L'œuvre en bref

Painted in the final years of Auguste Renoir's life, this Landscape of the South of France testifies to his definitive settlement at Cagnes-sur-Mer, on the Côte d'Azur, where he acquired the Les Collettes estate in 1907. Suffering from severe rheumatoid arthritis that gradually paralyzed his hands, the painter found in the Mediterranean light and the gentleness of the climate a precious comfort. This region, which also inspired Pierre Bonnard and Henri Matisse, became for Renoir a veritable chromatic laboratory in which he experimented with colour effects of a new intensity, far from the Impressionism of his early years.

The landscape unfolds in successive planes: a slender tree with a reddish trunk rises on the left, its leaves sketched in a few golden and brown touches; in the centre, lush vegetation blends deep greens, ochres, and bluish nuances; in the distance, a mauve mountain can be glimpsed beneath a milky sky streaked with blue and yellow. The foreground, rendered in luminous yellow and green tones, suggests a sunlit meadow where a few tiny figures can be made out. The brushwork is extraordinarily free, almost calligraphic, with quick strokes that make the surface shimmer. This spontaneity of execution, stripped of all superfluous detail, reveals the very essence of late Renoir: a painting become pure celebration of colour and light.

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