Venice, petite canal

Literature

Jacques Martin-Ferrières was the son of the great post-Impressionist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943). Martin-Ferrières was prized for his highly personal portraits and landscape views. He studied with his father and with the French academic painter Frederic Cormon (1845-1924).

Like his father, Martin-Ferrières became a master at reproducing the shimmering and dazzling effects of light on canvas. Despite Henri Martin’s strong influence though, his son developed a technique uniquely his own by applying paint in swift and short brushstrokes of opaque color, at times overlapping and at times separated, revealing a pale ground layer and producing a mosaic-like surface.

As is the case with our beautiful example of a Venetian canal, Martin-Ferrieres employed the brushstrokes to create energy and movement with the various patterns of paint dabs applied, especially in the sky and below in reflections in the water.

Martin-Ferrières was awarded many national prizes, including an honorable mention at the Salon of 1920, a silver medal in 1923, the National Prize in 1925, and a Gold Medal and Legay-Lebrun Prize in 1928. A retrospective of his work in 1965 confirmed his respected status in the Post-Impressionist world.