between the north and south-Occitan.
Its mainly calcareous nature is responsible, in its top part, its deep white color in every season and intense karstification due to erosion by water, with the presence of numerous scree on the south face. Precipitation is particularly abundant in spring and fall. Rainwater seeps into galleries and reflects the level of the variable flow resurgences such as Fontaine de Vaucluse or Source du Groseau.
Mont Ventoux is subject to a Mediterranean dominant weather, sometimes causing scorching temperatures during summer, the altitude offering a wide variety of climates, to the top (continental influence of mountain type), through a temperate climate (mid-slopes). In addition, the north wind can be very violent and the Mistral blows almost half part of the year.
This particular geomorphology and climate make it a rich and fragile environmental site consisting of many levels of vegetation. It is s a biosphere reserve by UNESCO and Natura 2000 site.
If human settlements are found in the foothills in prehistoric times, the first ascent to the summit would work on 26 April 1336, the poet Petrarch from Malaucène on the northern slope. It opens the way later in numerous scientific studies.
Thereafter, for nearly six centuries, Mont Ventoux has been intensely deforested to provide the shipbuilding in Toulon, charcoal manufacturers and sheep farmers. During World War II, the mountain is home to the Ventoux maquis, the french Resistance against Nazis.
Since 1966, the summit is topped with an observation tower over forty meters high topped by a TV and satellite antenna.
While sheep farming has almost disappeared, beekeeping, gardening (especially cherries), viticulture, harvesting of mushrooms including truffles and, to a lesser extent,  lavender, are still practiced.
Mont Ventoux is an important symbolic figure of Provence that fed oral or literary works and artistic performances or pictorial map.

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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

THE CAP D'ANTIBES PAINTED BY NICOLAS DE STAËL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)
Cap d'Antibes (19 m - 62,3 ft)
France (Alpes Maritimes)

In  Marine au cap d'Antibes, 1954 oil on canvas, 88.3 x 129.5 cm, Private collection.

The Cap
Cap d'Antibes commonly refers to a peninsula located south of Antibes and east of Juan-les-Pins, on the Côte d'Azur in France. Geographical Cap d'Antibes is located to the south of this peninsula, near Argent Faux Cove and Villa Eilenroc, on the coastal path at the start of Golfe Juan. The history of Cap d'Antibes is linked to that of Antibes, whose exceptional site has been known since ancient times.
The coastal path known as “Tire-Poil” allows walkers to explore the cape in good weather, from the Garoupe beach car park to Villa Eilenroc. Walking as close as possible to the waves, this 2.7 km route makes its way through the steep rocks and along the imposing walls of the Garoupe and Croë castles. It offers an exceptional panorama, to the west on the Lérins islands, and to the east on the first summits of Mercantour. Built at the highest point of the cape and next to the ancient chapel of Notre Dame de Bon Port, the Garoupe lighthouse dominates the Gulf of Juan and the Bay of Angels. L'Abri de l'Olivette, a port-shelter where typical boats of the region anchor, is located on its west coast.The site benefits from the visit of personalities from the world of cinema, mainly during the Cannes Film Festival, which increases the notoriety of the place.  It was around the middle of the 19th century that the Cap d'Antibes really began to develop.  At that time, wealthy tourists from all over Europe, especially England and Russia, discovered the place and built luxurious homes there.  It was the Comte de Fersen, colonel and aide-de-camp to the Tsar, who opened up Cap d'Antibes in 1863 by tracing a road around the peninsula. Thus, the knight James Close, former banker of François II (king of the Two Sicilies), settled in 1864 in Antibes and bought 17,000 m2 of land there in Cap before dying in 1865. In 1880, the current location of Juan-les-Pins was discovered by the Duke of Albany, son of Queen Victoria. At that time, Juan-les-Pins was just a pine forest, bordered by idyllic sandy beaches. Juan-les-Pins was also called Albany-les-Bains until 1884. In 1893, Georges Gallice acquired land located at the start of the Cap road and a small port attached to his property would later become Port Gallice.

