Martigues, l’Ermitage, Paysage provençal

Inscriptions: Signed (lower left)

Collection: Jean Laporte, Paris

Provenance: Osenat, Floralies 2021, Versailles, 27 June 2021, lot 113.

Notes: Certified on the verso in Paris by Suzanne Metzinger, in 1969.

Formerly titled Paysage provençal, Cassis, it has since been found the location exact of the scene. The work was indeed painted at Martigues, in the South of France.
Metzinger’s painting, Martigues, l’Ermitage, forms part of a series that represents in effect a phase or movement in the history of art unto itself. Formerly considered an intermediary phase between Fauvism and Cubism, the Proto-Cubist period was in fact much more vast in scope than a mere phase transition. Neither Fauve nor Cubist, representational form had given way to a new mathematical complexity; the subject matter of this work and others of the period, realized in Provence, South of France, have become schematic, dominated by networks of interconnected geometric planes. The distinction between foreground and background is no longer sharply delineated, and the depth of field has been reduced dramatically. The only vestige of a bygone era is L’Ermitage flanked with trees perched atop the canvas, between sky and viewer. (A. Mittelmann,  2021, extract from the Metzinger monograph, Volume I)