However, it was not until 1907 when the artist traveled to the southern coast of France that he could fully understand the underpinning philosophy of the Fauve movement. John Elderfield states, "In 1906, Braque and Friesz were not even at the stage of colorful subjects... It was only when the pair traveled south, as their colleagues had done before, that their color was fully liberated from the atmospheric and the impressionist and their Fauve styles were fully established" (John Elderfield, Fauvism and its Affinities, New York, 1976, p. 79). In a series of works painted in La Ciotat, Friesz was able to fully master his new artistic direction. Specifically drawn to the mountainous cove of the Bec de l’Aigle (Eagles Peak), Friesz rendered at least five versions of the view using a vivid palette dominated by orange, ochre-green and red. In these works Friesz "abandoned all sense of naturalism in favor of an expressive gestural style characterized by sweeping curvilinear brushwork and layers of pigment...with strongly abstract motifs" (Judi Freeman, ed., The Fauve Landscape, New York, 1990, p. 235).