{"id":13148,"date":"2025-07-21T14:53:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:53:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/13148\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T14:53:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T14:53:11","slug":"how-impressionism-began-on-normandys-windswept-shores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/13148\/","title":{"rendered":"How impressionism began on Normandy\u2019s windswept shores"},"content":{"rendered":"

Strolling along the broad expanse of fine golden sand on Trouville beach, where sea and sky often meld into one seemingly limitless panorama, it is perhaps unsurprising that impressionism began here. <\/p>\n

While precursors of the movement that revelled in man\u2019s perception of constantly shifting light could be glimpsed in earlier works \u2014 in the brooding seas of JMW Turner or the East Anglian skies of John Constable \u2014 it was born on the Normandy coastline. <\/p>\n

Impressionism, popularised by Parisian artists such as Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet, was set in motion about a decade earlier by a lesser-known painter: Eug\u00e8ne Boudin. <\/p>\n

Now, a major exhibition at Paris\u2019s Mus\u00e9e Marmottan Monet explores the role of Boudin \u2014 and the northern French coastline \u2014 in the origins of perhaps art history\u2019s most famous movement.<\/p>\n

\u201cImpressionism is the representation of transience, and what Boudin was painting was a coast where the weather changes extremely fast,\u201d said Laurent Manoeuvre, the show\u2019s curator.<\/p>\n

Searching for a way to capture the fleeting effects of light, colour and atmosphere on the Channel coast with its unpredictable, ever-changing weather, Boudin and others drifted away from classical draughtsmanship. Loose, visible brushstrokes and vibrant colours started to replace painstaking detail as they strove for a feeling of immediacy by painting outdoors \u2014 en plein air. <\/p>\n

\u201cImpressionism could not have been born in Barbizon [the village near Paris where pioneers of the naturalist movement in landscape painting were based], because the weather is less changeable. It hasn\u2019t got the same shifting skies,\u201d Manoeuvre said. \u201cThe impressionists had to work fast before the weather turned and that lent itself to a new, broad-brush approach.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBoudin was one of the fathers of impressionism, although you might describe him as pre-impressionist because he didn\u2019t take things quite as far as the other impressionists like Monet, Renoir and Degas. There\u2019s more detail in his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost a decade after Boudin painted the beach at Trouville, Monet\u2019s 1872 work Impression, Sunrise captured dawn at Le Havre further up the coast and gave a name to the distinctive style. It featured two years later in a radical Paris show that became known as the Exhibition of the Impressionists. Monet, who is more famous today, credited Boudin as his teacher, saying: \u201cI owe him everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Black<\/p>\n

Claude Monet and, below, his painting Impression Sunrise, 1872<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

\"Impression<\/p>\n

Today Trouville and the adjoining resort of Deauville offer a tableau of Normandy life at its most refined and cultivated. The beaches have changed little since Boudin set up his easel among elegant ladies shaded by blue and white parasols, or sitting under pastel-striped tents, which are still in evidence today.<\/p>\n

The top-hatted gentlemen Boudin depicted, perhaps coming straight from the excitement of the horse races, are long gone. Nowadays, however, many well-heeled Parisians frequent the casino, a splendid neoclassical landmark built in 1912.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoudin\u2019s paintings of fashionable people on the beach remain very contemporary.\u201d Manoeuvre said. \u201cThe figures were dressed very differently from today, but what really interested him was the atmosphere, and the atmosphere hasn\u2019t changed much.\u201d <\/p>\n

Claire Tifine, a 59-year-old nurse from the Paris region walking along the beach with her family, said: \u201cThe seafront looks almost the same as it did in the days of the impressionists. You don\u2019t see details in impressionist paintings so it feels like time has stood still.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fairytale Malakoff tower, painted by Boudin, still stands, with its whimsical crenellated turret reminiscent of an ancient castle. It now houses luxury apartments, but the exterior has been lovingly preserved. <\/p>\n

The seafront is lined with half-timbered traditional Norman style houses and opulent villas, some also resembling mini-ch\u00e2teaux with turrets. <\/p>\n

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Bill Leyshon, a British portrait painter who lives in Trouville, said: \u201cWhen you\u2019re an artist and you\u2019re walking on the beach, you\u2019re not just thinking about your next ice cream, you know you\u2019re walking through history on the beach where Monet and Boudin painted and it makes you up your game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Painting<\/p>\n

Vue du port de Trouville au Cr\u00e9puscule, Boudin, 1885-1890<\/p>\n

Leyshon, 68, whose studio is on a busy shopping street lined with caf\u00e9 terraces near the seafront, said: \u201cThe early trains made Trouville accessible to Parisians and when the impressionists got here and unpacked their easels and paints, they didn\u2019t feel like going much further.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beau monde [fashionable society] were here and there were good restaurants so they could eat well at the end of the day. Not that different from today, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The legacy of Boudin is not lost on today\u2019s holidaymakers. Christiane, 58, went to the Boudin exhibition in Paris before coming to Trouville.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cWe had already booked our holiday and when we saw that many of the paintings being exhibited had been done on this beach, we decided to go. It adds to the enjoyment, thinking you\u2019re following in the footsteps of the artists.\u201d <\/p>\n

Didier Morel, 70, who owns a holiday home in Trouville, said: \u201cThe colours are just as the impressionists painted them, and many things are the same, but Trouville now is more accessible to young families, not just the smart set. That\u2019s a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Didier Morel: \u201cThe colours are just as the impressionists painted them\u201d<\/p>\n

BENJAMIN GIRETTE<\/p>\n

Boudin\u2019s beach scenes are celebrated today, but at the time he couldn\u2019t sell them. <\/p>\n

The ladies of the day were disappointed not to see their dresses shown in detail, especially those whose outfits were designed by Charles Worth, an Englishman based in Paris who is often credited with inventing haute couture.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoudin showed them just as blobs of colour. They might have forgiven him if he had painted the sky badly, but not their dresses,\u201d Manoeuvre, the curator said.<\/p>\n

Another problem was that Boudin painted ladies bathing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, only actresses and courtesans did that, so it would have been impossible for his beach scenes to grace the wall of a Parisian salon,\u201d Manoeuvre said. \u201cToo racy, except perhaps for the gentlemen\u2019s smoking room.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Painting<\/p>\n

Deauville, Juliette sous la tente, Boudin, 1895<\/p>\n

Boudin abandoned beach scenes in favour of seascapes and boats, which were safer but still reflected his love of the sea. <\/p>\n

Born in nearby Honfleur to a seafaring Normandy family, he had worked on boats in his teens. \u201cThere were no weather forecasts in those days and he learned how to study the sea and judge its moods,\u201d Manoeuvre said. \u201cThat helped him depict it so vividly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leyshon, the artist, told me that talking about Boudin made him feel like setting up his own easel on the beach. Walking back along the seafront at the end of the day, the sun slowly began to dip and streaks of rose appeared in the soft blue sky amid delicate, wispy clouds. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Strolling along the broad expanse of fine golden sand on Trouville beach, where sea and sky often meld…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,49,48,356,75],"class_list":["post-13148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}