Adolphe Monticelli - Sunset [c.1882-84]


Adolphe Monticelli (Marseilles, October 14, 1824 – Marseilles, June 29, 1886) was a French painter of the generation preceding the Impressionists. After 1870 he would live in poverty despite a prolific output, selling his paintings for small sums. An unworldly man, he dedicated himself single mindedly to his art. The young Paul Cezanne had befriended Monticelli in the 1860s, and the influence of the older painter's work can be seen in Cézanne's work of that decade. Between 1878 and 1884 the two artists often painted landscapes together, once spending a month roaming the Aix countryside. Although Monticelli experimented briefly around 1870 with a treatment of light reflecting the discoveries of the Impressionists, he found the objectivity of this approach uncongenial.

[Oil on wood, 31.8 x 44.8 cm]
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