John Russell, 'Les Terrasses de Monte Cassino', about 1889

John Russell was born in Sydney, Australia. When he was 18, he travelled to England to train as an engineer. However, on his father’s death his inheritance allowed him the freedom to first enrol at the Slade School of Art in London, where he studied under Alphonse Legros, and then move to Paris, where he studied at the Atelier Corman with Toulouse Lautrec, Louis Anquetin, Emile Bernard and Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh and Russell remained friends until Van Gogh’s death.

In 1886 Russell and his partner Anna Maria Antonietta Mattiocco went to live at Belle-Île-en-Mer in Brittany. Mattiocco, known as Marianna, was Italian. She had moved to Paris with her musician brothers. She was an artists’ model, which is probably how she and Russell met. At Belle-Île, Russell met Claude Monet. He would have a profound effect on Russell’s painting. They painted side by side, capturing the craggy coast with its dramatic rocks and tumultuous sea. Monet encouraged Russell to experiment, in particular with intense colours and the free handling of paint. He also depicted the same scene at different times of the day or in different weather conditions. For the rest of his career, Russell used very free brushwork. This showed the physicality of his application of paint. In 1887 Russell wrote, to his friend the Australian painter Tom Roberts, that he was now using colour ‘pure or as nearly pure as possible’.

In 1886 Russell and Marianna visited her family in Cassino, south of Rome, and they travelled widely in Italy. This scene may have been painted during the trip. Tragically, their young son Jean Paolo died and they quickly returned to Paris.

Through his remarkable use and complex application of colour with thickly applied brushstrokes and layered paint, Russell almost completely subsumed form to colour in this painting. This approach suggests that it may have been painted later, perhaps in the early 1890s when he was in the south of France at Antibes.

Russell did not return to Australia until the end of his life. His contribution to the development of Australian Impressionism has been debated. His close connection to many of the most important avant-garde artists in France at this time sets him apart from other Australian artists. However, his work was not widely known among his compatriots. They developed a national approach to painting that did not include him.