Boat Camouflaged in the Port of Marseille by Henri Matisse

Boat Camouflaged in the Port of Marseille - Henri Matisse - Hand Painted Oil Painting

Product Overview

Boat Camouflaged in the Port of Marseille by Henri Matisse is one of those images that never dates. Our studio recreates it as a hand painted oil painting — textured, color-rich, and ready to hang as canvas wall art in a living room, study, or reception area.

The Story Behind the Painting

Bateau camouflé au port de Marseille, 1917
Oil on cradled panel

In the first years of World War I, Matisse’s art came as close to pure abstraction as it ever would. By 1916, he had created a batch of works so far ahead of public taste and critical comprehension that some would not be fully understood for decades to come. Having emerged triumphantly from the most trying phase of his career, Matisse was now determined to reconquer some of the ground that he had been forced to give up along the way. As Jack Flam noted “Now, having become a great modernist, he turned again to the complex visual stimulation of landscapes to free himself of old habits and let the masters of nineteenth-century French landscape painting guide him back to the appearance of the real world from which his work had become progressively removed" (J. Flam, Matisse, The Man and His Art 1869-1918, London, 1986, pp. 461-462). In 1917, Matisse began to move into this new artistic phase and Marseille marked the beginning of an important step in this transition.

On the 17th of December, Matisse left Paris in haste and caught an overnight train to Marseille. He was worried about his son Jean, who had been recruited to fight in the war and had just been posted to a camp in Istres, west of Marseille. Matisse had to wait four days for permission to see his son and appeased his impatience by experimenting with a new portable paint-box, producing two views of the port and two tiny portraits of the critic George Besson, who was staying in a neighboring hotel. Once he was able to visit Jean, Matisse was shocked by the precarious conditions in which the soldiers were living at the Istres camp. He took his son to Marseilles for the day and treated him to civilian delights of shops, cafés and the local music hall.

Matisse caught a cold and decided to retreat to the sheltered bay of Nice, within easy reach of Jean. He arrived in Nice on Christmas day of 1917 and took a small room at the modest sea-front H?tel du Beau Rivage. In January he wrote his wife that work was going so well it would be a mistake to leave. Years later he would recall “what made me stay was the great colored reflections of January, the luminosity of the days [...] I decided not to leave Nice and I’ve been there practically ever since” (H. Spurling, Matisse, The Life, London, 2009, pp. 300 and 302).

The present work is one of the two port scenes Matisse painted while waiting to see his son Jean in Marseille. Although remaining naturalistic, Matisse’s simplified shapes and applications of pure color make for an extremely modern representation. With rapid and instinctive strokes of paint, Matisse is able to convey the engulfing Marseille wind with great expressivity. The Mediterranean light seeps through, brightening Matisse’s palette and foreshadowing his more colorful and luminous Nice period. Yet, Matisse’s choice of bold colors, black outlines and his forceful brushwork reflect the strenuous state he must have been in at the time, fearing for his country, his son and his art. This work was made at a pivotal time in Matisse’s artistic career but also at an incredibly stressful moment in his personal life, making for a unique, intimate and significant picture.

Every hand painted oil painting in this landscape series is finished on artist-grade canvas and checked against the original before it leaves the studio.

100% Hand Painted on Canvas

Materials matter for fauvist wall decor. That is why this piece is built on artist-grade canvas with lightfast oil colors, applied by hand rather than output from a printer, and sealed for long-term display.

Specifications & What You Receive

• Painted entirely by hand in oils on artist-grade canvas, with no giclée or inkjet process involved.
• A generous 2-inch blank canvas border surrounds the image to simplify mounting.
• Studio-direct pricing and worldwide shipping on every landscape oil painting order.
• Available canvas sizes for this hand painted oil painting: 20 X 24 in, 24 X 36 in, 30 X 40 in, 36 X 48 in, 48 X 72 in.
• Made-to-measure options are available for this landscape canvas.
• Choose from DHL, UPS, FedEx, USPS and other competitively priced carriers.
• We stretch your canvas onto wooden bars at no extra charge, and can arrange custom framing.
• You will receive a photo of your completed painting by email for sign-off prior to shipping.

Styling & Placement

Style it over a fireplace, behind a reading chair, or along a staircase. Wherever it goes, this fauvist oil painting wall decor adds the layered color that only a hand painted canvas provides.

Delivery, Sizes & Guarantee

Browse our Henri Matisse Paintings selection for related landscape canvases, or commission this landscape image in a custom size. Every order is a hand painted oil painting, never a printed poster.