The terrace of Sainte-Adresse

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The terrace of Sainte-Adresse (Claude Monet)
The terrace of Sainte-Adresse
Claude Monet , 1867
Oil on canvas
98 × 130 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The terrace of Sainte-Adresse , also garden in Sainte-Adresse , or terrace on the seashore ( French terrace à Sainte-Adresse or Jardin à Sainte-Adresse ) is a painting by the French painter Claude Monet from 1867. The picture, painted in oil on canvas, has a height of 98 cm and a width of 130 cm. In this picture, Monet shows a summer scene on the Norman Channel coast in Sainte-Adresse . The people portrayed in it are probably family members of the painter, including his father, with whom he had a strained relationship. The composition is influenced by Japanese art and the choice of colors and brushstrokes already shows atypical impressionist style. The painting belongs to the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City .

Image description

The painting shows a scene in Sainte-Adresse on a sunny day in the summer of 1867. From an elevated point of view, the view extends over a garden plot and the English Channel behind it with its busy shipping traffic. On the garden terrace in the foreground, four people are grouped around a central flower ring with red and white flowers. In front of the round flowerbed there are four garden chairs lined up towards the sea, of which the two in the middle are occupied by a woman and a man. Another woman and another man stand a little to the left behind the bed in front of a green fence bordering the garden. Various art historians have assumed that the characters depicted belong to the Monet family. In the front right sits an older man, depicted at an angle from behind, who is probably Monet's father Adolphe. He appears as a gray-bearded gentleman in an elegant summer wardrobe with gray trousers, dark jacket, light straw hat and a walking stick placed between his legs. While this personal assignment is very likely, the other attempts to identify the actors shown in the picture are more assumptions. Gary Tinterow assumes that the man on the garden fence may be Claude Monet's uncle Dr. Adolphe Lecadre. He is wearing a brown suit, has a black top hat on and is leaning on a walking stick. The sitter turned to the woman standing next to him, for whom his daughter Jeanne Marguerite Lecadre was supposed to be the model. She is shown in side view and is wearing a white dress. She has put an open yellow parasol over her shoulder. The woman with her back to the picture viewer to the left of Monet's father could be Sophie Lecadre, the wife of Dr. Adolphe Lecadre, or Monet's Aunt Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. She wears a light-colored dress, her head is covered by an open parasol. While the four chairs arranged in a row indicate that the people are together, their positions in the picture and their alignment with one another do not necessarily reflect a close connection. Although the couple at the garden fence seem to be in conversation with each other, there is no relation to the other people - such as eye contact - in the picture. Monet's father looks past the couple opposite to the left and keeps a certain distance from the woman next to him. It is not clear with this woman where her attention is directed. You could watch the other people in the picture, but you could just as well look at the ships on the horizon.

The scene with the four people takes place on a terrace, which appears in the picture as a trapezoidal grayish surface. Sunlit bright areas clearly stand out from blue-gray shadows. These can be found as wide stripes on the left and as elongated silhouettes of the garden chairs at the bottom of the picture. The long shadows indicate a low sun in the afternoon. In the shadow area of ​​the chairs there is also the signature “Claude Monet”. The transition from the strolling level to the adjacent green lawn area appears as a diagonal line that looks like it has been drawn with a ruler. On the right edge there is a lush vegetation of flowers with numerous flowers in red and yellow in front of a high red garden fence. Such flowers can also be found on the lower and left edges. Individual towering flower stems could be gladioli . This lush display of flowers - just like the dressing room of the sitter - indicates that summer is the season. Two masts with a waving flag rise up in front of the garden fence to the left at the end of the flowerbed and to the right of a garden door. While a red and yellow pennant is hoisted on the left mast, the meaning of which remains unclear, the French tricolor is clearly visible on the right mast .

Behind the terrace, the English Channel forms the middle distance as a broad horizontal strip. The slightly undulating bluish sea is used by numerous ships. A sailing boat with dark sails can be seen to the left of the couple on the fence a short distance away. Numerous other sailing boats and ships, but also steamers with long clouds of smoke, can be seen near the horizon line. On the left side of the picture, the opposite coastline can be seen on the horizon, where some authors want to make out the shore of Honfleur , but it may also be another coastline towards Trouville-sur-Mer . A band of white clouds unfolds above the horizon and a light blue sky above.

Both the summery motif with people who spend their free time by the sea and a brushstroke in which Monet used short strokes to bring pure colors to the canvas are typical features of a painting in the style of Impressionism, even if this term was not used until seven years later Origin of the image was shaped. John Rewald praised Monet for “recreating the vibration of light” in this picture. The seemingly spontaneous style of painting is contrasted with a strict composition. Monet divided the picture into three superimposed areas: sky, water and terrace. This is particularly illustrated by the dividing lines between the horizon and the garden fence running parallel to the image. The flagpoles form the vertical additions to this, so that a simple compositional grid results from these lines. The flat treatment of the foreground, such as the almost monochrome areas of the ground and the lawn, suggest Japanese models.

