IMPRESSIONIST GETAWAY IN THREE STAGES
From the beach of Deauville, facing the sea, you can see a space where the sky and the sea are reflected. On the right: Sainte-Adresse and Le Havre, then Honfleur, the cliffs of Villerville, the mouth of the Touques and Trouville... Left: Villers, Les Vaches noires, and Houlgate. This space was the cradle of Impressionism. On the occasion of the Normandy Impressionist Festival, we offer you a three-stage tour. Take advantage of your getaway to see further afield: festivals and exhibitions are on the programme for the Deauville summer.
1 - IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EUGÈNE BOUDIN
Born on 12 July 1824 in Honfleur, Eugène Boudin, a precursor of Impressionism, spent his youth in Le Havre and from 1864 onwards spent every summer in Trouville-sur-Mer and Deauville. He transcribes scenes of seaside life, from elegant women to the effervescence of the markets, from the landscapes of Auger to the ports. A painter of skies, he strives in his canvases to transcribe the transience of light, changing skies, the matter of clouds and the inconstancy of the sea. In Deauville, Eugène Boudin was seduced by the view of Deauville beach from the pier. He regularly settles there with his easel and declines this same view of the beach, with the same framing under different lights.
In 1884, he had his house built in Deauville, the Villa Les Ajoncs - a small Dutch cage - now renamed La Breloque, at 8 rue Olliffe - where he spent the last fourteen years of his life, It was in this house that he died on August 8, 1898.
Eugène Boudin produced more than a hundred canvases and gouaches in Deauville. Since 1998, a plaque has been affixed to the façade of the house where he lived. In August 2010, a plaque was also placed on the Port Deauville breakwater. It reproduces the painting "La plage de Deauville" (1893), which belongs to the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Caen.
2 - The exhibition
Jacques-Emile Blanche, portraitist of the Belle-Epoque, in detail hereTHE PANTHEON OF AN ERA
A key portraitist of society at the turn of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, J.É. Blanche rubbed shoulders with the greatest figures of her time, both in Paris and in Normandy.
He stayed for the first time on the Côte Fleurie in the summer of 1891 in Trouville-sur-Mer at the Manoir des Frémonts. There he met a young law student, Marcel Proust. Seduced by this holiday, Rose and Jacques-Émile Blanche returned from 1896 to 1901 to the Château de Tout-la-Ville between Deauville and Pont-L'Évêque, where they received the Literary, Political and Artistic Tout Paris. The painter Paul Helleu – whose portrait he painted of his son Jean – and André Gide stayed there, among other guests.
In 1902, he acquired a large property in Offranville (Seine-Maritime) called the Manoir du Tôt where he lived every summer until his death. If Stravinsky, Cocteau, or Anna de Noailles - whose portraits he painted - wrote the history of the arts with an "H", they also wrote the history of Deauville, which was then in full swing.
Jacques-Émile Blanche's style, both lively and highly refined, borrows from both British and French sources of inspiration. Maurice Denis describes Blanche's portraits as "a valuable collection for future historians; this gallery is the Pantheon of an era."
3 - AT THE BATHS, THE IMPRESSIONIST WOMEN
As you leave the Point de vue, go to Place Claude Lelouch. In the courtyard of the Pompeian Baths, which you can access through the Sea Baths office, discover portraits of Impressionist women.
An exhibition in tribute to Berthe Morisot, Marie Cassat... en plein air which brings together portraits drawn by Simonne L'Hermitte, making them lively and contemporary.
These original portraits have been photographed and worked on. They are reproduced in large format, accompanied by some biographical elements and a reproduction of a painting by the artist represented, to reconstruct and measure the feminine part of the Impressionist adventure.
