Grand Paysage, Mont Alban by Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse
1869-1954 | French

Grand paysage, Mont Alban

Signed “Henri - Matisse” (lower left)
Oil on canvas

Hailing from a pivotal moment in the artist’s artistic development, Grand paysage, Mont Alban showcases Henri Matisse’s simplified forms, bold colors and expressive brushstrokes that revolutionized the art world. Monumental in size and significance, the idyllic landscape hails from Matisse's retreat to Nice, and represents a transformative achievement in the artist's oeuvre.

Among the paintings that exemplify Matisse’s dynamic interplay between light and ever-moving nature, Grand paysage, Mont Alban stands among the finest of the artist’s rare landscapes. In the spring of 1918, when this painting was conceived, Matisse began a focused study of Renaissance art and light. It makes perfect sense that the great artist would have made his way to Mont Alban, a medieval fortress and hillside lookout with panoramic views of the seaside town, where he could quietly observe the sun-soaked and luminous French Riviera. Also, during the spring of 1918, Matisse liked to stay with his friend Auguste Renoir, then ailing, in his peaceful house in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Nice. Upon seeing Matisse’s works from this important period, Renoir famously stated, “How you have managed to express the atmosphere... everything is accurate. It was difficult... it makes me mad.”

What the great master Renoir noticed in Matisse’s work is the artist’s virtuosic ability to blur the line between representation and abstraction. In Grand paysage, Mont Alban, Matisse plunges the viewer into the luminous hues of the French countryside, with flattened planes rendered with thick, painterly strokes. A sand-colored path winds up the hill, disappearing into a dense forest, and a retreat down rolling green hills leads to white-washed, blue-roofed buildings below. Above, the bright blue sky radiates a combination of coolness and warmth, suffusing the landscape with a luminosity that invites the viewer to savor a moment of profound solitude. 

Matisse was renowned throughout his career for his versatility as an artist, and his vast oeuvre encompasses painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic arts, paper cutouts and book illustration. Perhaps one of art history's greatest draftsman, he is today considered among the most influential artists of his era alongside Pablo Picasso, who was both a close confidante and friendly rival. In 1917, as World War I ravaged Europe and avant-garde Cubism dominated the Parisian art scene, Matisse made a deliberate decision to retreat from the city and seek solitude in Nice, where he immersed himself in the brilliant range of tonalities offered by simple rooms flooded with natural light. Through this purposeful isolation, Matisse’s creativity flourished, leading to artworks like Grand paysage, Mont Alban where Matisse first accessed his virtuosic ability to render light, a talent that would come to define his oeuvre. His ability to see beauty in simplicity set him apart from his contemporaries and paved the way for the Abstract Expressionists, Minimalists and Pop artists who followed him. Still relevant today, his body of work continues to form the basis of retrospectives and exhibitions at important museums worldwide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Widely exhibited, Grand paysage, Mont Alban was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art's highly important 1952and 1992 retrospectives, as well as the National Gallery of Art's 1986 exhibition Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice, 1916-1930. The compelling composition is pictured in P. Schneider, M. Carrà and X. Derying's Tout l’oeuvre peint de Matisse 1904-1928, published in 1982, and G.P. & M. Dauberville's Matisse, published in 1995.

Painted 1918

Canvas: 29" high x 38 3/4" wide (73.66 x 92.08 cm)
Frame: 38 3/4" high x 46" wide x 2 1/4" deep (98.43 x 116.84 cm)

View the Dossier

Provenance:
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, by whom acquired directly from the artist on 9 September 1918
Galerie Paul Vallotton, Lausanne, by whom acquired from the above on 31 December 1918
Mary Callery, New York, by 1940
Pierre Matisse, New York
Private Collection
M.S. Rau, New Orleans

Exhibitions:
Paris, Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Oeuvres récentes de Henri-Matisse, May 1919, no. 19
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Modern Masters from European and American Collections, 1940 (hors cat)
New York, Pierre Matisse Gallery, Henri Matisse, Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings 1898-1939, February 1943, no. 10
New York, Mortimer Brandt, Color and Space in Modern Art Since 1900, February – March 1944, no. 3
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Henri Matisse, November 1951 – January 1952, no. 49; this exhibition later travelled to Cleveland, Museum of Art, February – March 1952; Chicago, The Art Institute, April – May 1952; and San Francisco, Museum of Art, May – July 1952
London, The Hayward Gallery, Matisse, July – September 1968, no. 77, p. 164 (illustrated p. 106)
Philadelphia, Museum of Art, Summer Exhibition, 1969
Paris, Grand Palais, Henri Matisse, exposition du centenaire, April – September 1970, no. 157, p. 87 (illustrated p. 222)
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Modern Masters, Manet to Matisse, August – September 1975, pp. 94-95 and 266 (illustrated p. 95)
Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art, Henri Matisse, The Early Years in Nice, 1916-1930, November 1986 – March 1987, no. 41, p. 288 (illustrated in color p. 115, pl/ 65 and illustrated again p. 288)
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Henri Matisse, A Retrospective, no. 225, September 1992 – January 1993 (illustrated in color p. 305)
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Beckmann and Paris – Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Léger, Rouault, September 1998 – January 1999, no. 81, p. 233 (illustrated in color p. 86); this exhibition later travelled to, Saint Louis, Art Museum February – May 1999

Literature:
P. Courthion, Henri-Matisse, Paris, 1934, pl. XXX (illustrated)
R. Fry, Henri-Matisse, London, 1935, pl. 32 (illustrated)
Mushakojo, Henri Matisse, 1890-1939, Tokyo, 1939, p. 47 (illustrated fig. 85)
A.H. Barr Jr., Matisse, His Art and His Public, New York, 1951, pp. 183 and 205 (illustrated p. 420)
C. Greenberg, Henri Matisse, New York, 1953, pl. 24 (illustrated in color)
G. Diehl, Henri Matisse, Paris, 1954, p. 74
L.-E. Åstrom, Henri Matisse, Stockholm, 1955, pl. 24 (illustrated in color)
R. Huyghe, Henri Matisse, Paris, 1955, pl. 24 (illustrated in color)
P. Lübecker, Henri Matisse, Copenhagen, 1955, pl. 24 (illustrated in color)
M.W. Alpatov, Matisse, Moscow, 1969, pl. 22 (illustrated in color)
M. Luzi and M. Carrà, L’opera di Matisse, dalla rivolta fauve all’intimismo, 1904-1928, Milan, 1971, no. 271 (illustrated in color pl. XLVII)
P. Schneider, M. Carrà and X. Derying, Tout l’oeuvre peint de Matisse 1904-1928, Paris, 1982, no. 271 (illustrated in color)
Jack Cowart and Dominique Fourcade, Henri Matisse: The Early Years in Nice 1916-1930, Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, 1986, no.65, pp. 115.
G.P. & M. Dauberville, Matisse, Paris, 1995, p. 670, no. 238 (illustrated p. 671)