MASP

The signature on the left is contemporary to the execution of Landscape in Brittany (The village of Belle-Île). The other signature was added by the artist himself many decades later, when this juvenile work was submitted to him for verification. In 1925, in an interview with Jacques Guenne, he spoke about his 1895 journey to Brittany. Matisse recollected: “Je n’avais alors que des bistres et des terres sur ma palette... Et bientôt je fus conquis par l’éclat de la couleur pure. Je reviens de mon voyage (à Belle-Île) avec la passion des couleurs de l’arc-en-ciel...” In 1895, Matisse was taken with enthusiasm for an exhibition of paintings by Claude Monet at Gallerie Durand-Ruel. Thereupon he decided to accompany painter Wéry to Belle-Île, where the two met John Russell, who shared with them his admiration for Monet’s paintings of the wild coast of Brittany. During this trip, Matisse followed the footsteps of his masters in Breton landscape and worked en plein air for the first time. Beaucorps has the date of the The Plaster Torso in the Masp Collection as 1897 (p. 56), when Matisse visited Beuzec-Cap-Sizum, which overlooks the Crozon peninsula, only a few miles away from Trépassés bay. Camesasca, however, favors 1898.

— Unknown authorship, 1998

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