Beschreibung:

Roderic O'Conor (1860-1940) Landscape with Garden and Mountain (1913) Oil on board, 38 x 46cm (15 x 18�'') Atelier stamp verso Provenance: Vente O'Conor, Se�n � Criad�in, from whom purchased in 1978 by John P. Reihill, Deepwell, Blackrock, Co. Dublin Literature: Roderic O'Conor Jonathan Bennington, 1992, No. 175, p.211 This lively and colourful painting of modest proportions is one of a number which O'Conor painted in 1913 when he was living in a rented villa in the small fishing port of Cassis, to the east of Marseille in the D�partment of Bouches du Rh�ne. O'Conor had not exhibited any landscapes since his return to Paris from Brittany in 1904 and it was probably the case that he felt a compelling need to return to subject matter which had been his primary interest, indeed his passion, in earlier years. After two separate visits which took him out of France to Italy in 1910 and to Spain in 1912, O'Conor moved temporarily from his Montparnasse studio to spend the summer of 1913 painting in Cassis. The villa which he rented there was a two-story residence situated on a narrow street in the old part of the town, set on a hill leading up from the port. The house backed onto a garden surrounded by a high wall, and there was a balcony at the rear of the villa which afforded a fine view over the rooftops of the houses further down the hill, towards the Bay of Cassis and the Mediterranean beyond. To the east of his villa the terrain rose more dramatically, ending in a rocky ridge which overlooked the port and swept down to the coast, forming a headland cliff almost 400 metres high where it reached the Mediterranean. Known as Cap Canaille, it was then, and still is, the highest sea cliff on France's coastline. With such a dramatic background feature it is no surprise to find that the ridge appeared frequently in O'Conor's paintings that year, and that it is included in this painting as a purple mass in the background. The Mediterranean environment clearly enriched O'Conor's colour range as it had done for painters such as Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck, who became known as the Fauves when their work was grouped together with others in the Salon d'Automne of 1905. The rich foliage and bright flora of this region, and the piercing southern sunlight of summer, made a direct impact on their perception and use of colour in their paintings. In O'Conor's case his colour range in this painting has been enhanced through the interplay of purple and warm orange/yellow pigments, with red and green broken brush strokes interspersed with blue marks. His painting technique combines a rich variety of brush marks and dabs which he has applied energetically with some mixing directly on the canvas. In other paintings from his summer in Cassis a sense of touch and an exploratory and slightly hesitant contact with the canvas is reminiscent of Bonnard's technique, and he, rather than the Fauve painters, may have been the stronger influence on O'Conor's work at this time. There is also a second and somewhat larger painting known as ''Le Cap Canail'' which has a definite relationship through its composition and colour to this work. ''Landscape with Garden and Mountain'' may have been a preparatory work for this larger painting, but equally, the enlarged scale of some of its brush marks, particularly on the background mountain, could also suggest that the painting was done in the studio from memory or from reference to the smaller work. The Bonnard influence may also be seen in at least three further paintings, none of which were exhibited at the Salon d'Automne that year. but which are very Bonnard-like in their treatment. Although one of these works is known by its ascribed title ''Brittany Coastline,'' its colour range, technique, and topographical details link it directly to the Cassis paintings. ''Landscape,'' is even closer to Bonnard's style when compared with the brushwork details of his ''Nu � contre-jour'' of 1908, which was exhibited by Bernheim-J