French Riviera  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

Related e

Wikipedia Wiktionary Shop Featured: Rhombicuboctahedron by Leonardo da Vinci

The Côte d'Azur, often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the south eastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italian border in the east to either Hyères or Cassis in the west.

This coastline was one of the first modern resort areas. It began as a winter health resort for ailing British tourists at the end of the 18^th century. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19^th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales. In the first half of the 20^th century it was frequented by artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham and Aldous Huxley, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. After World War II it became a popular destination for mass tourism, trade fairs, exhibitions and business conventions, and also a summer home and meeting place for celebrities from Brigitte Bardot to Elton John.

Officially, the Côte d'Azur is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents,

Its largest city is Nice, which has a population of 347,060 (2006). The city is the center of a communauté urbaine - Nice-Côte d'Azur - bringing together 24 communes and over 500,000 inhabitants.

Painters

The climate and vivid colours of the Mediterranean attracted many famous artists during the 19th and 20th centuries. They included:

• Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947); retired to and died at Le Cannet.
• Georges Braque (1882–1963); painted frequently at L'Estaque between 1907 and 1910.
• Roger Broders (1883–1953); Parisian travel poster illustrator.
• Paul Cézanne (1839–1906); a native of Aix-en-Provence, Cézanne painted at L'Estaque between 1878 and 1882.
• Marc Chagall (1887–1985); lived in Saint-Paul-de-Vence between 1948 and 1985.
• Henri-Edmond Cross (1856–1910); discovered the Côte d'Azur in 1883, and painted at Monaco and Hyères.
• Maurice Denis (1870–1943); painted at St. Tropez and Bandol.
• André Derain (1880–1954); painted at L'Estaque and Martigues.
• Raoul Dufy (1877–1953); whose wife was from Nice, painted in the region, including in Nice, Marseille and Martigues.
• Albert Marquet (1873–1947); painted at Marseille, St. Tropez and L'Estaque.
• Henri Matisse (1869–1954); first visited St. Tropez in 1904. In 1917 he settled in Nice, first at the Hôtel Beau Rivage, then at the Hôtel de la Méditerranée, then at la Villa des Alliés in Cimiez. In 1921 he lived in an apartment in Nice, next to the flower market and overlooking the sea, where he lived until 1938. He then moved to the Hôtel Régina in the hills of Cimiez, above Nice. During World War II he lived in Vence, then returned to Cimiez, where he died and is buried.
• Claude Monet (1840–1927); visited Menton, Bordighera, Juan-les-Pins, Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Beaulieu and Villefranche, and painted a number of seascapes of Cap Martin, near Menton, and at Cap d'Antibes.
• Edvard Munch (1863–1944); visited and painted in Nice and Monte Carlo (where he developed a passion for gambling), and rented a villa at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat in 1891.
• Pablo Picasso (1881–1973); spent each summer from 1919 to 1939 on the Côte d'Azur, and moved there permanently in 1946, first at Vallauris, then at Mougins, where he spent his last years.
• Auguste Renoir (1841–1919); visited Beaulieu, Grasse, Saint-Raphaël and Cannes, before finally settling in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1907, where he bought a farm in the hills and built a new house and workshop on the grounds. He continued to paint there until his death in 1919. His house is now a museum.
• Paul Signac (1863–1935); visited St. Tropez in 1892, and bought a villa, La Hune, at the foot of citadel in 1897. It was at his villa that his friend, Henri Matisse, painted his famous Luxe, Calme et Volupté in 1904. Signac made numerous paintings along the coast.
• Yves Klein (1928–1962); a native of Nice, considered an important figure in post-war European art.
• Sacha Sosno (1937-2013); French painter and sculptor living and working in Nice.

See also

• Egypt's Mediterranean Riviera
• Gardens of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
• Gulf of Genoa
• Turkish Riviera
• Italian Riviera
• Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
• Red Sea Riviera
• Riviera (disambiguation page), featuring links to articles on the many coastal strips around the world which are known as Riviera
• Southern France