Gustave Moreau passed on to his students Delacroix’s dictum that no painter can produce a masterpiece until he is competent to make a sketch of a man who has thrown...
Gustave Moreau passed on to his students Delacroix’s dictum that no painter can produce a masterpiece until he is competent to make a sketch of a man who has thrown himself out of a window, during the time he is falling from the 4th floor to the ground. His students trained themselves to catch the essentials of movement, and Marquet in particular developed a rapid shorthand.
Captivated by water, Marquet adored traveling and used aquatic scenes as the principal subjects of his oeuvre, with motifs of ports, sailing boats, beaches and bathers featuring prominently. Water became almost a tool for abstraction, enabling him to develop his own intuitive minimalism, capturing the essence of a scene from the scarcest of touches.
Alongside Matisse, Marquet was central to the exploration and development of evocative line, and is recognised as an exceptional draughtsman. Private, independent and free-spirited, Marquet always vigorously pursued his own ideas; incorporating the use of linear economy within non-figurative subjects and landscapes, in a bold progression away from Matisse’s figurative preoccupations. This charming sailing boat, most probably sketched at La Rochelle, Toulon or Marseille on Marquet’s annual journeys through France, exhibits beautifully the strong linear simplicity that would come to characterise his entire oeuvre.