The painting shows a vista of a hilly landscape outside a village, with part of a house visible on the right. The entire left half of the painting is dominated by a dark green thicket, forming a contrast with the more muted colours of the hills in the background and thereby enhancing the painting’s sense of depth. 

The painting is dateable to approximately 1907, when Friesz was fully immersed in his Fauvist period. The rear of the canvas is also painted, showing a path leading upwards to a cliff face with two large, light-coloured planes, which is easily identified as Cap Canaille at Cassis, a regular feature in Othon Friesz’s works. For instance, another work depicting the same cliff was auctioned at Sotheby’s London on 29 June 1999, bearing the title Bord de mer, Cassis and dated 1907. The Musée Regards de Provence in Marseille also possesses a watercolour view of the Cap Canaille, painted from the same perspective and also dated 1907. The landscape on the rear of the present canvas was painted from a perspective on the other side of the bay, at the foot of the cliffs, which explains the steeply climbing path.

Achille-Émile Othon Friesz, who later went by the name Othon Friesz, was born in Le Havre, son to a long line of shipbuilders and sea captains. He attended school in the city of his birth; it was during his studies at the Lycée that he met his life-long friend Raoul Dufy. Friesz and Dufy studied at Le Havre’s École des Beaux-Arts in 1895-96. In 1898, Friesz received a grant from the local government and left for Paris. While his friends Matisse, Rouault and Marquet studied under Gustave Moreau, Friesz applied to the École des Beaux-Arts in Léon Bonnat’s workshop, where he was joined by Dufy. However, he rarely attended the workshop, preferring to visit the Louvre to paint copies of the works of Clouet, Veronese, Rubens, Claude Lorraine and Delacroix.

It was in Paris that Friesz met Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Georges Rouault. Like them, he rebelled against his master’s academic teachings, and became one of the founders of the Fauvist movement. This moniker was not of their own invention: it was born when critic Louis Vauxcelles saw their works at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905 and mocked them using the term fauve (wild animal). The Fauvists went on to greatly influence the development of modern art in the twentieth century, paving the way for expressionism and its many powerful manifestations. The group itself disbanded a few years later, however.  

By 1908, Friesz had almost completely traded the bright colours and euphoric lines of Fauvism for a more stoic style that harked back to his early lessons under Charles-Marie Lhullier and Leon Bonnat, while reflecting Cézanne’s theories of composition. It was in that year that he returned to his home province of Normandy and a far more traditional style of painting, having realised that his personal painting ambitions were deeply rooted in the past. He opened his own workshop in 1912 and worked as a teacher until joining the army in 1914 for the duration of the war. He returned to Paris in 1919 and, excepting occasional brief trips to Toulon and the Jura mountains, remained there until his death in 1949. During the last thirty years of his life, he painted in a style completely dissociated from that of his erstwhile colleagues and contemporaries. Having abandoned the lively arabesques and brilliant colours of his Fauvist years, Friesz returned to the more sober palette taught by his professor Charles Lhuillier during his young days in Le Havre, and to an early admiration for Poussin, Chardin and Corot. He painted in a manner that paid homage to Cézanne’s views on logical composition, uncomplicated tonality, solidity of volume and clear separation of planes. Othon Friesz passed away in Paris, where he lies buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse. Among his students was the paintress Marthe Rakine.

Othon Friesz exhibited works at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1901 to 1903, and subsequently in the de Salon des Artistes Indépendants. From 1906 on, he exhibited at the Salon d’Automne every year, later becoming a committee and jury member. In 1923, he helped found the Salon des Tuileries and was made head of two of the Salon’s departments. His works have been included in countless group exhibitions worldwide, and he also exhibited his work in many solo exhibitions both in and far beyond Paris.

Literature:
Robert Martin en Odile Aittouarès, Émile Othon Friesz; l’oeuvre peint I, Parijs, 1995