Raoul DUFY LE PIN A GOLFE-JUAN, 1927 Raoul Dufy achieved complete mastery of color as an expression of light during a trip to Morocco with Paul Poiret in 1926. In turn, the Midi area of France, and especially the towns of Nice, Cannes, and Golfe-Juan, soon became ideal locations to paint the unique light of the Mediterranean landscape on site. Often seen from a high vantage point, the landscapes of the area served as motifs for many works executed in luminous paint. One of Dufy's stylistic peculiarities is to heighten the sense of space in these vast expanses by placing exotic trees in the foreground. Pines and palm trees introduce swaths of color in the mid-ground laid against a background of sky and sea. In the Baie des Anges a Nice, a typical example, palm trees dot the foreground. In the painting Le pin à Golfe-Juan* - a landscape he painted many times in 1927, as was typical of Dufy when he fell in love with a particular view - a pine tree draws us into a panoramic view. Rising among red roofs and vegetation, the style and tones used for the rough bark in red and black hatching enhance the multiple blues of the sea. Blue became Dufy's signature color during this period. Ever present, it dominates not only his palette but also his everyday surroundings (the walls of his studio at the Impasse de Guelma in Paris were painted blue). «Blue,» said Dufy, «is the only color that maintains its unique personality in every shade. Blue in all its different tones, from the darkest to the lightest, always remains blue.» In this superb painting, Raoul Dufy uses a full range of blues in a sublime interpretation of Mediterranean light. * Golfe-Juan (in the Alpes-Maritimes region) is now part of the commune of Vaullauris. LITERATURE: Dora Perez-Tibi, Dufy, Flammarion, Paris, 1997.