Mistral in the back

The gallery's
opinion

“Mistral in the back” is a contemporary drawing by Amandine Maria, artist and cartographer.

It belongs to a series on the Sainte-Victoire mountain, which was the central motif of more than 80 paintings by Paul Cézanne. It was he who made it a character in its own right, a muse, a real obsession. In his letters to friends, he frequently evoked his relationship with this mountain, which became mythical thanks to him. All his life as an artist he tried to capture it in its complexities and its very essence, painting after painting. Since then, the Montagne Sainte-Victoire has never ceased to inspire artists.

In this series around the Sainte-Victoire mountain, the painter approaches the motif with a different vision. She takes from the cartographic tradition the outline of a mountain range and indicates the names of the peaks and major sites. “La Croix de Provence”, “le Signal”, “Pic des Mouches”. Amandine Maria adds textual comments that energize the drawing, like a travel book. “mosaic at the bottom of the pool”, “mistral in the back”, “live downstairs” …. Above all, she paints a multitude of details: crops, beeches, oaks, olive trees or pines. But also rivers, fields, tongues of earth, buildings, pieces of sky.

In “Mistral in the back”, the marriage of drawing, painting and writing, the association of ink and watercolor, result in a small jewel of a painting that we have chosen to present in an oak rod.