After writing a 1,000 word piece about Winslow Homer's eighteen month stay at an English fishing village, I'm writing a series of primers about other artists who made similar journeys.
Who
Edouard Manet (1832-1883), French painter.
Coastal association
The Normandy coast north of Paris.
First coastal visit
In 1848, when he was sixteen years old, his father made the first of several failed attempts to get young Edouard into the navy, packing him off on a merchant vessel sailing to Rio di Janeiro. Manet: “I learned a lot on my voyage to Brazil. I spent countless nights watching the play of light and shadow in the ship’s wake. During the day, I stood on the upper deck gazing at the horizon. That’s how I learned to construct a sky."
Reasons for visiting
Similar to many other of his near contemporaries, Manet first began regularly visiting towns such as Boulogne and Trouville for family vacations as new train lines from Paris made the journey faster than ever before. Then, as with the younger painters such as Monet and Renoir, Manet painted the sea as a way of experimenting with his own values in painting.
Dates visited
As an adult, from the early 1860s until the late 1870s.
Effect on Work
One of the compelling features of Manet's style is its awkwardness, as if he determinedly went at things he didn't necessarily have all the technique to accomplish. The Escape of Rochefort (above) is an example: a history painting with no clear subject, a painting of the sea with roughly painted waves, but the whole thing being eerily beautiful.
Rating
8 sea points out of 10
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| Edouard Manet, The Escape of Rochefort, oil on canvas, 1881 |
Edouard Manet (1832-1883), French painter.
Coastal association
The Normandy coast north of Paris.
First coastal visit
In 1848, when he was sixteen years old, his father made the first of several failed attempts to get young Edouard into the navy, packing him off on a merchant vessel sailing to Rio di Janeiro. Manet: “I learned a lot on my voyage to Brazil. I spent countless nights watching the play of light and shadow in the ship’s wake. During the day, I stood on the upper deck gazing at the horizon. That’s how I learned to construct a sky."
Reasons for visiting
Similar to many other of his near contemporaries, Manet first began regularly visiting towns such as Boulogne and Trouville for family vacations as new train lines from Paris made the journey faster than ever before. Then, as with the younger painters such as Monet and Renoir, Manet painted the sea as a way of experimenting with his own values in painting.
Dates visited
As an adult, from the early 1860s until the late 1870s.
Effect on Work
One of the compelling features of Manet's style is its awkwardness, as if he determinedly went at things he didn't necessarily have all the technique to accomplish. The Escape of Rochefort (above) is an example: a history painting with no clear subject, a painting of the sea with roughly painted waves, but the whole thing being eerily beautiful.
Rating
8 sea points out of 10