A touristic curiosity

       This majestic tree was a tourist curiosity, painted in particular by Paul Signac and reproduced on many postcards.

       Charles Joly (1835 - 1897), a landscape painter and orientalist, gave a precise description of it: " The height of this pine tree is 16 metres and its circumference 6 metres. The trunk to date is perfectly sound and without any apparent hollows. The head is complete on all sides, although a strong branch must have been mutilated a few years ago because it was obstructing car traffic. The diameter of the head is 26 metres, which gives this enormous parasol a circumference of 78 metres ".
       At the end of the 19th century it was considered to be between 350 and 400 years old, with a trunk height of 4.5 metres and a circumference, at the top of the trunk, of 7 metres.



       It was located in the middle of the road leading to Saint-Tropez. Then the tramway line linking Cogolin to Saint-Tropez, passed on one side of the pine tree and the road on the other side... Tourists going to Saint Tropez could admire it and it became, from 1889, a real tourist attraction.
       In 1911, the Bertaud pine was classified by the Var departmental commission for the protection of natural sites and monuments, under the presidency of Frédéric Mireur, as historical monument or natural sites to be protected at the same time as the Chartreuse de la Verne or the Sainte-Beaume cave.
       His notoriety has been reproduced in postcards, engravings, drawings and photographs, and cited in various books and magazines.

Majestic centenary, he died in 1924 : The journalist Henry Bidou evokes the death of the tree in the article dedicated to the reception of the Camille Jullian at the French Academy: " The Berthaud pine, under which he wants us to sit, is dead. His gigantic corpse has been shattered. All that remains in the middle of the road is the trunk of a mutilated god."

Paul SIGNAC        The painter Paul SIGNAC, creator of 'pointillism' and leader of the 'neo-impressionist', discovered Saint-Tropez in 1882 and settled in this village 5 years later when he bought the villa La Hune ... Many artists, such as Matisse or Maurice Denis, will often visit Signac who, fascinated by the sea, will buy a small yacht with which he will sail along the various French coasts.        From the 1910s onwards, he became interested in landscapes without characters, with an increasingly free palette and a great passion for colours. It was at this time that he was impressed by the beauty of the BERTAUD pine and painted it several times . Bertaud pine painted by Paul Signac. This oil on canvas is in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Another painting by Paul Signac. Watercolour by Paul Signac 1910(25,5x32cm).