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LA COLLE PERIOD
1937 - 1938
Skov moved from Bornholm to France in the beginning of September in 1937, just as
the rainy autumn weather started to close in on Denmark. During several earlier visits to Provence since 1930, he had felt inspired to paint by the
light and scenery, and his former stays in Cagnes and Haute-des-Cagnes, not
far from Nice and Antibes, had been very productive for him.
He and Isabella hoped that in Provence he would be able to rediscover his old sources
of inspiration, and that they both could also benefit from the milder
climate and stronger sunlight which the Danish winter months, of course,
cannot supply. Their general intent was to find reasonably priced
accommodations where they could work during the winters and live on a modest
budget, and then, perhaps, spend the summers in Denmark.
On the way to
southern France they stopped over in Paris for several weeks to see the World Exposition
and numerous art galleries. While visiting the Spanish Pavilion at the
World Expo he saw the monumental painting “Guernica” by Picasso; but, as he
told his sons twelve years later with some self-irony, although he felt the
forcefulness of its style and narrative of protest and despair, he could
not at that time accept its intentional distortions, nor appreciate its
aesthetic intent.
By early October,
Skov was in Provence and had rented a small farmhouse within a few
minutes walk from La-Colle-Sur-Loup, a village in the Southern Alps. The pronounced effect of the bright
Mediterranean sunlight on Skov’s palette can be seen directly in his
paintings from 1937 and 1938. Seen side by side there can be no doubt
whatsoever as to which were painted in Svaneke and which in La Colle: The
colors from the La Colle period are pure spectral light and the planes of
color are unbroken, their color effects preeminent.
As usually happened
whenever Skov relocated, it also took him several weeks in La Colle until
he felt comfortable and sufficiently acclimatized to be able to paint
again. As he had previously demonstrated beyond any question, he already
had the skills and experience to pursue any direction his artistic instinct
would take him and his only constraint was his own aesthetic perception.
However, as he
began painting again after the trip, he was restless,
and according to Isabella’s recollections, he said he felt
dissatisfied with
the his artistic status quo from Bornholm. He told her that he needed to
expand and increase his interpretation of the motifs and to employ
transformations more radically than he had done earlier, and he argued that
form and color necessarily were inseparable aspects of a single
reality.
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