A picture based on the Japanese model

Katsushika Hokusai: The turban tower in the Gohyaku Rakan Temple , around 1830

Monet described the painting The Terrace of Sainte-Adresse in 1868 as le tableau chinois où il ya des drapeaux (meaning: Chinese painting with the flags ). Monet's painter friend Pierre-Auguste Renoir spoke of “le japonais aux petits drapeaux” ( the Japanese with the little flags ). The adjectives Chinese or Japanese were used as synonymous terms for Far Eastern art in Paris in the 1860s. But it was mainly Japanese woodblock prints that influenced Monet's work. In the painting The Terrace of Sainte-Adresse , Monet could have referred directly to a work by the Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai . In his series of 36 views of Mount Fuji there is the depiction of The Turban Tower in the Gohyaku Rakan Temple , created around 1830 , which shows clear parallels to Monet's painting. In both views, people have gathered on a terrace, a fence or a balustrade separates the foreground from the middle distance, the picture is divided into strict horizontal areas and there are empty open spaces in the foreground. Monet owned this woodcut by Hokusai and other Japanese paintings. You can still find them in his former home in Giverny, which is used as a museum .

Monet's enthusiasm for art from Japan corresponded to the zeitgeist of Japonism . Presumably Monet had seen art from Asia at the Paris World's Fair in 1867 , but may have been familiar with such works beforehand. Last but not least, his artist colleagues Édouard Manet , Jean-François Millet and James McNeill Whistler had worked on the Japanese model, whose works in turn influenced Monet's work.

The family reunion in Sainte-Adresse

Monet grew up in Le Havre , the port city bordering Sainte-Adresse at the mouth of the Seine . The motif of ships cruising on the sea had therefore been familiar to him since childhood. The Lecadre family, related to the Monets, had a country house in Sainte-Adresse, the property of which was at the lower end of today's Sentier Alphonse Karr path . In the garden of this house, Monet painted the painting The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse . In contrast to the busy trading city of Le Havre, Sainte-Adresse was a place of relaxation for the wealthy upper class. Weekend visitors from Le Havre and vacationers from Paris came here. In his painting The Terrace of Sainte-Adresse , Monet depicted the bourgeoisie seeking relaxation in a well-tended garden. Monet chose the depicted people as models because they were just available - a family portrait was not his primary intention.

Claude Monet: The beach at Sainte-Adresse in cloudy weather , 1867

Claude Monet's relationship with his family was particularly strained in the summer of 1867. At that time he was living in Paris and his income consisted mainly of regular donations from his aunt Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. Since 1864, there have been repeated differences of opinion between Monet and his family, in connection with which they threatened to stop the donations. In the spring of 1867, Claude Monet informed his father that his lover, Camille Doncieux, was expecting a child. Monet's father refused this relationship and asked his son to leave his mistress and instead devote himself to work with the family in Sainte-Adresse. Monet was now living in very precarious financial circumstances and was only able to support Camille Doncieux with occasional donations from friends. In order not to break off the relationship with his father and aunt completely, Monet visited the family in Sainte-Adresse alone in the summer and created a number of paintings there, including, for example, The beach at Sainte-Adresse in cloudy weather ( Art Institute of Chicago ). Meanwhile, Monet's son Jean was born in Paris on August 8th. Shortly afterwards, Claude Monet secretly visited Camille Doncieux and their newborn son in Paris for a few days, but then returned to Sainte-Adresse. The peaceful family get -together suggested in the painting The Terrace of Sainte-Adresse did not correspond at all to Claude Monet's real life situation.

Provenance

The painting The Terrace of Sainte-Adresse is relatively large in size, but was probably not intended for an exhibition at the annual Salon de Paris . Around 1868 Monet sold the painting Terrace of Sainte-Adresse for 400 francs to the Montpellier doctor Victor Frat, a friend of the painter Frédéric Bazille . Various authors have assumed that the painting was loaned to the Impressionists' fourth group exhibition in 1879. Since this exhibition was not documented photographically and a picture shown there Jardin à Sainte-Adresse could also be another painting, this is not certain. After Frat's death in 1902, the picture became the property of his second wife, Marie Frat. She sold the painting April 16, 1913 for 27,000 francs to the Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel , who kept it in his inventory until 1926. The work reached the priest and art collector Theodore Pitcairn from Bryn Athyn (Pennsylvania) on June 4, 1928 for 11,500 US dollars via Durand-Ruel's New York branch . He had the picture auctioned on December 1, 1967 in favor of the charitable Beneficia Foundation he founded in the London branch of the Christie's auction house. The picture went to the art dealer Thomas Agnew & Sons , which was commissioned by the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, for £ 588,000 . The museum was able to purchase the painting with donations from friends of the museum and with funds from the museum fund.

