Louis Cabié (1853-1939) Road To Nice Near Antibes Mediterranean Sea

Louis-Alexandre CABIÉ
(Dol-de-Bretagne 1853 - Bordeaux 1939)
Route de Nice, près d'Antibes
Oil on panel
H. 25.5 cm; W. 46 cm
Signed lower left
Circa 1890-1900

Located on the back in pencil by the artist Louis Cabié, a renowned artist in France and particularly in the Bordeaux region, even during his lifetime, traveled throughout the great southwest throughout his life. A student of Harpignies whose passion for vegetation can be found in the manner of the Barbizon school, he transcribed the simplicity of picturesque French landscapes until his death. Spectacular trees, forest atmospheres, places steeped in history, captivating valleys, or even a landscape in its simplest form that he knew how to enhance with a vital contrast.

Mediterranean subjects regularly appear in Cabié's work, mainly during the last twenty years of his life, in Antibes for the most part. Why? It is still a mystery. But from the 1890s, he set foot on the warm, white soil of this area, bringing back luminous panels from Toulon, Marseille, Nice, etc.

This panoramic panel is part of this first period, around 1890-1900, when his material was still quite smooth and less "messy" than from the Great War onwards. What we know today is that the painter's wife, Léonie Cabié, born in Périgord, died in Antibes, about ten years after her husband. We know the exact location. It was a sort of boarding house near the seafront, a sort of small, old-fashioned villa divided into small apartments. Cabié's succinct composition is surprising at first glance, as we are so used to canvases laden with vegetation. Here, only the agaves in the foreground and the shades of gray seek to compete with the power of the blue of the sea and the sky.