P A P I E R D O R E I L L E: Contrasts of colours/2: The wild beasts

Colour saturation.

Today I will propose you this pair of earrings: two great, plane and flashy triangles from Paysage à l’Estaque, by the artist André Derain, painted in the south of France during the summer of 1906.

A "cage aux fauves" pair of earrings

Photos © Francesca Zabarella

Derain was in his fauve period, following Matisse’s instances before approaching Picasso’s cubist aesthetic in 1907-1908. Between 1904 and 1906 the Fauves –literally wild beasts, because they painted with fierce energy- (anyway it could be a modern rock band name :-)) were screaming at the entire world the supremacy of colour's pureness in the representation of reality.

For Matisse “This is the starting point of Fauvism, the courage to return to the purity of means.”

He also explained: “…that is only the surface: what characterized Fauvism was that we rejected imitative colours, and that with pure colours we obtained stronger reactions—more striking reactions; and there was also the luminosity of our colours”.

Then fauves painters as Matisse, Vlaminck, van Dongen and Derain itself decided to leave temporarily their humid Parisian ateliers to pass some summers between the south of France and the north of Spain, drinking red Ventoux or Cahors and painting en plein air in locations like l’Estaque, Collioure or Cadaquès. They were all enchanted by the pure and powerful light of the Mediterranean region, which had the capacity to pump up every colour, transfiguring the landscape in an archetypical frame.

1. Henri Matisse, Self portrait, 1906; 2. André Derain, Matisse's portrait, 1905-1906;
3. Henri Matisse, Derain's portrait, 1905;
4. Maurice Vlaminck, Derain's portrait, 1905-1906.

Derain’s painting is a burning image. Matisse’s colour lesson touches here one of its highest peaks: the scene vibrates of exploding tangerine red, saturated purple, sunflower yellow, with the sharpen trees’ contour traced in electric mineral blue.

André Derain, Paysage à l'Estaque, 1906

I’ve chosen this work of art because I want the person who wears my earrings to be involved in a rich and intense flash of energy. It’s for the same reason that I’ve combined the representation with a pure white crystal bead and golden small parts.

I wanted a contrast leaving the colour completely free to invade the mood.

Colour is all we need, have a saturated day!

Ps. to have a great, saturated day click here :-)