Cour dorée en Andalousie, XXI
(Golden yard in Andalusia XXI)

1974, watercolour on Zerkal paper, 26.8 x 38.3 cm
Coll. Gaston Bertrand Foundation
N° inv.1322

Gaston Bertrand went back to Andalusia in January and February 1974 and stayed in an apartment in Marbella, a small tourist port city. He painted around ten watercolours in the same spirit as in Mijas but he did not keep the drawings that served as a model for the paintings. Just like in Venice, Andalusia inspired him an impressive series of watercolours but the artist actually produced no oil paintings.
As he used to, Bertrand erased all human presence as well as some essential architectonic structures and picturesque elements; furthermore, he isolated some details such as the profile of the tiles overhanging a façade or their shadow on a white wall. This distance from reality plunges the spectator into a fantasy and slightly mannerist world.