Henri Martin

Private Collection, France

The present work was painted at Marquayrol, Martin’s summer home overlooking La Bastide du Vert, near Cahors.  It was here that the artist felt most at ease and it is therefore not surprising the landscape inspired many of his most noteworthy compositions. The present work depicts Martin sitting in his garden and is equal parts landscape and self-portrait.  Unlike most Impressionist self-portraits, in which the sitter sits against a simple or bare background, Martin places himself in his favorite setting.  The seamless integration of the two genres expressed in his distinct, painterly technique in a vocabulary of brilliant color creates a unique and vibrant portrait composition.

Like his fellow Impressionist, Claude Monet (fig. 1), Martin was a skilled colorist and unafraid to use bright hues.  As Martin’s son and fellow artist, Jac Martin-Ferrières noted, “[Henri Martin’s] palette is an enchantment.  Many different interminglings of colours make a rare and rich harmony…And it is much more difficult to find a good harmony of colours when representing nature than to assemble some nice colors representing nothing.  Herein lies the gift of the Impressionists and that is why there are so few” (J. Martin-Ferrières, Henri Martin, Paris, 1967, p. 35).

Fig. 1 Claude Monet, Autoportrait, 1886, oil on canvas, Private Collection