Oil on canvas
140x240 cm
Oil on canvas
110x157 inch
Oil on canvas
33.5x77 inch
Biography
Jean-Baptiste Olive, born July 31, 1848 in Marseille, died May 13, 1936 in Paris, was a French painter. It must be distinguished from its namesake Henri Olive-Tamari dit Olive des Martigues.
Born into a modest background as a wine merchant in the Saint-Martin district of Marseille, now destroyed, Jean-Baptiste Olive was encouraged by a decorator friend, Étienne Cornellier, to enroll at the School of Fine Arts in Marseille. , where he was taught by Johanny Rave (1827-1882). His work earned him awards every year and a first prize for the living model class. He learns the trade of decorator. He paints abundantly Marseille, its Old Port, its islands and its shores.
Jean-Baptiste Olive is recognized for his talent as a sailor, but he also paints landscapes from North to South, with a predilection for the land of his heart: Provence and its Côte d'Azur. He paints abundantly Marseille, its Old Port, its islands and its shores, and the maritime facades of Martigues in Monaco. He is inspired by the accents of the climate - dazzling heat and the heady mistral -, and explores all the aspects of the sun on nature, revealing a chromatic crescendo affirming the palette of an authentic colourist.
He was able to make a place of honor for himself in the lives and hearts of the people he met during his career and many patrons supported him. In 1948, ten years after his death, the Cantini museum in Marseilles dedicated the exhibition of the centenary of his birth to him, presenting eighty-two works from his vast artistic career.
From Martigues to Menton, from Genoa to Venice, the artist hunts the anger and the tender flaws of the Mediterranean, tries desperately to capture the essence of the sea, prism with infinite facets. Henry Dumoulin defines “his dazzling seascapes” as “vigorous canvases that sing of the splendors […] of the white rocks of our Corniche and the blue immensity of the Latin Sea”. The artist's works attempt to transmit to us this moment when light breaks in contact with the world, is reflected and radiates in it. The color springs up, omnipresent, including in green, violated, blue “blacks”.
In his work, the artist alternates violence and softness of tones, treated with a deep awareness of the beautiful and the true – perfectionism which he demonstrated throughout his life. His shimmering still lifes illustrate this same passion and accuracy, where each detail is expressed with clarity and sincerity, in the image of the painter's personality.
[Museum Regards de Provence.com]