Visiting the places where the young Monet learned to paint and painted his masterpiece "Impression, Sunrise" and other series [Following in Monet's footsteps in Normandy] 3
1)
The third part of our trip to Normandy, the holy land of Impressionism, will take us to the farm (now a luxury auberge) where the teenage Monet studied under Voudin, the port of Le Havre where Monet painted the masterpiece "Impression, Sunrise," from which the name "Impressionism" is derived, and the coast of Normandy where he painted many series of works.
2)
"Saint-Simeon Farm" in Honfleur:
Claude Monet, the master of Impressionism, was born in Paris in 1840 but moved to the port city of Le Havre in Normandy at a young age.
Le Havre is located at the mouth of the Seine River. In 1847, a railway line was built from Paris to Le Havre along the Seine, and the city began to develop as an outer port of Paris.
3)
In 1857, the 16-year-old Monet met Eugène Voudin (1824-1898), who ran an art supply store in Le Havre.
It is said that Monet learned how to paint outdoors from Voudin. He did this at the "Saint-Siméon Farm" (a farmhouse inn) in Honfleur, a fishing port near Le Havre.
4)
Honfleur is said to be one of the "most beautiful port towns in France." Julie DeMore of the Honfleur Tourist Office guided us.
5)
Voudin was born to a sailor's family in Honfleur, a fishing port near Le Havre, but moved to neighboring Le Havre and opened an art supply store.
Voudin's shop regularly had customers such as Jean-François Millet and Constant Troyon, painters of the Barbizon School famous for their peasant paintings. Inspired by them, Voudin decided to devote himself to painting.
6)
Boudin, who ran an art supply store, used the recently invented "tube paints" and emphasised outdoor painting, capturing the changing atmosphere and sky patterns outdoors. Based in Normandy, he painted many coasts, seas and sky scenes.
7)
The "Saint-Siméon Farm" was located on a hill on the city's outskirts, about 10 minutes up a narrow slope from the port of Honfleur, where yachts and fishing boats line the streets.
8)
"Today, this is a high-class auberge (restaurant and hotel) called 'Ferme Saint-Siméon,' but the farmhouse where Monet and Voudin worked hard on their paintings has now been preserved and used as a bistro," says Julie.
9)
The building of the Saint-Siméon Farm can be seen in the copy of Monet's work "Little Carriage, Snowy Road at Honfleur" (c. 1867, Musee d'Orsay) on the bistro wall.
The building painted on the left side of the snowy road has the same roof shape as the current building.
10)
Voudin painted the sea and sky of Normandy and was praised by Barbizon School painter Camille Corot as the "King of the Sky", also called "Voudin of the Waves."
He was repeatedly selected for the official exhibition, which was the gateway to success for artists at the time.
Moreover, Boudin exhibited at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. Other Impressionist painters, such as Pissarro, Sisley, and Monet, are said to have visited Saint-Siméon Farm.
11)
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Impressionism's birth, a monument was displayed on the farm, reviving the scenes in which the painters of the time worked outdoors.
A copy of Monet's masterpiece "Impression, Sunrise" (1874, owned by the Marmottan Monet Museum) is set up in the garden overlooking the city of Le Havre, where the sunrise was actually painted, evoking the breath of the painters of the past.
12) "Impression, Sunrise" painted at the pier of Le Havre
Next, we visited the "Musée Malraux" in Le Havre. It is close to where Monet painted "Impression, Sunrise".
13)
In the winter of 1873, Monet stayed at a hotel about 500m west of the current Musée Malraux along the coast to nurse his father. Looking at the sunrise over the port of Le Havre from the hotel window, he sketched "Impression, Sunrise".
He exhibited the finished work at the "First Impressionist Exhibition" in Paris in April 1874. A critic who saw it scorned it, saying, "It's just painting impressions," and that's how the name "Impressionism" came to be.
14)
The Malraux Museum has the world's most extensive collection of Voudin's works and many masterpieces by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and other Impressionists.
15)
About 30km north of Le Havre along the English Channel, you'll find the Cliffs of Étretat, Normandy's most scenic spot. Many artists, including Monet and Voudin, have painted these limestone chalk cliffs. Monet painted these cliffs in a series of more than 50 paintings.
Voudin's brushstrokes and Monet's share common elements, especially in how he paints the sky and the sea. Please refer to the two artists' "Cliffs of Étretat."
16)
Further north of Étretat are the Cliffs of Fécamp, where Monet also painted a series of works.
The Normandy coast is a holy place where the landscapes painted by the Impressionists remain precisely as they were.
Visiting the places where the young Monet learned to paint and painted his masterpiece "Impression, Sunrise" and other series [Following in Monet's footsteps in Normandy] 3
https://serai.jp/hobby/1205999
Add info)
National Museum of Western Art, Monet: Water Lilies
https://www.nmwa.go.jp/jp/exhibitions/2024monet.html
A)
Claude Monet (1840-1926) was one of the most representative painters of the Impressionist movement. In 1890, at 50, Monet bought land and a house in the small village of Giverny in Normandy and made it his final home.
B)
He created a "water garden" with a lily pond a few years later. This water lily pond was the most significant source of creativity that occupied the artist's mind from then on. This exhibition introduces Monet's art from his later years, focusing on the Water Lilies series.
C)
Monet's later years were a time when he faced many difficulties, such as the death of his family, his eye disease, and World War I. Amidst all this, he eventually came up with the idea of a "large decorative painting" that would cover the walls of a room with a huge canvas depicting the water's surface in a water lily pond.
D)
The centrepiece of this exhibition is the large-scale Water Lilies that were created during the production process of this "large decorative painting." Monet, who hated to reveal his unfinished ideas, left most of these works in his studio until the end.
E)
Still, the only person he agreed to part with the decorative panels of "Water Lilies" during his lifetime was Japanese businessman and collector Kojiro Matsukata (1866-1950).
Matsukata visited Monet's house in Giverny and interacted with the artist, eventually collecting more than 30 of Monet's works. These are the highlights of the National Museum of Western Art collection today.
F)
This exhibition will feature 64 Monet paintings, including approximately 50 works from the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris and works from the National Museum of Western Art and other locations in Japan. This will be the largest-ever opportunity to see Monet's "Water Lilies" in one place in Japan.
