03 Classic Works of Art, Marine Paintings - With Footnotes, #59

Félix Vallotton,  (1865–1925)

La plage à Honfleur/ The beach at Honfleur, c. 1919

Oil on canvas, 

54 x 81 cm.

Private collection

Honfleur is a commune in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre. Its inhabitants are called Honfleurais.

It is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur (Honfleur school) which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement. The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood in France. More on Honfleur

Félix Vallotton,  (1865–1925), see below

Eugène Galien-Laloue, (1854-1941)

Quais de Paris, Oil, c. 1920

Oil on canvas

44 x 65.5 cm

Private collection

The painting shows a part of the Seine dockside with fishermen, merchants, ships and the cityscape in the background

Eugène Galien-Laloue (1854–1941) was a French artist of French-Italian parents and was born in Paris on December 11, 1854. He was a populariser of street scenes, usually painted in autumn or winter. His paintings of the early 1900s accurately represent the era in which he lived: a happy, bustling Paris, la Belle Époque, with horse-drawn carriages, trolley cars and its first omnibuses. Galien-Laloue's works are valued not only for their contribution to 20th-century art, but for the actual history, which they document. His work can be seen at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Louvier; Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Rochelle; Mulhouse, France.

A typical Galien-Laloue painting depicts sidewalks and avenues crowded with people or tourists mingling before the capital's monuments. He also painted the landscapes of Normandy and Seine-et-Marne, as well as military scenes he was commissioned to produce in 1914. The Republic of France selected Galien-Laloue to work as a 'war artist,' both during the Franco-Prussian War and World War I, chiefly in watercolor. More on Eugène Galien-Laloue

Félix Vallotton,  (1865–1925)

The mistress and the maid, c. 1896

Oil on cardboard

52 × 66 cm (20.5 × 26 in)

Private collection

Félix Edouard Vallotton (December 28, 1865 – December 29, 1925) was associated with the French post-impressionist group Les Nabis. He began his career as a painter, but he is best known for his stark black-and-white woodcuts. His scenes, which are often domestic in nature, are marked by simplified details and undifferentiated areas of shading. Vallotton was influenced by the works of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, which he saw in the Louvre as a young art student, as well as by Ukiyo-e Japanese prints, an Edo period art form that centered on depictions of cosmopolitan life. In his reductive woodcuts, Vallatton prefigured the visual sobriety of such disparate artists as August Sander and Edward Hopper. More on Félix Edouard Vallotton

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