The Cagnes Road, Vence
Artist
Hartley, Marsden
(American, 1877 - 1943)
Dateca. 1926
OriginUnited States of America
MediumOil on board
Dimensions18 1/8 × 14 5/8 in. (46 × 37.1 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Object number2017.17
Label TextMarsden Hartley (American, 1877–1943)
The Cagnes Road, Vence
Oil on panel, about 1926
Gift of Carolyn K. and Richard F. Barry III
Influenced by the European Avant-garde, American painters beginning around 1910 and evolving through the 1940s, replaced colors found in nature with a palette that expressed inner feelings and imagination. Marsden Hartley’s painting, from circa 1926, reveals an encounter with the landscape while traveling in Southern France. It summarizes the mood of that winding road in Vence leading to Cagnes, rendering the tonality of the forest opening to farmland in muted tones. It was typical for Hartley to bookend a landscape painting with vertical anchors, as if the viewer is pulling back a set of curtains. The eye follows as the road recedes back into space, leading around an ambiguous curve. The barely contained dynamism of this scene is characteristic of Hartley’s later period: while still representational, the work explores an abstracted view of the world that owes much to both Matisse and Cézanne.
Status
On view
