“Automne à Pontmartin”

October in the park, the great plane trees turned to gold and burnt orange, their branches reaching right across the canvas so that the sky shows only in flecks of pale blue between the leaves. Below, a broad gravelled terrace runs across the foreground, scattered with fallen leaves; a pair of carved stone beasts sits on low plinths at either side, and to the right a garden urn spills pink and blue flowers beside a bank of blossom. Beyond the trees the ground opens to a bright green lawn where small figures move in the distance. Montagné has painted the whole in short, loaded, separate touches — the foliage built from hundreds of dabs of yellow, ochre, scarlet and green with cool blue struck through to let the light in, the terrace laid in long horizontal strokes of lilac, pink and pale grey. The result is a shimmering, high-keyed surface of considerable richness. The subject is the painter's own garden. Montagné bought the Château de Pontmartin at Les Angles, on the Gard bank of the Rhône opposite Avignon, at auction in 1938, having coveted it on country walks; the house had belonged in the previous century to the critic Armand de Pontmartin, mayor of the commune, and stood in two hectares of park among ancient plane trees. He kept it as his summer house until his death, and it remained with his family into this century. The picture therefore dates from 1938 or later and is a private rather than a topographical subject. Born in Avignon, Montagné entered the École des Beaux-Arts there in 1896 and studied under Paul Saïn and Fernand Cormon, collaborating with Saïn in 1900 on the decoration of Le Train Bleu at the Gare de Lyon. He exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français from 1901, when the State acquired his Vue du pont du Gard, and was declared hors concours in 1911, which brought him a travelling scholarship. He lost an eye in the First World War and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. A founder member of the Groupe des Treize, he was director of the École des Beaux-Arts d'Avignon from 1920 to 1928 and curator of the museum at Villeneuve-lès-Avignon from 1945 to 1959. Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur, promoted Officier in 1932.