literature

Web links

Commons : The terrace of Sainte-Adresse  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Monet catalog raisonné by Daniel Wildenstein, published in 1996, is trilingual and gives the French title Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse , the English title Garden at Sainte-Adresse and the German title Die Terrasse von Sainte-Adresse , see Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , p. 51.
  2. ↑ Angelika Schneider (ed.): French masterpieces of the 19th century from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York , p. 158.
  3. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 102.
  4. ↑ Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse is noted as the French title in Daniel Wildenstein's catalog raisonné from 1996, Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , p. 51. Monet may have exhibited the picture in 1879 under the title Jardin à Sainte-Adresse , see Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  5. ^ Scott Schaefer: Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse in Sylvie Gache-Patin: L'impressionnisme et le paysage français , p. 54.
  6. ↑ Monet's father appears in a similar presentation in the painting Adolphe Monet reading in the garden , see Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , pp. 38–39.
  7. ↑ Scott Schaefer only names the father, see Scott Schaefer: Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse in Sylvie Gache-Godmother: L'impressionnisme et le paysage français , p. 54.
  8. ^ Gary Tinterow in Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  9. ↑ The name Jean Marguerite Lecadre is mentioned by various authors, for example by Gary Tinterow in Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434; by Daniel Wildenstein in Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , p. 51.
  10. ↑ Gary Tinterow names Sophie Lecadre, but describes her as Monet's cousin and not his aunt in Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  11. ↑ Daniel Wildenstein suspects Aunt Lecadre in the picture without giving her first name, see Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , pp. 38–39.
  12. ^ Gary Tinterow in Angelika Schneider: French Masterpieces of the 19th Century from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York , p. 158.
  13. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 102.
  14. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 102.
  15. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 146.
  16. ↑ Monet wrote "le tableau chinois où il ya des drapeaux" in a letter to his friend Frédéric Bazille in December 1868, reproduced in Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  17. ↑ Renoir wrote “le japonais aux petits drapeaux” in a letter to Bazille in August 1860, reproduced in Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  18. ^ Gary Tinterow in Angelika Schneider: French Masterpieces of the 19th Century from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York , p. 158.
  19. ↑ Charles S. Moffett: Terrace at Sainte-Adresse in Anne Dayez, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett: Impressionism: a centenary exhibition , S. 140th
  20. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 434.
  21. ^ John Leighton: Claude Monet in Juliet Wilson-Bareau, David Degener: Manet and the Sea , p. 204.
  22. ^ Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , p. 51.
  23. ^ Scott Schaefer: Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse in Sylvie Gache-Patin: L'impressionnisme et le paysage français, p. 54.
  24. ^ Scott Schaefer: Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse in Sylvie Gache-Patin: L'impressionnisme et le paysage français, p. 54.
  25. ↑ Dorothee Hansen, Wulf Herzogenrath: Monet and Camille - Portraits of Women in Impressionism , p. 25.
  26. ↑ Dorothee Hansen, Wulf Herzogenrath: Monet and Camille - Portraits of Women in Impressionism , p. 25.
  27. ↑ Dorothee Hansen, Wulf Herzogenrath: Monet and Camille - Portraits of Women in Impressionism , p. 25.
  28. ^ Juliet Wilson-Bareau, David Degener: Manet and the Sea , p. 204.
  29. ↑ Dorothee Hansen, Wulf Herzogenrath: Monet and Camille - Portraits of Women in Impressionism , p. 27.
  30. ↑ Dorothee Hansen, Wulf Herzogenrath: Monet and Camille - Portraits of Women in Impressionism , p. 27.
  31. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 433.
  32. ↑ Anne Dayez, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett: Impressionism: a centenary exhibition , S. 144. The year 1868 is not secured, other authors state before 1870 to, for example, see Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - works , S. 51.
  33. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 433.
  34. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 433.
  35. ^ Gary Tinterow, Henri Loyrette: Origins of impressionism , p. 433.
  36. ^ Daniel Wildenstein: Monet, Catalog raisonné - catalog raisonné , p. 51.
  37. ↑ Anne Dayez, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett: Impressionism: a centenary exhibition , S. 144th
  38. ↑ Anne Dayez, Michel Hoog, Charles S. Moffett: Impressionism: a centenary exhibition , S. 144th