Colonizing the Côte d'Azur: Neo-Impressionism, Anarcho-Communism and the Tropical Terre Libreof the Maures, c.1892-1908

This article explores neo-impressionist representations of the Maures region (Hyères-St Raphaël) of the Côte d'Azur as an ideal space of anarcho-communist liberty or, to borrow from Jean Grave's Terre Libre: Les Pionniers (1908), a "free land." In doing so it questions art-historical literature of such images as utopian, with its implication of geographic non-specificity, through analyses of anarcho-communist and geographical texts and images. Tropical markers, especially palm trees, feature in Grave's vision of a "free land," corresponding to perceptions by contemporaneous artists, tourists a... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Woloshyn, Tania
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
Reihe/Periodikum: RIHA Journal, Vol 0045 (2012)
Verlag/Hrsg.: International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA)
Schlagwörter: neo-impressionism / the Maures / Côte d'Azur / artist colony / anarcho-communism / Melanesia / Jean Grave / Mabel Holland Thomas / sunlight / Henri Edmond Cross / Theo Rysselberghe / Fine Arts / N
Sprache: Deutsch
Englisch
Spanish
Französisch
Italian
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-26711241
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : https://doaj.org/article/3832eac011044aaba462fc2b7c0d80f4

This article explores neo-impressionist representations of the Maures region (Hyères-St Raphaël) of the Côte d'Azur as an ideal space of anarcho-communist liberty or, to borrow from Jean Grave's Terre Libre: Les Pionniers (1908), a "free land." In doing so it questions art-historical literature of such images as utopian, with its implication of geographic non-specificity, through analyses of anarcho-communist and geographical texts and images. Tropical markers, especially palm trees, feature in Grave's vision of a "free land," corresponding to perceptions by contemporaneous artists, tourists and geographers of the exotic, island-like geography of the Maures. The article argues that, for Henri-Edmond Cross, Paul Signac and Théo van Rysselberghe, the Maures landscape was imaged and imagined as a sunlit terre libreon home soil, naturally suited to these self-styled pioneers.