Toledo ,
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Notes : Maud Sumner moved to Paris from London, where she had completed a master’s degree at Oxford, in 1926. In Paris she enrolled in the Ateliers d’Art Sacré. The founders of the Ateliers, George Desvallières and Maurice Denis, introduced the young artist to the works of Cézanne, Renoir and Vuillard. “As a painter I am French,” she maintained and managed to keep studios in both Paris and London until her final return to South Africa in the 1960s.In August 1936, a month after the start of the Spanish Civil War, Sumner decided to return to Johannesburg and to spend six months in her hometown. Earlier that year she had visited Spain where she encountered the paintings of El Greco (1541-1614), the artist who drew on three traditions: Greek, Italian and Spanish. At the time the 34 year old Sumner’s art was absorbed by the richness of colour and texture, owing more to the Nabis than the post expressionists. She was influenced by her teachers Denis and Desvallières, both prominent exponents of the Nabis, a group with the aim of regenerating painting by simplifying design and tone, suppressing relief and depth, and by placing emphasis on composition.The trip to Spain provided new material and she was deeply attracted to and influenced by the work of El Greco. Although his View of Toledo has been part of the permanent collection of the Metropolitan in New York since 1929, Sumner referenced El Greco’s focus on an emotional state rather than a mere rendition of the city. In line with the approach of the Nabis she based her landscape of Toledo on the values of colour, and manages to free her composition “from a certain restraint and stiffness, and to exploit the use of colour as her guiding principle”.
Johan Myburg.
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