VIEW MODERN ART IN A NEW LIGHT.
(THE ONE IT WAS CREATED IN.)
P AUL Signac was first seduced by the Côte d’Azur when he moored his yacht in St Tropez during May 1892.
His enthusiastic reports attracted other painters, among them Matisse, Bonnard and Dufy, and before long the area was home to one of the most important artistic colonies of the modern period.
The intensity of the light, the brightness of the colours and the raw beauty of the countryside purified palettes, dissolved form and changed the course of Western Art.
A hundred years on, the vivid sites and scenes that inspired these artists have become the inspiration behind our new Matisse Cruise.
The journey begins in Málaga, where Picasso was born, and ends in Nice, where Matisse died. Apart from a short detour to Palma de Mallorca, it hugs the Mediterranean coasts of mainland Spain and France. At all ports of call, whether in the towns themselves or in the hills of the hinterland, there are visits to a sequence of art collections which constitute the richest seam of art of the period to be found anywhere in the world.
Three museums are devoted to Picasso, two to Miró and one each to Matisse, Chagall, Léger and Vasarely. There are also the studios of Renoir and Cézanne and the chapels decorated by Matisse and Picasso. Other museums range from major municipal galleries to small private collections – some of them in the collectors’ homes.
We’re fortunate, too, to have several world-renowned speakers accompany us on the cruise. (They include Hilary Spurling, whose recent biography of Matisse has been so widely acclaimed.) The cruise takes place from 15–24 April 2009, at a time of the year when the sparkling Mediterranean hues can be seen to their best advantage, and before the sun has acquired the ferocity that can make summer voyaging wearisome.
The French ship we sail on, Le Diamant, is small but extremely wellappointed. Pleasingly, you’ll find no casino, no disco, no cabaret and definitely no piped music. Bars remain open till the early hours, but the main source of evening entertainment is conversation with your lecturers and like-minded travellers.
If this is the kind of travel that appeals to you, then please call us on 020 8742 3355 or visit www.martinrandall.com (We should perhaps point out that numbers for this cruise are limited to 180, so we recommend you apply swiftly if you wish to secure a berth for next year.) As Matisse himself said, “in the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of Nature.” We hope this cruise will help you appreciate how Nature helped nurture some of the most extraordinary art of the 20th century.
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