www.smartymagazine.com Picasso and the Mediterranean landscape at MAT Toulon by Marlène Pegliasco #TOULON After more than a year of work, the Art Museum of Toulon has partially reopened to host a masterly exhibition dedicated to Pablo Picasso. Closing the Picasso-Mediterranean season, in partnership with the Picasso Museum in Paris, the exhibition "Picasso and the Mediterranean Landscape" reveals a little-known aspect of the Spanish master. While the public is familiar with his numerous portraits, still lifes and various artistic periods, it is less familiar with his work around the Mediterranean landscape. From the shores of Spain to the Côte d'Azur, Picasso allows himself to be swept away by a Mediterranean as omnipresent in his life as in his painting. 1919. Picasso was 38 years old when he made his first trip to the French Riviera. Saint-Raphaël, Antibes, Cannes, Vallauris: he stayed in many places until he settled permanently in 1948 at the Villa La Galloise with his present wife Françoise Gillot. The light of the Mediterranean, its colours and way of life will inspire the artist until his last breath. Born in 1881 in Malaga, Spain, Pablo Ruiz Picasso received an academic artistic education. His first landscapes dated from the years 1895-1896 are quite classical, illustrating his native region. The theme was set up, abandoned during his Parisian bohemian years (1901-1906), but returned as a field of experimentation for the cubist style. In 1909, two years after having painted Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, the artist realized different views of the small Spanish village of Horta de Ebro in this very singular style. Picasso's work is punctuated with images that bear witness to the landscapes he had time to appreciate during his travels or stays on the French Riviera. The Spanish master owns a few holiday resorts in the South of France, where he can set up his easel and work on colour and light. The Château de Vauvenargues near Aix-en-Provence (where he is buried), the Villa Californie in Cannes or the Mas Notre- Dame-de-Vie in Mougins: each place is a source of inspiration and creation for this tireless artist. The French Riviera as a whole influences Picasso's work: the trees shaped by the sea spray, the arid hills, the maritime leisure activities and the architecture that nibbles at this haven of peace. A place that obviously inspired other artists, all of whom came to follow Paul Cézanne's lesson of "treating forms with the cylinder, the sphere, the cube". Raoul Dufy, Georges Braque, Henri Matisse, André Derain, Moïse Kisling, Jean Marchand: these contemporary artists, sometimes friends of the Spanish master, undertake their own reflections on the landscape. The exhibition thus associates about twenty of their paintings with those of the Catalan artist, sometimes showing mutual influences. 06 Feb 2020 #Peinture #Dessin #Gravure copyright: Pablo Picasso, L’Atelier de la Californie, 1956, huile sur toile,114 x 146 cm, Paris, musée national Picasso © Rmn-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2019 copyright: Pablo Picasso, La baie de Cannes, 1958, huile sur toile, 130 x 195 cm, Paris, musée national Picasso © Rmn-Grand Palais (Musée national Picasso-Paris) / Mathieu Rabeau © Succession Picasso, 2019 copyright: Pablo Picasso, Paysage de Juan les Pins (2), 1937, huile sur toile, 38,1 x 46,5 cm, collection particulière,© Succession Picasso, 2019 copyright: Pablo Picasso, Port de Barcelone, 1895-1896, huile sur toile collée, 17,8 x 12,6 cm, Barcelone, museu Picasso of Barcelona © Museu Picasso of Barcelona, photo Gasull Fotografia © Succession Picasso, 2019 www.smartymagazine.com Contacts smArty Intern'l Ltd Ibex House Baker Street Weybridge KT13 8AH [email protected] www.smartymagazine.com.