View of Collioure by André Derain

This extraordinary fauve work marks one of the summits of the artist’s research into the liberation of pure color and the divisionism of brushwork during his stays in the South. Harmoniously integrating the name of the artist Derain André, this work entitled “View of Collioure” bursts with an almost unreal solar luminosity. The painter composes a flamboyant hymn to Mediterranean nature, overturning all academic conventions of his era. The landscape seems to vibrate under the heat.

In the foreground, a rolling hill is represented by a multitude of small hatched touches in shades of ocre yellow, bright orange, brick red, and soft green. Two large stone pines with winding orange-red trunks stand in the center of the composition, their flat green tops rising towards the sky. Below, a small group of houses with white facades and orange roofs is nestled in the hollow of the hill. In the background, a deep ultramarine blue sea extends under a light blue sky, painted with small horizontal white and blue touches. The entire scene is bathed in a fiery clarity that makes every part of the canvas vibrate.

The artist’s exceptional craft knowledge is expressed in this split, almost pointillist touch that reinvents Provençal light. By an audacious mastery of complementary contrasts, he transcends simple representation to offer a pure and memorable sensory experience of wild nature.