Pine-Tree near the Mediterranean Sea at Sunset, 1915

In 1898, Théo Van Rysselberghe settled permanently in France. In 1903, he completed his last main work with The lecture (Museum voor Schone Kunsten Gent, inv. 1906-R). From 1910 until his death, he lived in seclusion in Saint-Clair. Stylistically, he evolves towards a realistic, more conventional way of working, whereby the technique of neo-impressionism fades into the background. Pine trees by the sea at sunset fit into a series that Van Rysselberghe painted on the shores of the Mediterranean. In these canvases, he often incorporates bathers, but here the landscape is central. Although in his later paintings he tended more and more towards realism in colour and technique, a particularly free technique is revived in Pine tree by the sea at sunset, in which he has exchanged pointillism for a fauve stripe brushstroke. The harmony of his neo-impressionist works is contrasted here with the bold colour scheme of the flaming sky made up of reds and oranges. The evening glow softens the hillside into a velvety purple. Particularly evocative is the shore party, in which the calm sea in gradations of blue lends strength to the brownish-red rock formations. The pine tree itself is given shape in short sweeps, in which saturated greens in the foliage and greys and browns in the trunk are used constructively. Van Rysselberghe sent the painting to a raffle in Rouen in 1916 to benefit Belgian soldiers at the front.