Seurat’s ‘Marines’ Seurat produced his first series of coastal paintings (or ‘marines’) in 1885, spending part of the summer at Grandcamp in Normandy. Then in 1886 he painted at Honfleur. In 1887 his summer was interrupted by a second short […]
Georges Seurat: The Channel at Gravelines – 1890 London, National Gallery In many of the small sketches he produced in preparation for Bathers at Asnières and A Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte, he necessarily reduced landscape to its essentials […]
Alfred William Finch: Haystacks – 1889 Museum of Ixelles, Brussels The repeated, almost abstract outlines, of haystacks and neighbouring farm buildings are the only relief from the oppressive flatness of the landscape. Finch’s restricted palette of grey-blue, light blue and […]
Paul Signac: Sunlight, Quai de Clichy – 1887 Baltimore Museum of Art In 1880, Signac’s father died and his widowed mother decided to sell the family business and move from Montmartre to the quieter suburb of Asnières. Signac was drawn […]
Eighth Impressionist Exhibition On the 15th May 1886 the eighth Impressionist Exhibition opened in rooms situated on the second floor of the Maison Dorée, a restaurant, on the corner of Boulevard des Italiens and rue Lafitte, not far from the […]
Symbolism The Symbolists used mysticism, allusion, suggestion and ‘dream’ to convey moods of heightened awareness in the viewer – eg nostalgia, melancholy. They strove to represent something other than physical reality, erring towards the fantastic, the enigmatic, and delving into […]
Jean Metzinger: Coucher de Soleil No. 1 (Landscape) – 1906 Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo This kaleidoscopic mosaic of brilliant colour depicts a sun-drenched idyll in which two women disport in a verdant Arcadian landscape. Two tall trees to left and right […]
Georges Seurat: Poseuses (The Models) – 1886-1888 Philadelphia, The Barnes Foundation The left half of this painting is taken up with a substantial portion of A Sunday on the island of the Grand Jatte, so we are looking at a […]
Camille Pissarro: The House of the Deaf Woman and the Belfry at Eragny – 1886 Indianapolis Museum of Art Galleries, USA This canvas was painted at the height of Pissarro’s zeal for the new ideas of Georges Seurat and is […]
Théo van Rysselberghe: In July before Noon (Family in the Garden) – 1890 Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands Five women are enjoying a summer morning in the spacious garden of a country house. A dreamlike atmosphere pervades the painting – one […]