1880 -20th century · lavender, roads and colorful light of the South

Lavender, road, pine and Mediterranean light make up a Provence of active colors where Guillaumin, Signac, Renoir and Cézanne transform the cultivation of the soil and the relief into a pictorial rhythm.

The lavender field has become one of the most recognizable images of Provence, but its pictorial interest goes beyond the regional symbol. The cultivated rows cut out the slope, lead the eye and produce contrast powerful between purples, greens, light earths and sky. Armand Guillaumin, one of the first participants in the impressionist exhibitions, explores these colorful relationships with particular intensity. In Les Lavandes, the bands of terrain does not describe each plant; they organize a vibrant depth where the complements reinforce each other. Paul Signac approaches the South using another method. His divided touch juxtaposes pure tones that the gaze mixes with distance, making the Mediterranean air a construction of points and small touches. At Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Provençal landscapes retain a more flexible material: trees, houses and hills are linked by transitions warm which favors the luminous unit. Paul Cézanne, on the contrary, builds the territory in successive plans. Roads, houses, pines and rocks around Aix and Estaque are balanced by color ratios and point changes from sight; the path is no longer a simple detail, but a force which organizes entry into the painting. Bonnard and other artists in the collection further expand this journey, from village structure to objects servants bathed in color. Lavender must therefore be placed in a larger agricultural and sensory whole: gardens, rocks, roads and villages make visible the way in which the South is inhabited and worked. A reproduction faithful must preserve the intervals between rows, the purple-green oppositions, the warmth of the earth and the specific logic of each key, divided in Signac, constructive in Cézanne, saturated in Guillaumin or enveloping in Renoir. The selection "Lavender fields and Provençal landscapes" notably compares Les Lavandes - Armand Guillaumin and Printemps en Provence - Paul Signac. His reading favors composition.

The purple of lavender never exists alone: it becomes luminous by the neighboring green, the warm earth, the sky and the rhythm of the rows which lead the gaze.