The côte d'Azur
Provence & The Côte d'Azur
The image of the French Rivierais of the azure sun-lit Mediterranean sea, serene town squares with cafes shaded by plane trees and, in front, groups of locals playing the ancient French game of boules on a packed-clay pitch. The names that Provence-Côte d'Azur conjures up, Grasse, Cannes, Vallauris, Aix-en-Provence, Nice, Saint Paul de Vence (with its renowned Fondation Maeght), are also the history of nineteenth and twentieth-century painting. Beginning with Jean-Honoré Fragonard, the eighteenth-century Rococo painter living in Grasse, a succession of artists followed who were to create our image of modern art in general. Paul Cézanne settled in Aix-en Provence, Vincent van Gogh in Arles, Renoir in his villa at Cagnes, just behind the town that housed Pierre Bonnard, Cannes. The ancient Phoenician city of Nice, with its colourful flower and vegetable market that was the home of Henri Matisse in his villa nearby in the Episcopal suburb of Cimiez and Pablo Picasso was in Vallauris.
Matthew Moss' paintings describe some of these locations, from Menton close to the Italian Riviera to the Camargue and the Petit Rhone, near Marseilles.
View of the Petit Rhone in the Camargue region of Southern France
The artist's vision of the Petit Rhone in the Camargue region of Southern France. A sense of movement is noticeable in this canvas: The blue of the unsettled sky is followed by the undulating line of red tiled roofs then the cottage walls tinted in ochre. In the middle distance, The rich green of a grassy footpath below it the agitated waves of the Petit Rhone river show a mix of cobalt violet and blue. The blue of the river and the blue of the sky above, frame the central composition of boats, the ancient factory and the stone-walled cottages.
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The Mediterranean Villa
The artist shows a group of villas, their red-tiled roofs silhouetted against the blue sky. Between two of the buildings is a tree-lined alley through which the sea can be seen, briefly. The olive tree in the centre of the foreground shows cool greens contrasting with the violet tints, the blues, pinks and whites of the stuccoed wall. The overall feeling evoked by The fin de si?cle Mediterranean villa in this oil painting is one of richness and warmth. The villas of The Principality of Monaco and the C?te d?Azur show man and nature living in close harmony.
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