The stylistic expression of Valtat in Anthéor
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Valtat's painting style is not easily classifiable within the strict confines of a school or movement. His painting is comparable to artistic influences common to the post-impressionists, namely neo-impressionist, symbolist and the nabis. He can even be considered as a pre-Fauvist (the “wild beasts” movement). But outside the codes and theories of academic painting, his art is always invested with a great sense of decoration, rather than of narration. In addition to painting, Valtat explored a variety of graphic techniques, those involving sculpture and volumes, but also tapestry weaving.
Whatever the subject matter Valtat indulged in: portrait, still life, street scene, landscape... he gave preponderance to the main subject so that it took over the entire frame and setting. This is very apparent when he painted rocks and trees. These are immediately elevated to the rank of privileged subjects.
His semi-annual stay in Anthéor from autumn to spring, for the best part of 15 years, following his initial stay in Agay during the winter of 1898/1899, was a defining factor in the orientation of his artistic expression. He did not care for drawing or for exact perspectives, instead his style was free of conventions. The profusion of nature is depicted by the effervescence of colour, as well as by large, thick and nervous touches of paint. He excelled in vibrant transpositions of nature, its vegetation, and rocky masses. The Esterel lent itself perfectly to the painter's flair, whose palette captured the yellows and reds, the complementary blues and purples of the sky, the oranges of the rocks, and greens of the vegetation, an expression of his exaltation wrapped up in a chromatic whirlwind. He paid particular attention to the tectonic and telluric aspect of the sites, depicting them in what can be viewed as a series.
Such is the case of the large painting that he offered for the creation of the first museum in Saint-Tropez, the Tropelen museon, even though he no longer lived in the Var at the time. The scene, a real pictorial maelstrom, was an important contribution by the artist, who, like other painters, and at the initiative of his friends, led by Signac, constituted the collection of this museum in Saint-Tropez. Thanks to their altruistic gesture, 35 works were donated between 1922 and 1929, constituting one of the very first museums of contemporary art in France.
In most of Valtat's landscapes, the sky is reduced to the smallest portion. By placing the line of the horizon very high in the majority of his compositions is further evidence of his renunciation for geometrical and atmospheric perspective.
His painting becomes one with the material, as if the coloured threads make up a tapestry, occupying the entire space of this immense decorative model, to the point of blending its characters seamlessly into the decor. His way of bringing out the red, blue and green calls to mind the quote made by Charles Chassé in 1963 in his book Les Fauves et leur Temps, in which he referred to Valtat and Manguin as: "caressing fauvists” (caressing “beasts”).
May 2022
Séverine BERGER
Chief Curator of Heritage
Annonciade Museum - 83990 Saint-Tropez
Whatever the subject matter Valtat indulged in: portrait, still life, street scene, landscape... he gave preponderance to the main subject so that it took over the entire frame and setting. This is very apparent when he painted rocks and trees. These are immediately elevated to the rank of privileged subjects.
His semi-annual stay in Anthéor from autumn to spring, for the best part of 15 years, following his initial stay in Agay during the winter of 1898/1899, was a defining factor in the orientation of his artistic expression. He did not care for drawing or for exact perspectives, instead his style was free of conventions. The profusion of nature is depicted by the effervescence of colour, as well as by large, thick and nervous touches of paint. He excelled in vibrant transpositions of nature, its vegetation, and rocky masses. The Esterel lent itself perfectly to the painter's flair, whose palette captured the yellows and reds, the complementary blues and purples of the sky, the oranges of the rocks, and greens of the vegetation, an expression of his exaltation wrapped up in a chromatic whirlwind. He paid particular attention to the tectonic and telluric aspect of the sites, depicting them in what can be viewed as a series.
Such is the case of the large painting that he offered for the creation of the first museum in Saint-Tropez, the Tropelen museon, even though he no longer lived in the Var at the time. The scene, a real pictorial maelstrom, was an important contribution by the artist, who, like other painters, and at the initiative of his friends, led by Signac, constituted the collection of this museum in Saint-Tropez. Thanks to their altruistic gesture, 35 works were donated between 1922 and 1929, constituting one of the very first museums of contemporary art in France.
In most of Valtat's landscapes, the sky is reduced to the smallest portion. By placing the line of the horizon very high in the majority of his compositions is further evidence of his renunciation for geometrical and atmospheric perspective.
His painting becomes one with the material, as if the coloured threads make up a tapestry, occupying the entire space of this immense decorative model, to the point of blending its characters seamlessly into the decor. His way of bringing out the red, blue and green calls to mind the quote made by Charles Chassé in 1963 in his book Les Fauves et leur Temps, in which he referred to Valtat and Manguin as: "caressing fauvists” (caressing “beasts”).
May 2022
Séverine BERGER
Chief Curator of Heritage
Annonciade Museum - 83990 Saint-Tropez
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