Landscape with a Village

Vlaminck was one of the dominant figures of the Fauve movement, a group of artists who used intense, pure color for expressive and decorative effect. They contributed to the trend toward "free" painting detached from the constraints of representation. A self-taught artist, Vlaminck first exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Autumne in 1905. It was in the latter exhibition that the group of artists led by Matisse and Derain (with whom Vlaminck had shared a studio at Chatou in 1901) was given the name of Fauves or "wild beasts." While Vlaminck adopted the bright palette of the group, he maintained a more naturalistic, and often representational, approach in the depiction of the landscape, his primary subject.