Oliviers (environs de Martigues)

Notes: Oliviers (environs de Martigues) was reproduced in A Propos du Salon d’Automne, Le Mois Littéraire et Pittoresque, Deuxième Année, Tome XX, Paris, July-December 1908. To date, this is the only image of the painting that has come to light. From this article, it is now known that the work was exhibited at the 1908 Salon d’Automne, Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris (no. 1417), along with two other entries, Environs de Cassis (Paysage), no. 1418, and Carry (Paysage), no. 1419.

The author of the article (who signs E.A.) writes: “The marquetries of Metzinger in ”Les Oliviers” and of Vlaminck in the ”Bassin à Chatou” … are most representative of all the works at the Salon. It was necessary to serenely consider these disparate works—arranged, it must be said, with a taste that harmonized the violence—then go or return to the rooms devoted to the retrospective exhibition of Monticelli’s paintings. It was both relaxing and a very pleasant lesson.”

Of course, the fact that Monticelli’s paintings are anything but relaxing, exemplifies not only the state of perplexity experienced by the author, but the raw power (or ‘harmonized violence’) emitted by both Metzinger’s and Vlaminck’s work. (A. Mittelmann,  2021, Extract from the Metzinger monograph, Volume I)

Dimensions and whereabouts unknown