Lot 43 N

For a snow-filled landscape, “Paysage de neige” presents itself in an unusual tonality. The prevailing impression is primarily defined not by the bluish-white areas of snow but by the bold tones of orange and red. Sometimes inserted with a radiant luminosity and sometimes mixed with white, they bind together the elements of the picture: trees, houses, fences and an overcast sky. Seen as reflections of the low sun’s light, their intensity goes beyond local colour. This free conception in terms of colour is accompanied by a spirited application of the paint in broad and oblique slashes of the brush. Vlaminck was clearly influenced by Cézanne’s style during this period: this phase of his work thus represents a link between his intensely colourful Fauvist period and his later works in very dark tones.
After his Fauvist early work had included only a single snow-filled landscape, from 1907 Vlaminck developed a marked interest in this subject and the colouristic situation it involved. “Je revois le pont de Chatou couvert de neige avec les voitures des maraîchers et le pas lourd des charretiers, la plaine de Nanterre étouffée dans le blanc et le gris“, wrote the artist in his memoirs in 1929 (cited in: Maithé Vallès-Bled, Vlaminck. Catalogue critique des peintures et céramiques de la période fauve, Paris 2008, p. 444).