press release
Summer at the seaside
leisure activities and impressionism
27 April 2013 - 29 September 2013
Caen – Musée des Beaux-Arts
Le Château – 14 000 Caen
An exhibition organised by the city of Caen / Musée des
Beaux-Arts of Caen, and the Réunion des Musées
Nationaux
–
Grand
Palais,
Paris,
as
part
of
the
Impressionist Normandy festival.
The prodigious boom in holiday resorts and outdoor leisure activities was one of the great changes of the 19th
century and it had an undeniable impact on the history of art. A whole section of society gaily boarded the
train and set off to conquer new territories: the coast, the beach, the sea… Normandy, but many other regions
too, played a key role in this new craze.
For the first time, artists left the city and shifted their studios to the country, an important sign of what was to
come. The Impressionists no longer looked for subjects in books or their own imaginations, but focused on
real life in these newly conquered territories, the many holiday resorts and leisure places that mushroomed
along the water’s edge.
The exhibition is divided into four sections that illustrate the ways the painters explored these themes, ranging
from beach scenes and the infinite atmospheric variations of the seaside, to the insertion of bare bodies in a
seascape. These sun-drenched bodies became the artists’ exclusive focus, symbolising the metamorphosis of
the academic nude in a blend of tradition and modernity.
On the sand
The beach was the best place for the early holidaymakers to experience the pleasures of the sea. Under the
Second Empire, fishing villages rapidly morphed into fashionable bathing resorts, complete with sumptuous
villas and grand hotels. In search of something exotic and picturesque, the holidaymakers paradoxically
recreated Parisian society on the Norman beaches, which soon became “Paris’s summer boulevard.”
Manet, Monet, Berthe Morisot, and Degas painted evocative beach scenes, in the form of free, spontaneous
sketches. Under Boudin’s influence, Claude Monet painted the beaches of Trouville and Sainte-Adresse,
starting a genre that was enriched by the experimental work carried out by Manet in Boulogne and Gauguin in
Brittany. This section includes the work of realist and descriptive artists such as Prinet, Blanche, and Helleu,
Joaquin Sorolla, Instantanea, Biarritz (detail), 1906, oil on canvas, 62 x 93.5 cm, Madrid, Sorolla Museum © Museo Sorolla
Foundation, Madrid
leading us to the luminous canvases of Maurice Denis, who staged engaging scenes of his family on holiday
at Perros-Guirec. Major contributions to this genre were made by foreign artists such as Kroyer and
Liebermann, and the Spanish painter, Sorolla.
Looking at the sea
Tourism transformed the coastline and the beaches were soon dotted with bathing machines, necessary
contraptions for changing into the right costume to brave the waves. People bathed in the sea and strolled on
the beach fully clothed, twirling a sunshade, out of modesty but also to preserve the pale complexion that was
still the hallmark of the well-to-do. Painters set up their easels on the promenades or on the beach itself, in
search of new sensations. Sand has been found in the paint in Monet’s canvases.
Seascapes changed radically, enlivened by people strolling on the beach and admiring the view. Boat rides
offered the artists new viewpoints and some, such as Monet or Bonnard, even painted scenes from the water.
Boats and Sails
Craft such as dinghies, sailboats and yachts delighted the painters, as subjects in themselves, but more
importantly for the various activities they permitted: races, regattas, boat rides. In 1871 Monet made a
decisive move to Argenteuil, on the bank of the Seine; the many artists who joined him there contributed to
one of Impressionism’s most creative chapters.
Bathing
The last section is the highlight of the exhibition, presenting large and often ambitious compositions. It leaves
the Norman coasts, reminding us that Impressionism also has a Mediterranean dimension. Challenging the
long tradition of history painting, artists transcended the academic treatment of the nude and painted bodies
bathed in light and sunshine in an exuberant natural setting. Here we find Bazille, Degas’s strange Peasant
Girls Swimming in the Sea at Evening, uninhibited in their nakedness, Seurat (a remarkable series of studies
for his masterly Bathing at Asnières ), Cross, a surprising Kupka, and, of course, Renoir and Cézanne, the
most prolific in this genre. The figure is central to their thinking and their aesthetic: sunny, voluptuous fullness
in Renoir, a search for structure and rhythm in Cézanne. Let us not forget that Cézanne’s series of Bathers
was a milestone in the adventure of modernity, a brilliant transition to Matisse and Picasso.
..........................
curator: Patrick Ramade, Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen
............................
hours: open daily from 10 a.m. to 6
p.m. Closed on 1st and 9th May
publication by Rmn-Grand Palais,
Paris :
price: € 9, concession € 6
-
practical Information:
exhibition catalogue: 22 x 28
cm, 144 pages, 100 illustrations,
€ 29
national press contact:
Réunion des musées nationaux-Grand
Palais
254 – 256 rue de Bercy
75577 Paris cedex 12
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen
Le Château – 14 000 Caen
www.mba.caen.fr
Florence Le Moing – Elodie Vincent
[email protected]
+33 (0)1 40 13 47 62
www.grandpalais.fr
regional press contact:
By train: Caen railway station
By tramway: St Pierre stop
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen
Anne Bernardo
[email protected]
+33 (0)2 31 30 47 76