On The Bright Side

If one has a proclivity for the brighter side of life where he casts a ray on interests like the subjects in Slim Aarons’ photography do — soaking up the sun, idling for hours by the big blue, and having a liberated approach to their body — then there is a chance that this spark started from what is called the French Riviera style.

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However, we are not referencing its stylistic tropes like the crisp whites, nautical influences, and barefoot elegance from movies like La Piscine, To Catch a Thief, or And God Created Woman. Neither are we referencing today’s Riviera with its exclusive parties and dazzling celebrities muses because we are here to cast a light on what it was, and yes, even before Marlon Brando and Audrey Hepburn traipsed around it for Edward Quinn’s book Riviera Cocktail. 

Going by the name Côte d’Azur from 1887 onwards, courtesy of French Author Stéphen Liégeard, the Riviera was a Mediterranean coastline of quiet fishing villages, sleepy pine forests, and the growing of flowers for perfume. It was fertile ground for health and high art — the British sought the sun to alleviate seasonal weaknesses like tuberculosis. For artists like Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, and Henri Matisse, the Riviera was an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Impressionism found its inspiration here on the Riviera, fauvism greatly flourished, and cubism was transposed on canvases.