Gezicht op Villefranche-sur-Mer c. 1889 - 1920

This view of Villefranche-sur-Mer is a photochrom print. I’m interested in the way the colours and forms come together to create an experience, a mood. The texture here is, well, photographic. It's not thick or thin but it's like a document of place. Take those agave plants in the foreground. They’re rendered with such clarity, those spiky leaves. And yet the buildings in the distance and the way the colors fade into the distance, the way it’s neither quite painting or photograph, neither memory nor lived experience, but a kind of strange zone in between. It reminds me of those slightly earlier, slightly later paintings by someone like Bonnard, especially the way he made memory and observation collide. It is this ambiguity which makes the picture so compelling, so rich with possibilities.