Grove Koger

Had things turned out differently, Maggie and I would be arriving in Cassis (kah-see) today. I devoted my April 14, 2019, post to this beguiling little French port, but since we won’t be visiting it in person any time soon, I’m going to revisit it through the eyes of some of the many outstanding artists who’ve painted it.

Based on my informal research, it appears that Cassis was a favorite subject of the artistic generations that followed the Impressionists. If any of the earlier group set up their easels here, the works don’t seem to have attracted much attention. The particular choices of scene vary, but, inevitably, the most striking works are devoted to 1,293-foot Cap Canaille, said to be the loftiest headland on the French Mediterranean coast.

I’m giving Paul Signac pride of place here because his vibrant image of the Cap (at the top of today’s post) is such a fine example of his Pointillist style. Signac (1863-1935) was an amateur sailor, and in the 1890s visited virtually all of France’s ports in order to paint them in watercolor. Once he returned to his studio, he used these sketches as the basis for larger oils, and his painting Cassis, Cap Canaille is one of the resulting works.

Henri Manguin (1874-1949) was associated with the Fauves (literally “wild beasts”), artists who favored strong colors above realistic representation. The oil pictured above is entitled Les Aloès à Cassis and dates from 1913. I understand that it captures the view from the Villa Villecroze, where Manguin stayed during the summers of 1912 and 1913.

I bought a large poster for a 1992 exhibition by David Mollett at the Espace Réduit when I was visiting Cassis with friends that year. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any information about Mollett, but he clearly has followed in the Fauves’ footsteps in the above painting. I’d certainly like to see more of his works, but in this case, the Internet has turned up a blank.

John Duncan Fergusson (1874-1961) was one of the Scottish Colourists and met artists such as Matisse and Picasso in France in the early years of the twentieth century. I’m unable to provide a date for Cassis (above), but a number of Fergusson’s other depictions of the port date from 1913, so I’m guessing this one does too. It’s the most nearly abstract of his paintings that I’ve seen, and offers a striking contrast to Manguin’s contemporaneous work.

Today’s final image is a striking painting of one of Cassis’s nearby calanques, fjord-like inlets in the region’s steep limestone cliffs formed by erosion or the collapse of caves. The work itself is by an artist identified only as Chamar, who, according to our poster from a 1999 exhibition at the Musée Municipal Méditerranéen d’Art et Traditions Populaires de Cassis, was born in 1926 and died in 1979. Alas, I’ve never been able to find any more information about Chamar, but the image stands as mute testimony to the power of the artist’s pared-down style.

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