It was not until the very beginning of the 20th century that the Fauvist painters began to fully explore the chromatic effects of dazzling sunlight on the eye. Georges Braque was among the artists who revolutionised the representation of the landscape by using vivid colours, sometimes applied directly from the tube.
The desire to capture the blinding light of the Mediterranean remained a central concern for painters throughout the 20th century. In their Expressionist landscapes, Chaïm Soutine, like Chuta Kimura did later, used particularly intense colours to depict scenes in the south of France.
If there is one colour that best conveys the blinding intensity of daylight at its peak, it is certainly yellow, as demonstrated in works by Joan Mitchell and Otto Schauer. In contrast, in an almost monochrome canvas in orange-yellow, Jacques Monory seeks to colour the power of memory rather than offer a precise depiction of light.
