Albert Marquet - LA JETÉE, SAINTE-ADRESSE

 

Albert Marquet
1875 - 1947
LA JETÉE, SAINTE-ADRESSE
Signed Marquet (lower right)
Oil on canvas
13 by 16 1/8 in.
33.1 by 40.9 cm
Painted in 1905-06 
Painted at the height of Marquet's involvement with the Fauves, the present work is a wonderfully vibrant image of the beach at Sainte-Adresse, with its fashionably dressed strollers scattered around the promenade. In July and August of 1906 Marquet traveled in the company of Raoul Dufy along the Normandy coast, each artist exploring in his own way the expressive potential of color and form evoked by the scenes they encountered in the popular resorts of Le Havre and Sainte-Adresse.
Over and beyond the use of Fauve colors, the present work illustrates how Marquet had begun to simplify the compostional forms of his works. Strident blocks of color interact with the rhythms created by the diagonal swaths of coast, demonstrating Marquet's move toward a more abstract version of reality. This tendency might have owed something to the influence of Gauguin; the 1906 Salon d'Automne had brought his work to the general public's attention, and the simplified planes and blocks of color in his art had a profound influence on numerous artists. The simplicity and lack of ornamentation in these works is a signal of the direction Marquet's aesthetic was taking during this critical period of his career.

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