IMPRESSIONIST ESCAPADE 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... On the left: Villers, Les Vaches noires, and Houlgate. This area was the cradle of impressionism. On the occasion of the Normandy Impressionist Festival, we propose a three-stage tour. Take advantage of your escapade to see further: festivals and exhibitions are on the program of the summer of Houlgate.
1 - IN THE STEPS OF EUGENE BOUDIN
Born on July 12, 1824 in Honfleur, Eugène Boudin, a precursor of Impressionism, spent his youth in Le Havre and then, from 1864 onwards, stayed every summer in Trouville-sur-Mer and Deauville. He transcribed the scenes of seaside life, from the elegant women to the bustle of the markets, from the Augeron landscapes to the ports. As a painter of skies, he endeavored in his paintings to transcribe the transience of light, the changing skies, the material of clouds and the inconstancy of the sea. In Deauville, Eugène Boudin was seduced by the view of the beach from the pier. He regularly settled there with his easel and painted the 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 - today renamed La Breloque, at 8 rue Olliffe - where he spent the last fourteen years of his life.
Eugène Boudin produced more than a hundred paintings 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 seawall of Port Deauville. It reproduces the painting "The beach of Deauville" (1893), which belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen.
2 - The exhibition
Jacques-Emile Blanche, portrait painter of the Belle-Epoque, in detail hereTHE PANTHEON OF AN ERA
J.É. Blanche was an essential portraitist of the society at the turn of the XIXth and the first half of the XXth century. Blanche rubbed shoulders with the greatest figures of his time, both in Paris and in Normandy.
He stayed for the first time on the Côte Fleurie during 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 vacation, 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 made of his son Jean - and André Gide were among the 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 expansion.
Jacques-Émile Blanche's style, both lively and refined, drew on both British and French sources of inspiration. Maurice Denis described Blanche's portraits as "a precious collection for future historians; this gallery is the Pantheon of an era.
3 - AT THE BATHS, THE IMPRESSIONIST WOMEN
Leaving the Point de vue, go to Place Claude Lelouch. In the courtyard of the Pompeian Baths, which you will access through the office of the Sea Baths, discover portraits of impressionist women.
A tribute exhibition to Berthe Morisot, Marie Cassat... in the open air which gathers portraits drawn by Simonne L'Hermitte, making them alive and current.
These original portraits have been photographed, worked. They are reproduced in large format, accompanied by some biographical elements and a reproduction of a painting of the artist represented, to restore and measure the female part of the impressionist adventure.
