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MAURICE DE VLAMINCK , PARIS, 1876 - RUEIL-LA-GADELIÈRE, 1952 La Route nationale Oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm The road takes the place of the main 'character' here. Asphalted, straight and perfectly centred, it splits the composition, ignoring the few houses that border it, and leads us in an accelerated perspective towards the end of the picture, towards an invisible destination. This road speaks to us of modernity in this France of the inter-war period, which is gradually being adorned with a brand new road network. On either side, electricity poles accompany it, bringing in turn a current that irrigates the territory. Paradoxically, only one car runs through it, and it is not this car that gives us the impression of speed, but rather the pictorial touch, characteristic of Vlaminck, which runs, flies and flees from us in the dotted strip in the centre and, even more so, in its wild retranscription on the right-hand side of the road. As for the sky, swept by agitated clouds, it evokes a raging sea. Therein lies the dynamic of the canvas, showing the chaos of a nature that only man manages to master, on land, through the grip of his infrastructures. This landscape is an ode to modernity embodied by the automobile. The only architecture expressly designated by its explicit title, 'AUTO', the garage now replaces the church of yesteryear. Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1952) was a painter of Belgian origin, self-taught. He became known, as early as 1905, for his participation in the Salon d'automne, which caused a scandal. With his friends Derain, Matisse and Dufy, he initiated a new style described as 'fauve' by the critics and characterised by bright, pure colours applied in large flat areas and without direct reference to the painted object. Although the movement hardly lasted beyond the 1910s, it nevertheless left its mark on Vlaminck's work. From 1907 onwards, he discovered the work of Cézanne, which was to be his second great revelation and had a great influence on his landscape compositions. On the other hand, his aversion to Picasso and cubism, will oppose him during the second world war to the Spanish master and to an avant-garde of which he had been an active member. Vlaminck's painting is generous and spontaneous. On the border of the figurative, his style, with its broadly brushed strokes and saturated colours, owes as much to the work of Van Gogh, for his taste for impasto, as to that of Cézanne, for his daring spatial constructions. Certificate: Wildenstein - Plattner Signatur: Signed lower left