Series - Beach



The calm !
"Crane Neck Across the Marsh", 1841.
William Sidney Mount excelled in landscape painting, but he was not associated with the Hudson River School.
He painted the daily life of Long Island farmers, inspired by English genre paintings. Mount also painted the black community, which he always depicted in a dignified manner.
Although William Sidney Mount made his name as a genre artist, some of his most interesting paintings are landscape studies such as this one, which captures the misty, refracted sunlight on a North Shore beach at low tide. Unlike the genre scenes done in the studio, this painting was executed largely outdoors; towards the end of his life, Mount himself concluded that "my best pictures are the ones I painted outdoors."


Sunset with Georges Lemmen, "La plage à Heist" from 1891.


Still in the beach series, this atypical painting by the sculptor Aristide Maillol, "Femme à l'ombrelle", 1895.


Spanish day.
A sublime painter not sufficiently recognised, Joaquín Sorolla and this "Promenade au bord de la mer" of 1909, certainly a little late as an impressionist, (he came to Paris to meet them) but perhaps we should look at it with an even more contemporary approach.
I particularly like the way he has set these two women against a totally abstract background of large brushstrokes of colour.


Always on the beach, time for children!
Maurice Denis, "Le château de sable", 1909.


Maurice Denis, "Jeux sur le sable", 1912. Very bare for the time, isn't it? And yet it was over a hundred years ago.

Félix Vallotton, "La Grève blanche, Vasouy", 1913
Formidable framing for a painting from 1913.
Vallotton was influenced by both photographic technique (he made them) and Japanese prints (which he collected). Vallotton as a landscape painter did not set up his easel in front of the landscape to paint. He was a painter of distance. He walked through the landscapes, carrying a sketchbook, noting, sitting and then standing, resulting in visions that were not always very natural. He would put numbers in areas on his sketchbook and indicate the colours. And when he got home, sometimes several days, sometimes several weeks later, he applied the colour. This justifies the sometimes unrealistic impression of the colours.


Looking for holidays, sun and beach, here is something to enjoy, with one of my favourite painters who does not have, I think, the notoriety he deserves.
Henri Lebasque (1865-1937), "The beach at Saint Jean de Monts", 1918.
When my grandfather, Aimé Maeght, started out in Cannes by offering a few paintings in his print shop, he sold several paintings by this post-impressionist who lived in Le Cannet, not far from Pierre Bonnard.


Continuing my Sun and Beach series, here is a delightful work on paper by Pierre Bonnard, "La plage".


The sea had so much to tell us in the morning
I was only listening to you...
The sea and the sun, never ending
had to whisper their songs
through the shutter I was only listening to you...
La journée au soleil, poem by Claude Roy.
Henri Matisse, "Pleine mer ou marée haute", 1920.


"Deux femmes courant sur la plage (la course)", 1922.
What is striking about this work is its incredible movement, its extraordinary vitality and the immense force that emanates from it, yet this painting is a paradox, for it is a small format of a few centimetres on a side, 32.5 cm x 41.1 cm. Picasso sets in motion the classically inspired bodies that he elaborated in monumental formats during the summer of 1921. Picasso lengthens necks, arms and limbs in the manner of Renaissance artists.
With Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Picasso observed the dancers, he even married the ballerina Olga Khokhlova. This small gouache was enlarged in 1924 for the stage curtain of the ballet "Le Train Bleu", music by Darius Milhaud, libretto by Jean Cocteau, scenery by Henri Laurens, costumes by Coco Chanel, no less!
In 1922, Picasso spent the first summer in Dinard with Olga and their son Paulo. Sea bathing was becoming more and more popular in the early 1920s and was becoming a social and social activity. Swimming costumes became shorter and women's bodies were liberated.


Sun and beach series, with Sonia Delaunay's audacity in colours and patterns for beachwear from the 1920s.


Atypical, isn't it?
Just goes to show that there is always something to discover, even with Picasso, "Three Women on the Beach", 1924.


Day at the beach!
Picasso "Nude on the beach", 1929.


What do you say to this little connection I have concocted for you?
A photo of the sculptural Marie-Thérèse Walter on the beach and her interpretation by Pablo Picasso "Baigneuse au ballon", 1929.


Joan Miró, "La Baigneuse", 1932.
For those who go to the beach, we love it.


And the Figuration Libre, what does it become?
François Boisrond, "Rêve de plage", 1986.


Jack Vettriano, "The Singing Butler", 1992.
et Georges Brassens, 1952.
"Il pleuvait fort sur la grand-route
Ell’ cheminait sans parapluie
J’en avais un, volé, sans doute
Le matin même à un ami
Courant alors à sa rescousse
Je lui propose un peu d’abri
En séchant l’eau de sa frimousse
D’un air très doux, ell’ m’a dit » oui «
Un p’tit coin d’parapluie
Contre un coin d’paradis
Elle avait quelque chose d’un ange
Un p’tit coin d’paradis
Contre un coin d’parapluie
Je n’perdais pas au change, pardi
Chemin faisant, que ce fut tendre
D’ouïr à deux le chant joli
Que l’eau du ciel faisait entendre
Sur le toit de mon parapluie
J’aurais voulu, comme au déluge
Voir sans arrêt tomber la pluie
Pour la garder, sous mon refuge
Quarante jours, quarante nuits
Un p’tit coin d’parapluie
Contre un coin d’paradis
Elle avait quelque chose d’un ange
Un p’tit coin d’paradis
Contre un coin d’parapluie
Je n’perdais pas au chang’, pardi
Mais bêtement, même en orage
Les routes vont vers des pays
Bientôt le sien fit un barrage
A l’horizon de ma folie
Il a fallu qu’elle me quitte
Après m’avoir dit grand merci
Et je l’ai vue toute petite
Partir gaiement vers mon oubli
Un p’tit coin d’parapluie
Contre un coin d’paradis
Elle avait quelque chose d’un ange
Un p’tit coin d’paradis
Contre un coin d’parapluie
Je n’perdais pas au change, pardi"


Still at the beach.
Masterpiece, photo by George Hoyningen-Huene
for Vogue, 1930.


So chic!
Vogue January 1944. Photo John Rawlings.


The beach as seen by Clifford Coffin in 1949 for Vogue.


Girls, enjoy the last days of your holidays.
So chic!
Photo Clifford Coffin for Vogue, November 1950.


Ahhh the beach, Photo John Rawlings for Vogue.
So chic!


Today, the weather was fine on the beach.
We met some bourgeois couples.
Well, we know them, don't we?
Pablo Picasso, Françoise Gilot and Claude. Photo by Robert Capa, all the same.
Françoise Gilot, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most joyful. 100 years old now and almost the same energy.



Another trip to the beach? 
Pablo Picasso and Jacques Prévert, rare colour photo by Robert Doisneau.Series