Lot 28 D

With the painting “Les coteaux à Haute-Isle”, one of the few late-impressionist works by the versatile painter Auguste Herbin, is coming up for auction. Herbin has captured the Oise valley near Pontoise in a luminous yellow, light blue and green, and delicate violet. Standing on the bank, he looked out at the calmly flowing river, whose opposite side is lined with trees and shrubs. The reflections in the water produce captivating chromatic effects. Immersed in a warm summery light, this riverscape conveys the cheerfulness so characteristic of impressionism.
After creating purely pointillist paintings whose colours are rigidly partitioned according to divisionist theories, Herbin developed a freer form of brushwork for this landscape – above all, in order to depict the water sparkling in the light. With a subtle sensibility and skilful use of the elements of art, he has arrived at his own personal variation on late impressionism by developing a style based on longer and shorter strokes, little patches of colour and lines that often melt and merge together, conveying a greater sense of dynamism. He may have been influenced by the Belgian neo-impressionist Georges Lemmen (1865–1916), whose works he could have seen during his regular visits to Belgium from 1901. Late impressionism nonetheless remained a passing artistic phase for Herbin, who would already join the Fauves in 1907 and whose work was strongly influenced by cubism from 1908.