The painter
Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922)...
- More about Nicolas de Stael biography
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2022 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau

CAP BLANC-NEZ & CAP GRIS-NEZ BY NICOLAS DE STAËL

 NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)

Cap Blanc-Nez (151m - 495ft)
 Cap Gris-Nez (45m -148ft) 

France

1. In Cap Blanc Nez, 1954, oil on canvas. Private Collection 

2. In Cap Gris Nez, 1954, oil on canvas. Private Collection  

The Mountain 

Cap Blanc-Nez (151m - 495ft) (Cape White Nose) is a cape on the Côte d'Opale, in the Pas-de-Calais, in northern France. The cliffs of chalk are very similar to the white cliffs of Dover at the other side of the Channel in England. Cap Blanc-Nez does not protrude into the sea like a typical cape, but is a high point where a chalk ridge has been truncated by the sea, forming a cliff that is topped by the obelisk of the Dover Patrol Monument, commemorating the Dover Patrol which kept the Channel free from U-boats during World War II. Cap Blanc- Nez was a vital measuring point for the eighteenth-century trigonometric survey linking the Paris Observatory with the Royal Greenwich Observatory. Sightings were made across the English Channel to Dover Castle and Fairlight Windmill on the South Downs. This Anglo-French Survey was led in England by General William Roy.

Cap Gris Nez (45 m -148 ft) is situated some miles away to the southwest of Cap Blanc-Nez.  It is between Wissant and Audresselles, in the commune of Audinghen. The cliffs of the cape are the closest point of France to England – 34 km (21 mi) from their English counterparts at Dover. Smothered in sea pinks and thrift, the cliffs are a perfect vantage point to see hundreds of ships, from oil tankers to little fishing trawlers, plying the waters below. On a clear day, the white cliffs of Dover on the English shore can be seen. The proximity of the cape to England led to the frequent destruction of the nearby village of Audinghen in wars between England and France. On the top of the cliff are the ruins of an English fortress, built by Henry VIII at the beginning of the 16th century. 

Nowadays, as a Natura 2000 site, Cap Gris-Nez is considered as a major site of pan-European importance to be protected both for the conservation of remarkable natural habitats and for migrations of avifauna. Cap Gris-Nez is very frequented by ornithologists during the birds migrations periods (spring, autumn).

The both capes (Blanc-Nez and Gris-Nez) are declared Grands sites de France since 2011 et constitutes the Grand Site Des Deux Caps (Grand Site Of Two Caps),  emblematic of the Parc regional de Caps et Marais d’Opale.

The Painter 
Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922)...
- More about Nicolas de Stael biography 

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

THE COL DE MONTGENEVRE BY NICOLAS DE STAEL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)

Col de Montgenèvre  (1, 850m - 6,070ft)

France (Jura)

In Briançon, oil on canvas,  1953, Private collection

The mountain
The Col de Montgenèvre (1, 850m) is a pass of the French Alps located between the Cerces range (Chaberton range) and the Queyras range. It connects the town of Briançon with Cesana Torinese in Italy but is entirely on the French side of the border, located 2.4 km.
According to  the roman historian Titus Livius, the pass of Montgenèvre would have been crossed by the troops of Hannibal during his passage of the Alps following the future way of the Alps. In Roman antiquity, the summit of the Montgenèvre pass marks the starting point of the Via Domitia (Domitian road), a Roman road built on the initiative of the consul Cnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus from 121 BC. J.-C. and inaugurated 3 years later; this route then connected Italy to Hispania (Spain) through the south of Gaule (France) freshly conquered.
The Montgenèvre pass has been crossed 10 times by the Tour de France. It has been ranked alternatively 1st or 2nd category.

The Painter 

Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Staël von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Staël von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922).
De Staël's painting career spans roughly 15 years (from 1940) and produced more than a thousand paintings. His work shows the influence of Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Chaim Soutine, as well as of the Dutch masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hercules Seghers. During the 1940s and beginning in representation, de Staël moved further and further toward abstraction. Evolving his own highly distinctive and abstract style, which bears comparison with the near-contemporary American Abstract Expressionist movement, and French Tachisme, but which he developed independently of them. Typically his paintings contained block-like slabs of colour, emerging as if struggling against one another across the surface of the image. According to de Staël himself, he turned to his "abstracting" because he "found it awkward to paint an object as a likeness because of the awkwardness I felt when faced ! with the infinite multitude of coexisting objects in any single object".

