TLF: "The Seine near Honfleur", 1933 [101]; "The Seine near Honfleur", 1933 Paris [102, Nr. 38]
Private collection USA
Provenance: 1934 sold from the exhibition at the Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA, to Mr. Charles J. Connick, Boston; 2004 Skinner, Boston, MA, lot 312, sold to the present owner
TLF: "In Paris, when I’d say that I would go to the Louvre, I meant; the Musée de Marine... The pull of it was a major factor in making me a painter. But – and here is an important discovery which came to me late in life, whereby possibly, answer might be made to that old and tiresome question of why I painted ships – not a marine artist but a poetic painter, depicting states of the soul.
I connect this discovery (which came to me only gradually) with the large composition “The Seine near Honfleur” which I painted soon after my return. I never asked myself whether it had really been necessary to travel to this place in this tiresome way, in order to paint a female figure and an old-time sailing ship, neither of which I had seen there. Painters don’t ask that kind of a question. I know whom the figure represents, the bark is just right for the mood (I had been reading The Rover by Joseph Conrad), and the beacon, visible just ahead of the jibboom of the bark, is authentic – I sketched it on this trip. And, since the mood came to me at the mouth of the river Seine, what could be more natural than to give the picture this title? It is luminous, it is serene – but luminosity and serenity we find elsewhere, too – this particular serenity belongs to the mud of Honfleur reflecting Heaven at ebbtide." [105]
Contribute
You are in possession of valuable information about this artwork and want it published on the website in the catalogue raisonné?
Please write to us:
.jpg)
Repro: WS
.jpg)
.jpg)
Contribute
.jpg)
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest