Le port de Marseille, Saint-Victor et Notre-dame-de-la-Garde, 1904
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1904 lower right.
62 x 92 cm
Provenance :
Private collection, Marseille
MARSEILLE, GATEWAY TO THE ORIENT
In the oriental semi-darkness of a palette reminiscent of that of the atypical Félix Ziem, a mainsail passes in front of the dry dock.
Entering the harbor, it has just passed the Palais du Pharo and Fort Ganteaume, and skirts the large, leaning hulls of the boats that are being repaired; one can imagine the caulkers hard at work at the bedside of the great carcasses.
In the background, two of the city's emblematic religious buildings come into view. Very few paintings take this viewpoint, offering a panorama of the two monuments together. The old abbey of Saint-Victor, easily recognized by its imposing solid structure and crenellated towers, and Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, perched on its hill to watch over the city.
The light of a late afternoon bathes this ensemble, allowing the painter to accentuate certain contrasts and drape Marseille in a Venetian mystery. The yellowed, pinkish palette, as if shrouded in torpor, constructs a sensitive image of the harbor entrance.
Even under the vibrant brushstrokes, the boats appear in extreme detail, while the city in the distance is sketched out.
To the very left of the composition, a rare detail is revealed to those who have observed this painting long enough: the bridge that dominates the harbor buildings has now disappeared. A vestige of the days when Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde was accessed by elevator, this footbridge marked the arrival of the cable car cabins. At the end of the footbridge, steps led up to the basilica.
The elevator operated from 1892 to 1967, transporting nearly 20 million people in the intervening years, before the convenience of the car outlived its usefulness. A parking lot was built at the foot of the Bonne Mère, and the neglected elevator was eventually demolished.
Few painters have depicted the modern machinery that was the elevator at Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, and Prieur-Bardin's framing eliminates it from his composition, favoring, as do many others, a more ancient anchorage of the city, allowing for a reverie with Orientalist overtones.
The sail in the foreground is reminiscent of the caiques the painter observed in Constantinople, where he lived. When he painted Marseille, Prieur-Bardin never forgot his taste for the Orient, and in the Phocaean city where he settled to end his days, he resurrected the golden lights of the mosaics in the dome of Saint Sophia, once and for all imprisoned in his retina and his brushes.