Charles Cottet was regarded in his lifetime as one of the most original artists of his generation - a reputation the painter retains to the present day. A highly individual colorist, Cottet prefered to paint land- and seascape subjects that have a greater tonal intensity than was popular in the later 19th century. His taste for more challenging color harmonies and slightly somber lighting effects set his work apart from the brighter Impressionist canvases of the period. He painted with a directness and muscularity that has a strong affinity with the better-known Gustave Courbet. Pupil of Puvis de Chavannes, he became the leader of a group of painters with sensibilities similar to his, who became known as "La bande noire."

The subjects for which Cottet is best known are views of the sea just off the coast of Brittany. He preferred to paint at sunrise and sunset, times of day possessing more emotional resonance than the full light of the typical afternoon. The present painting is an excellent example of Cottet's work in Brittany--precisely the type of image upon which his artistic reputation was established.

Cottet was born in LePuy, Haute Loire, in 1863. In addition to his sea and harborscapes, Cottet also treated the ethnography of Brittany, particularly the life of the Breton fishermen, which for the Parisian public of the day was still fairly exotic and backward. He trained under Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, and under Alfred Philippe Roll at the Académie Julian.(1) From 1884 to 1888, Cottet painted in Holland. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon in 1889. He visited Algeria in 1892 and Egypt in 1896. He died in Paris in 1925 (2)

Although widely considered a member of the School of Pont-Aven, Félix Valloton felt Cottet had much in common with the Nabis. In Valloton's large canvas, Five Painters (1902-3; The Winterthur Kunstmuseum), the artist portrays Bonnard, Vuillard and Roussel, while according the place of honor in the center of the picture to Cottet. By including Cottet in the company of the leading artists of the Nabi group and designating this picture as "decorative", Valloton demonstrates his feeling of kinship with Cottet.(3) Cottet's masterly use of a dark, emotive palette during the 1890's established him as the leader of a group of artists, including Lucien Simon and Dauchez, known as La Bande Noire. Benois called Cottet and Simon two of the most prominent Parisian artists of the end of the 19th century.

Émile-René Ménard's Portrait de Cottet (1896) hangs in the Musée d'Orsay. (4) Cottet's own View of Venice from the Sea and Seascape with Distant View of Venice, both ca. 1896, are in The Hermitage in St. Petersburg. (5)
                                                    

(1) Post-Impressionism: Cross-Currents in European and American Painting, 1880-1906, An Exhibition, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980.

(2)  Biographical data from French Paintings from the Pushkin Museum, Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York @ 1979 by Aurora Art Publishers, Leningrad, p. 143.

(3)  Kostenevich, Albert, French Art Treasures at the Hermitage, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, © 1999, p. 229.

(4)  Rosenblum, Robert, Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay, Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc., New York, © 1989, illustrated.

(5)  Kostenevich, op. cit., illustrated p. 229