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拍品專文
When he established his Provençal studio at Bormes in the early years of the century, Henry La Thangue had a base from which to conduct forays into Liguria, the Italian Lakes and south, as far as the Roman Campagna. He also sailed down the coast of Spain as far as Andalusia and visited the Balearic Islands. These expeditions can only be dated approximately by the years in which the resulting pictures were shown at the Royal Academy. Thus we may assume that his visit to Majorca for instance was conducted shortly after the cessation of hostilities in northern Europe since the present picture was his principal exhibit in 1921.
La Thangue worked almost exclusively on the spot, and it is likely that he blocked in the present composition by the roadside in the Mallorcan hills, close to the village of Buger. At least one other work, the smaller Moonrise in Spain (c. 1920, 71.1 x 78.8, sold Christie's, 16 December 2009), is known to have been completed at this location. In this latter work we face the mill at evening with its sails unfurled and although viewed from a different angle, the mill and surrounding low buildings are essentially the same.
It is likely that the peasant with his heavily laden donkey in the present picture is intended to be a miller setting off for the coast or the local bake-house, while in Moonrise in Spain he is shown returning. Although these motifs in La Thangue's compositions may have been added later from drawings made on the spot, only a few of these have survived and none relate to the present work. We know from his Provençal pictures that donkeys were the principal means of transport on unmade mountain paths and this mode of transport - and way of life - persisted in Majorca. Little had changed since George Sand and Frédéric Chopin spent the winter of 1838-9 at Valldemossa.
Although a 'national road' connecting the pretty coastal towns had been constructed by the time of La Thangue's visit, the island's interior was largely the preserve of Majorcans. Few outsiders ventured inland to explore the inhospitable mountainous terrain. Indeed a seasoned British traveller like Charles Edwardes found the very idea of the modern road 'sacreligious'. 'It is so much better' he wrote in 1890, 'to go afoot into these solitudes, or on horseback; to wander in the woods of ilex and olive under the influence of unadulterate nature' (The Picturesque Mediterranean, vol. 2, p. 271). Observers noted that the meagre wealth of small island population depended on corn production that fed the expansion of Barcelona and even later in the twenties when the islands were colonized by artists such as Robert Graves, the native Spanish remained very poor.
It was however the landscape that La Thangue most admired and where he discovered the tiny settlement on the banks of the fast-flowing Torrent de Buger that irrigated the cereal crops produced in the area, giving rise to the construction of windmills hundreds of years earlier. And it was with this ancient edifice that he chose to remember his visit to the hills of Majorca.
KMc.
La Thangue worked almost exclusively on the spot, and it is likely that he blocked in the present composition by the roadside in the Mallorcan hills, close to the village of Buger. At least one other work, the smaller Moonrise in Spain (c. 1920, 71.1 x 78.8, sold Christie's, 16 December 2009), is known to have been completed at this location. In this latter work we face the mill at evening with its sails unfurled and although viewed from a different angle, the mill and surrounding low buildings are essentially the same.
It is likely that the peasant with his heavily laden donkey in the present picture is intended to be a miller setting off for the coast or the local bake-house, while in Moonrise in Spain he is shown returning. Although these motifs in La Thangue's compositions may have been added later from drawings made on the spot, only a few of these have survived and none relate to the present work. We know from his Provençal pictures that donkeys were the principal means of transport on unmade mountain paths and this mode of transport - and way of life - persisted in Majorca. Little had changed since George Sand and Frédéric Chopin spent the winter of 1838-9 at Valldemossa.
Although a 'national road' connecting the pretty coastal towns had been constructed by the time of La Thangue's visit, the island's interior was largely the preserve of Majorcans. Few outsiders ventured inland to explore the inhospitable mountainous terrain. Indeed a seasoned British traveller like Charles Edwardes found the very idea of the modern road 'sacreligious'. 'It is so much better' he wrote in 1890, 'to go afoot into these solitudes, or on horseback; to wander in the woods of ilex and olive under the influence of unadulterate nature' (The Picturesque Mediterranean, vol. 2, p. 271). Observers noted that the meagre wealth of small island population depended on corn production that fed the expansion of Barcelona and even later in the twenties when the islands were colonized by artists such as Robert Graves, the native Spanish remained very poor.
It was however the landscape that La Thangue most admired and where he discovered the tiny settlement on the banks of the fast-flowing Torrent de Buger that irrigated the cereal crops produced in the area, giving rise to the construction of windmills hundreds of years earlier. And it was with this ancient edifice that he chose to remember his visit to the hills of Majorca.
KMc.