De Staël's work was quickly recognized within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. However, he moved away from abstraction in his later paintings, seeking a more "French" lyrical style, returning to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) at the end of his life.  His most well-known late paintings of beaches and landscapes are dominated by the sky and effects of light. 

Much of de Staël's late work—in particular his thinned and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s—predicts Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop Art of the 1960s.

2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau 

SAINTE-VICTOIRE BY NICOLAS DE STAËL

NICOLAS DE STAËL (1914-1955)

The mount Sainte-Victoire  (1, 011m - 3, 316ft) 

France (Provence-Alpes-Côte -d'Azur)

 In La montagne Sainte-Victoire (Paysage de Sicile), en hommage à Cézanne,1954,  oil on canvas

The mountain 

Mont Sainte-Victoire (1,011 m-3,316ft)  also called Mont Venturi is a limestone massif in the South of France, in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. Located east of Aix-en-Provence, it has experienced international fame, due to the more than 80 works Paul Cézanne did on it. It hosts many hikers, climbers and nature lovers, and is a major element of Aix landscape.

The range of the Sainte-Victoire is 18 kilometers long and 5 kilometers from large, following a strict east-west orientation. It is located on the Bouches-du-Rhône and Var, and in the towns of Puyloubier, Saint-Antonin-sur-Bayon, Rousset, Châteauneuf-le-Rouge, Beaurecueil, Le Tholonet Vauvenargues, Saint-Marc-Jaumegarde, Pourrières, Artigues and Rians.

D 10 and D 17 (Route Cézanne) are the main roads to skirt the mountains. On the northern side, the D10 crosses the Col de Claps (530 m) and the Col des Portes (631 m). On the southern side, the D 17 walks on the Plateau de Cengle and crossed the Collet blanc de Subéroque (505 m)...

- More about Sainte Victoire 

 The Painter 

Nicolas de Staël was a French painter of Russian origin known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting. Nicolas de Staël was born Nikolai Vladimirovich Stael von Holstein (Николай Владимирович Шталь фон Гольштейн) in Saint Petersbourg (Russia), into the family of a Baron Vladimir Stael von Holstein, the last Commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. De Staël's family was forced to emigrate to Poland in 1919 because of the Russian Revolution ; both his father and stepmother died in Poland and the orphaned Nicolas de Staël was sent with his older sister Marina to Brussels to live with a Russian family (1922).
De Staël's painting career spans roughly 15 years (from 1940) and produced more than a thousand paintings. His work shows the influence of Gustave Courbet, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger and Chaim Soutine, as well as of the Dutch masters Rembrandt, Vermeer and Hercules Seghers. During the 1940s and beginning in representation, de Staël moved further and further toward abstraction. Evolving his own highly distinctive and abstract style, which bears comparison with the near-contemporary American Abstract Expressionist movement, and French Tachisme, but which he developed independently of them. Typically his paintings contained block-like slabs of colour, emerging as if struggling against one another across the surface of the image. According to de Staël himself, he turned to his "abstracting" because he "found it awkward to paint an object as a likeness because of the awkwardness I felt when faced ! with the infinite multitude of coexisting objects in any single object".

De Staël's work was quickly recognized within the post-war art world, and he became one of the most influential artists of the 1950s. However, he moved away from abstraction in his later paintings, seeking a more "French" lyrical style, returning to representation (seascapes, footballers, jazz musicians, seagulls) at the end of his life.  His most well-known late paintings of beaches and landscapes are dominated by the sky and effects of light. 

Much of de Staël's late work—in particular his thinned and diluted oil on canvas abstract landscapes of the mid-1950s—predicts Color field painting and Lyrical Abstraction of the 1960s and 1970s. Nicolas de Staël's bold and intensely vivid color in his last paintings predict the direction of much of contemporary painting that came after him including Pop Art of the 1960s.

 Source : 

- Applicat Prazan

2017 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau