Au Cap Martin represents the triumphant apex of Claude Monet’s seminal series of works produced as part of his 1884 excursion to the Mediterranean, characterized as “some of the most powerful, resonant, and innovative paintings he had ever produced—work that went well beyond Impressionism” (Joachim Pissarro in Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum (and traveling), Monet and the Mediterranean, 1997-98, p. 19).

Just several weeks after arriving at his home in Giverny, Monet departed on a three-month solo trip to Italy and the Côte d'Azur. First working in Bordighera, the artist undertook several short sojourns to Menton and Monte Carlo beginning in early February 1884 as a respite from the exhausting pace with which he worked to capture the novel Italian landscape. In contrast with the inscrutable tangles of dense foliage present throughout Bordighera, Monet concluded, the French Riviera presented “broad mountain lines” and other natural features that more readily lent themselves to paintings (quoted in Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, ibid., p. 36). Consequently, he fixated on depicting the area upon the conclusion of his stay in Italy: on 7 February he remarked, “I absolutely want to stop, even if only for a few days, in Menton to paint what I saw yesterday at Cap Martin. There are two absolutely exceptional motifs of the same place to complete upon returning” (quoted in Christiane Éluère, Monet and the Riviera, Paris, 2006, p. 117).

After leaving Bordighera on 6 April, Monet settled into the Hôtel du Pavillon du Prince de Galles in Menton, the hotel closest to the Cap Martin, to begin his long-anticipated paintings. Nine canvases resulted from the aforementioned “exceptional motifs,” including the present work. Au Cap Martin and its sister work belonging to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (see fig. 2) illustrate the vantage point from the eastern shoreline of the Cap Martin. Evoking a Romantic sense of grandeur, the twin Maritime Alps peaks of the Roc de l'Orméa and Restaud, also known as le berceau (the cradle), tower over the loosely-delineated buildings below.

A iridescent vision of Menton bathed in the potent morning sun, Au Cap Martin brims with the textural richness and chromatic potency that characterizes Monet's best works. Typifing the signature advancements of the dazzling Mediterranean light upon Monet’s oeuvre, every luminous ridge and shadowed valley of the twin peaks are attentively articulated with energetic brushwork. Such planar contrasts are suggestive of the artistic interchange between Monet and Paul Cézanne during this period (see fig. 3). A visit to Cézanne’s Aix-en-Provence studio at the end of Monet and Renoir’s 1883 Mediterranean voyage “had an immediate effect on Monet” (Joachim Pissarro, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, ibid., p. 20). Equally, scholar Charles F. Stuckey observes that Monet’s Cap Martin depictions are, “Surprisingly similar to Cézanne’s Provencal landscapes…it is tempting to suppose that Monet’s [works depicting Cap Martin] may have prompted Cézanne to develop what would eventually become acclaimed as his greatest landscape motif, the many serial views of La Montagne Sainte-Victoire” (Exh. Cat., New York, Wildenstein, Claude Monet (1840-1926): A Tribute to Daniel Wildenstein and Katia Granoff, 2007, p. 62).

Rendered with sumptuous impasto, the intensive interplay of color present in Au Cap Martin captivates the eye of the viewer. The lush turquoise and azure nestled within the expansive coastline of the placid Mediterranean convey Monet’s delight in revisiting the “water, beautiful blue water” that he described as “very much [his] element” after refraining from painting such seascapes in Bordighera (quoted in Éluère, ibid., Paris, 2006, p. 43). A gestural yet rigorous handling of the windswept trees equally reflects his attentive studies of lush vegetation while in Italy. Most strikingly innovative is Monet’s evocation of the Cap Martin’s rocky terrain through textural daubs of supernatural pinks, yellows and oranges. These “brilliant hues,” concludes art historian Joachim Pissarro, “have the intense tonality…announcing, on some level, the art of Munch, or of some of the German Expressionists” (Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, The Kimbell Art Museum, ibid., p. 108; see figs. 4 and 5).

Monet’s surrendering of naturalistic representation to the effects of light and color, as epitomized by Au Cap Martin, directly impacted Wassily Kandinsky’s decision to become an artist. Upon viewing the paintings of Monet for the first time at an exhibition in 1896, Kandinsky committed to pursuing a mode of art that similarly eschewed traditional representation. Monet’s pictorial innovations were thus integral to the development of abstract art. Paralleling the present work, Kandinsky employed depictions of the Bavarian Alps near Murnau, Germany, as the basis for his earliest experimentations with color, line and form. He frequently returned to mountains as a motif throughout his journey to full abstraction.

The sumptuous palette of the present work contrasts with that of its sister work in which washy pastel hues invoke the full force of the midday sun. By depicting similar compositions at varied times of day, Monet here presages the sequential practice, such as Haystacks and the Rouen Cathedral, for which he is perhaps best known.

The present work is a superior example of the remarkable affinity between Monet’s ardent Impressionist ideals and the scintillating light of the Côte d'Azur. Monet likely refined this work upon his return to Giverny on 17 April. The present work constitutes one of only two works produced in Menton, among thirteen canvases from Bordighera, offered to Durand-Ruel in May and June of that year. Catalyzing a quarter-decade of artistic ventures in Rouen, London, Venice and beyond, the pictorial innovations present in Au Cap Martin testify to the invigorating changes and enduring impact of this Mediterranean excursion on Monet’s oeuvre.