Catalogue Note
A jewel-like encapsulation of the painterly innovations achieved during his 1884 sojourn to the Mediterranean, Palmier à Bordighera testifies to Claude Monet’s relentless individual impulse within the Impressionist movement and his mastery of the rich, luminous palette of this region. Among the most pictorially inventive of his works produced in the Italian Riviera, the present work underscores the significant influence of this voyage on the remainder of Monet’s visionary oeuvre. Similar works executed in Bordighera now belong to international museum collections including the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, The Art Institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Palmier à Bordighera was executed during Monet’s second excursion to the Mediterranean, which began nearly as soon as he returned from a short trip to the region with Pierre-Auguste Renoir in December of 1883. This trip not only reinvigorated Monet creatively but also allowed a respite from a tumultuous period at home in Giverny, where he had recently relocated with his lover Alice Hoschedé and their respective families. Monet was determined to return to the northern Italian coastal village of Bordighera, located twenty kilometers from the French border, describing it as “one of the most beautiful places” that he and Renoir had visited (quoted in Richard Kendall, ed., Monet by Himself, Boston, 1989, p. 108). Monet sought to travel there alone, convinced that Renoir’s presence would hinder his work: "I beg you to mention this trip to nobody. I want to do this trip on my own..." he wrote to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, "I have always worked far better in solitude and after my own impressions only" (quoted in Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum (and traveling), Monet and the Mediterranean, 1997-98, p. 28). Departing for Bordighera alone on 18 January 1884, leaving behind Alice and their collective eight children, Monet remained in the region for ten weeks.
Abundant with novel natural elements and an unprecedented intensity of light and color, Bordighera offered Monet ample inspiration for the innovative compositions he sought to produce. Considered an emblem of the village (see fig. 1), the palm trees of Bordighera swiftly became a subject of Monet’s curiosity. During his initial exploratory walks in Bordighera, he identified palm trees as one of the “more exotic aspects of the region” to emphasize in his compositions (quoted in Daniel Wildenstein, Monet or the Triumph of Impressionism, Cologne, 1999, p. 195). Of particular interest to Monet were the Moreno Gardens, considered among the most illustrious gardens of the Mediterranean at the time, on account of the hundreds of species of palm trees, among other rare plants, located therein.
Initially lacking the letter of recommendation required to work in the private gardens, Monet set out to paint other locales rife with palm trees and other flora. He painted these environs with a feverish zeal, working on up to eight canvases at one time and isolating himself from others (see figs. 2 and 3). As art historian Joachim Pissarro details, “He was intent on exhausting every single pictorial possibility of this new and strange world. He would only leave Bordighera when he felt it could yield nothing more. While in or near Bordighera, Monet needed to cover as much ground as possible; in his own words, he was insatiably ‘curious,’ forever hungering to see ‘something new’...In Bordighera, it was the unknown that fired his pictorial imagination” (Exh. Cat., Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, ibid., p. 31).
Fig. 3 Claude Monet, Strada Romana à Bordighera, 1884, Museum Barberini, Potsdam
Despite his fervor, Monet faced persistent challenges in depicting such an unfamiliar environment, which was compounded by frustration with his increasingly strained relationship with Alice. Describing the light and color of Bordighera as “terrifying” and “appalling,”, he concluded that one would require a palette of “gold and precious stones” to paint the Italian Riviera satisfactorily (quoted in Kendall, ibid., p. 109; quoted in Denver Art Museum, Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, 2019, p. 220). Troubled by the thick, dense foliage of Bordighera, the artist grew particularly frustrated with palm trees. Decrying them as, “Either too tall, or too wide, or too dense”, he lamented in a letter to Alice, “These palm trees make me curse and swear…you could walk on forever under palms…but I can’t manage to find any way I want them” (quoted in Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, ibid., p. 33; quoted in Kendall, ibid., p. 109).
“In the way that this wild tree stands on its own, like a disjointed giant, it is tempting to see a projection of the artist himself”
Finally gaining access to the Moreno Gardens on 5 February, Monet encountered the motifs that gave rise to his most masterful paintings of Bordighera, including the present work which was very likely the final of the thirty-eight canvases Monet produced on this trip. Joachim Pissarro underscores the artist’s creative revelations of the period: “The paintings of groves of palm trees culminate with a sort of portrait of a lone palm [as seen in the present work]. The explosive fishbone structures of his single tree push the limits of Monet’s chromatic boundaries. In the way that this wild tree stands on its own, like a disjointed giant, it is tempting to see a projection of the artist himself. This picture was very likely the last painted by Monet in Bordighera” (Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, ibid. p. 93).
Haloed by lemon and orange trees bearing their vibrant fruits, the majestic palm tree boasts the “punch flame and pigeon-breast” (Wildenstein, ibid., p. 197) hues Monet deemed characteristic of Bordighera: a kaleidoscope of multi-hued fronds burst from fiery orange branches and a trunk daubed with blue and red paint. Reflecting Monet’s urge to “be bold and dare to put in all the” “enchanting, delicious” “shades of pink and blue," the hazy rose-colored sky surrounding the palm tree is suffused with auratic wisps of cerulean (quoted in Wildenstein, ibid., p. 195). Such tones reappear in the gestural brushstrokes that construct the French Maritime Alps, including the distinguishable peak of Baudon, delineating the leftmost portion of the horizon. The highly-worked surface and harmonious luminosity of the present work thus proclaim the artistic breakthrough brought about by this edenic locale: “Now I’ve caught this magical landscape…of course lots of people will protest that it’s quite unreal and that I’m out of mind, but that’s just too bad…” (quoted in Kendall, ibid., p. 111). In so doing, the present work presages the incandescent landscapes of the Fauves, as exemplified by Henri Matisse's depiction of a similar Mediterranean locale in Landscape near Collioure from 1905. As curator and art historian William C. Seitz expounds, “in enthusiasm over his subject, Monet may have pushed his brilliant hues beyond those of nature…Here is the borderline which Matisse, leading the “wild beasts,” passed just after 1900, giving them the license to break the tone-for-tone bond with nature” (Exh. Cat., City Art Museum of St. Louis, Claude Monet: A Loan Exhibition, 1957, p. 24; see figs. 4, 5 and 6). Reflecting the renewed confidence achieved through this motif, Monet sent palm fronds as gifts to his children before departing Bordighera on 5 April: "I'm sending you a shipment of two packages," he wrote to Alice in March, "They consist of newly-grown palm branches, as well as flower pots made from palm fronds: a souvenir of Bordighera" (quoted in Christine Eluère, Monet et la Riviera, Paris, 2006, p. 56).
Fig. 5 André Derain, Pont sur le Riou (Bridge over the Riou), 1906, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © 2023 André Derain / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
Fig. 6 Maurice de Vlaminck, Sous-bois, 1905, oil on canvas, Private Collection. © 2023 Maurice de Vlaminck / ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK
Generating the important stylistic innovations typified by the present work, Monet's trip to Bordighera constitutes one of the most impactful travels taken in Monet's career and Palmier à Bordighera reflects the apotheosis of his creative output from this sojourn. Monet would not visit Italy again until his seminal trip to Venice, during which he produced some of his most acclaimed works, nearly twenty-five years later. A testament to Bordighera’s significance to Monet, the artist stopped there on 9 December 1908 during his return trip from Venice. Consequently, Bordighera was the last locale Monet would ever visit abroad. Although the majority of Bordighera paintings were acquired by Paul Durand-Ruel in 1884, Palmier à Bordighera remained in Monet’s personal collection until his death at which time it entered the collection of his son, Michel Monet.
Claude Monet's Bordighera Series in Museum Collections
