Seascape in a storm near Arcachon

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Seascape in the Storm near Arcachon
Édouard Manet , 1871
20.6 × 36.7 cm
Oil on canvas
Private collection

Seascape in a storm near Arcachon , also seascape. Arcachon, storm weather or Arcachon during thunderstorms (French: Arcachon, temps d'orange ), is a painting by the French painter Édouard Manet . It shows a view of the sea on Arcachon Beach . The 20.6 × 36.7 cm picture, painted in oil on canvas, is in a private collection.

Image description

The painting Seascape in the Storm near Arcachon is a landscape painting. It shows the view of the Bay of Arcachon on a March day in 1871. In the foreground on the right-hand side you can see the bright sandy beach of Arcachon. The shoreline extends diagonally from the lower left edge of the picture to the horizon line on the right. Sketchy buildings stand on the right edge of the picture. You can see a house with a reddish facade, dark roof and a gable with flagpoles. In front of it there is a sign system, which may signal the wind force or tide level to the shipping . To the left of it stands a lower building on an ocher-colored foundation, clearly above the beach, from which a red-brown staircase leads down to the sea. A wide ledge with a railing could point to a viewing terrace.

The sea protrudes into the picture from the left. The water surface is a mixture of blue, gray, yellow and white. Not far from the shore some sailboats are dark hull anchor. Her sails are down and only the masts stick out into the sky. There's a rowboat on the beach in the lower left corner. It is a typical regional Pinasse du Bassin d'Arcachon , which is particularly suitable for the shallow coastal waters. In the right section of the beach there are more rowing boats and a group of shadowy fishermen. They pull the boats ashore or secure their equipment.

The opposite island Île aux Oiseaux is sketched as a dark stripe on the horizon . With quick brushstrokes Manet painted a sky with blue-gray storm clouds and partly bright white and ocher-colored formations. The art historian Sandra Gianfreda comments on this: "With just a few brushstrokes Manet evokes the threatening atmosphere of an impending thunderstorm". The painting is signed lower right with “Manet”.

Manet's seascape

Édouard Manet: Arcachon in fine weather , 1871

The small-format painting Seascape in the Storm near Arcachon was created in March 1871, when Manet and his family had rented the Villa Servantie in Arcachon . The Manets waited in southern France for the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune . These politically troubled times could be read symbolically in the troubled sky of the painting Seascape in the Storm near Arcachon , but there is no evidence that Manet pursued such thoughts. Instead, the painting Seascape in a Storm near Arcachon is seen in close relation to the painting Arcachon in good weather ( Denver Art Museum ), which is roughly the same size . In both sea pictures Manet shows the almost identical image section on the beach of Arcachon, sometimes with a blue and sometimes a cloudy sky. Painting the same motif in different weather and light conditions is atypical for Manet and anticipates serial pictures taken much later by his painter colleague Claude Monet , such as the motifs painted from 1890 with grain shovels . Open-air painting, which he had only started the previous year, was also novel for Manet. The two sea views from Arcachon were created directly in front of the motif, either with a view from the terrace or directly on the beach. The small-format pictures were easy to transport and the wind prevailing on the coast was hardly a problem with these formats.

Manet had a special relationship with the sea since his youth. Before he began studying painting, he tried to find a job in merchant shipping. In order to gain practical experience, he went to Rio de Janeiro on board the sailing ship Havre et Guadeloupe when he was only 16 years old . Numerous letters from Manet to his family and friends have survived from this trip, in which he describes his impressions of the trip. Years later, Manet told the painter Charles Toché how he had observed the sea and the sky on the deck of the ship on the 113-day round trip. The study of constantly changing lighting conditions, which was pursued as a teenager, was implemented by Manet as a painter in the seascape in the storm near Arcachon and other seascapes created on the French coast.

Provenance

The first known owner of the painting after Manet was the Paris-based dentist Thomas W. Evans . Manet and Evans were both friends with actress Méry Laurent , who may have made contact between the two men. Evans owned several works by Manet in his collection. The picture later came to the collection of Alfred Cassirer in Berlin , who was familiar with the works of French Impressionism through his brother Paul Cassirer , who worked in the art trade, and his uncle Bruno Cassirer . Alfred Cassirer died in 1932 and bequeathed the painting to his daughter Eva. After the Second World War, the picture was on permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel for several years . Today it belongs to a private collection not known by name.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The painting is referred to as a seascape in a storm near Arcachon in Sandra Orienti: Edouard Manet, catalog raisonné , vol. 1, p. 76. The designation seascape. Arcachon, Surmwetter can be found in Hartwig Fischer: Orte des Impressionismus, p. 96. The picture is referred to as Arcacon during thunderstorms in Françoise Cachin: Manet , p. 151.
  2. ↑ For French title, see Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné , p. 150, no. 165.
  3. ^ Juliet Wilson-Bareau, David Degener: Manet and the Sea , p. 79.
  4. ↑ Sandra Gianfreda: On the coast in Hartwig Fischer: Places of Impressionism . P. 79.
  5. ^ Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné , p. 150.
  6. ↑ Hartwig Fischer: Places of Impressionism , p. 79.
  7. ^ Maria Teresa Benedetti: Manet , 244.
  8. ^ Denis Rouart, Daniel Wildenstein: Edouard Manet: Catalog raisonné, p. 150.