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Lot Essay
Patrick Offenstadt will include this painting in his forthcoming Cross catalogue raisonné.
Cross and his wife Irma lived in a secluded house nestling amongst vineyards and orchards at the foot of the Massif des Maures just a mile inland from the Mediterranean coast. The closest town was the tiny fishing village of Le Lavandou, a few miles south along the coast from Saint-Tropez where Paul Signac, Cross's collaborator in the Neo-Impressionist idiom, lived. The two men were both drawn naturally to the sea as a motif, relishing the challenges that such a transient subject set them as artists of order and classical repose. La mer clapotante illustrates Cross's rigorous application of Neo-Impressionist technique, with saturated dashes of colour carefully building the subject, as well as his sense of overall design.
During the summer of 1904, Matisse spent several crucial months in Saint-Tropez in the company of Signac, Cross and Félix Fénéon, the first owner of the present work and in whose collection La mer clapotante remained until his death. The exchange of ideas had a profound effect on the direction of Matisse's art, and led directly to the creation of his landmark Fauve canvases during the following year. In fact, the planned layout of the notorious Salle VII in the 1905 Salon d'Automne, the gallery occupied by Matisse and his Fauve comrades, initially included Cross. The latter, however, sensibly wrote to Matisse, 'I would prefer my submission, which belongs with the softer harmonies this year, to be separated from yours, in a place that favours calm where it can hold its own' (quoted in H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, London, 1998, p. 331).
Cross and his wife Irma lived in a secluded house nestling amongst vineyards and orchards at the foot of the Massif des Maures just a mile inland from the Mediterranean coast. The closest town was the tiny fishing village of Le Lavandou, a few miles south along the coast from Saint-Tropez where Paul Signac, Cross's collaborator in the Neo-Impressionist idiom, lived. The two men were both drawn naturally to the sea as a motif, relishing the challenges that such a transient subject set them as artists of order and classical repose. La mer clapotante illustrates Cross's rigorous application of Neo-Impressionist technique, with saturated dashes of colour carefully building the subject, as well as his sense of overall design.
During the summer of 1904, Matisse spent several crucial months in Saint-Tropez in the company of Signac, Cross and Félix Fénéon, the first owner of the present work and in whose collection La mer clapotante remained until his death. The exchange of ideas had a profound effect on the direction of Matisse's art, and led directly to the creation of his landmark Fauve canvases during the following year. In fact, the planned layout of the notorious Salle VII in the 1905 Salon d'Automne, the gallery occupied by Matisse and his Fauve comrades, initially included Cross. The latter, however, sensibly wrote to Matisse, 'I would prefer my submission, which belongs with the softer harmonies this year, to be separated from yours, in a place that favours calm where it can hold its own' (quoted in H. Spurling, The Unknown Matisse, London, 1998, p. 331).