Landscape near Lyons

The strangely lurid harmonies of rich reds, greens, purples and blacks give this landscape   a stormy, menacing, brooding quality. Made in 1922 on one of the artist’s frequent sojourns in France, the work is similar to the deep red coloured landscapes that Smith painted in Cornwall in 1920. Those works offer a window into the trauma of his experiences in the First World War, and the toll it took on his mental health. The rich burgundy-infused palette became a hallmark of Smiths’ work. He has been called a sensual colourist and was as attracted by the work of earlier painters such as Rubens and Delacroix as by the Post-Impressionists of the early twentieth century. He, in turn, was much admired by his younger contemporary Francis Bacon, who wrote in 1953: ‘I think that painting today is pure intuition and luck and taking advantage of what happens when you splash the stuff down, and in this game of chance Matthew Smith seems to have the gods on his side.’