Series - Spring
Vincent van Gogh, “Fishing in Spring”, 1887.
This atypical painting is very surprising.
The scene from Fishing in Spring takes place on the banks of the Seine at Pont de Clichy, near Asnières, where van Gogh and Signac painted together on several occasions.
Paul Gauguin, “Sacred Spring”, 1894.
We feel in this painting his proximity and his friendship with Vincent van Gogh, but I also see a strong influence of Cézanne, but if, look closely, the bush of trees in the background, isn't it a bowl of apples whose colors are those of Cézanne.
Vincent van Gogh painted "The Almond Tree in Bloom" as a gift to his nephew born on January 31, 1890 and named Vincent by his parents, Théo and Jo. His family will never sell this painting.
He expresses all the happiness of nature, its exuberance, its renewal but also its fragility.
For the sky of this large painting, almost a meter long, passes and irons layers of colors to reach this vibrant blue. These multiple layers and touches of paint give incredible depth to this sky, while the almond blossoms seem thrown onto the canvas with spontaneity.
We can see here van Gogh's interest in Japanese prints.
When he painted these almond blossoms, Vincent had already been interned in an asylum in Saint-Rémy for almost ten months. In the midst of the crisis, Vincent did not work for weeks. In February, he was allowed to go out to paint nature.
After completing the painting at the end of February, a new attack of dementia for two months deprived him of going out. Once recovered he wrote "If I had been able to continue working, [...] I would have made other flowering trees. Now, the flowering trees are almost finished, [...] I have no no chance".
Paul Cézanne, “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe”, 1877
Oh spring! sacred woods! deep blue sky!
You feel a breath of living air penetrating you,
And the opening of a white window in the distance;
We have the sweet happiness of being with the birds
And to see, under the shelter of the spring branches,
These gentlemen show manners to these ladies.
June 26, 1878
Victor Hugo
Painting this in 1913, what freedom and what audacity.
Frantisek Kupka, “Cosmic Spring” 1913.
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, "Spring", 1573.
We are damn lucky to have all these wonders in France and more particularly at the Louvre Museum.
“Spring” is part of the “Four Seasons” series by Italian artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo, which constitutes one of the finest examples of anthropomorphic paintings.
THE painting represents childhood, the three other paintings in the series, "Summer", "Autumn" and "Winter", represent adolescence, adulthood and old age respectively.
Arcimboldo was probably born in Milan in 1527. He was a very popular painter as a portrait painter at the court of Prague and for the organization of the princely festivals of the court of Austria. He gradually fell into obscurity after his death on July 11, 1593 in Milan. In the 17th and 18th centuries, no one remembered him anymore. It was rediscovered in the 19th century and admired by surrealist painters, notably Salvador Dali.
Spring is made up of eighty species of flowers. These curious assemblages juxtapose two visions: on the one hand the faithful description of the elements of nature, on the other hand the figure which results from their association.
A cabbage, a common vegetable in Austria, forms the shoulder of Spring. An iris, an exotic flower, decorates the bodice. Spring is the only female figure in the ensemble. It is the symbol of procreation, the renewal of nature but also of the imperial Habsburg dynasty.
The Seasons series was commissioned in 1573 by Emperor Maximilian II of Habsburg to be offered to Augustus of Saxony, whose coat of arms, the crossed swords of Meissen, are embroidered on the Winter coat. It takes up an earlier cycle, of which only "Summer" and "Winter" remain, dated 1563 and offered in 1569 by Arcimboldo to Maximilian II.
Life hits us in the face with this Gustav Klimt, “Bauerngarten”, 1907.
Château de Fontainebleau, ceiling of the Gallery of Plates, "Le Printemps", by Ambroise Dubois, circa 1580.
Paul Verlaine, "The sky is above the roof", 1881 to accompany this painting by Claude Monet, "Le jardin de la Maison, Antibes", 1888.
The sky is above the roof,
A tree, over the roof,
Cradles his palm.
The bell, in the sky we see,
Gently tinkles.
A bird on the tree we see
Sing her complaint.
My God, my God, life is here
Simple and quiet.
This peaceful rumor
Comes from the city.
What have you done, oh you there
Crying constantly,
Say, what have you done, here you are,
From your youth?
“The Cat in the Spring Sun” by Bruno Andreas Liljefors, 1886.
Gino Severini, “Spring in Montmartre” from 1909.
We recognize Rue Foyatier which connects Place Suzanne Valadon to Sacré-Coeur, this lane made up entirely of stairs offers all the most picturesque things Paris has: street lamps, large trees and cobblestones along its entire length. It's impossible to forget it... with its 222 steps, you climb the equivalent of a dozen floors while walking along it! It is precisely these famous stairs that make of rue Foyatier, one of the most atypical and recognizable in the capital.