Series - The Beach in Art

"Crane Neck Across the Marsh", 1841.
William Sidney Mount excelled in the art of landscape painting, but he will not be associated with the Hudson River School. He painted the daily life of Long Island farmers, drawing inspiration from English genre paintings. Mount also paints the black community he always represents in a dignified manner.
Although William Sidney Mount became known as a genre artist, some of his most interesting paintings are landscape studies like this one, which captures the hazy, refracted sunlight on a North Shore beach in low tide. Unlike genre scenes produced in the studio, this painting was executed largely outdoors; towards the end of his life, Mount himself concluded that "my best pictures are those I painted outdoors"
Setting sun with Georges Lemmen, "The Beach at Heist" from 1891.
Atypical painting by the sculptor Aristide Maillol, “Woman with an umbrella”, 1895.
Joaquín Sorolla, “Promenade by the sea” from 1909, certainly a little late as an impressionist (he came to Paris to meet them) but perhaps we should look at it with an even more contemporary approach.
I particularly like the way he posed these two women against a totally abstract background made of large brushed touches of color.
Maurice Denis, "The Sand Castle", 1909.
Maurice Denis, “Jeux sur le sable”, 1912. Very bare for the time, no?
Félix Vallotton, “The White Strike, Vasouy”, 1913
Terrific framing for a painting from 1913. Vallotton was influenced by both photographic technique (he used it) and Japanese prints (which he collected). Vallotton landscaper did not place his easel in front of the landscape to paint. He is a painter of distance. He surveyed the landscapes, walked with a sketchbook, he took notes, sitting then standing, resulting in visions that were not always very natural. He would put numbers in areas on his sketch and indicate the colors. And once he got home, sometimes several days sometimes several weeks later, he would apply the color. Which justifies the sometimes unrealistic impression of colors.
Want a vacation, sun and beach, this is something to have fun with, with one of my favorite painters who does not, I think, have the notoriety he deserves.
Henri Lebasque (1865-1937), “The beach of Saint Jean de Monts”, 1918.
When my grandfather, Aimé Maeght, started out in Cannes by offering a few paintings in his printing shop, he sold several paintings by this post-impressionist who lived in Le Cannet, not far from Pierre Bonnard's home.
Delicious work on paper by Pierre Bonnard, "The Beach".
Henri Matisse, “High seas or high tide”, 1920.
The sea in the morning had so much to tell us
I only listened to you...
The sea and the sun never end
although they whispered, they sneaked their songs
through the shutter I only listened to you...
A day in the sun, poem by Claude Roy.
“Two women running on the beach (the race)”, 1922.
What is striking about this work is its incredible movement, its extraordinary vitality and the immense force that emanates from it, however, this painting is a paradox, because it is a small format of a few centimeters on each side, 32 .5cm x 41.1cm. Picasso sets in motion the classically inspired bodies that he created in monumental formats during the summer of 1921. Picasso elongates the necks, arms and limbs, in the manner of Renaissance artists.
With Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, Picasso observed the dancers, he even married the ballerina Olga Khokhlova. This small gouache will be enlarged in 1924 for the stage curtain of the ballet "Le Train Bleu", music by Darius Milhaud, libretto by Jean Cocteau, sets by Henri Laurens, costumes by Coco Chanel, just that!
In 1922, Picasso spent the summer in Dinard for the first time, with Olga and their son Paulo. Sea bathing became more and more all the rage in the early 1920s and became a social and worldly activity. Swimsuits are getting shorter and women's bodies are becoming freer.
Sonia Delaunay's boldness in colors and patterns for beach swimsuits from the 1920s.
We always have to discover, even with Picasso, “Three women on the edge of a beach”, 1924.
Picasso "Nude on the Beach", 1929.
What do you say about this little connection that I have concocted for you?
A photo of the sculptural Marie-Thérèse Walter on the beach and her interpretation by Pablo Picasso "Baigneuse au ballon", 1929.
Joan Miró, “The Bather”, 1932.
François Boisrond, “Beach Dream”, 1986.
Jack Vettriano, "The Singing Butler", 1992.
Masterpiece, photo George Hoyningen-Huene for Vogue, 1930.
Vogue January 1944. Photo John Rawlings.
The beach seen by Clifford Coffin in 1949 for Vogue.
Photo Clifford Coffin for Vogue, November 1950.
John Rawlings for Vogue.
Pablo Picasso, Françoise Gilot and Claude. Photo Robert Capa, all the same.
Françoise Gilot, the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most joyful. over 100 years now and almost the same energy.
Pablo Picasso and Jacques Prévert, rare color photo by Robert Doisneau.