NARRATOR:
In this early seascape, the great Impressionist master Claude Monet wonderfully conveys the freshness of the outdoors. There’s also a sound sense of structure; Monet arranged all his elements to create a rhythmic harmony. The rhythmic motions of jaunty sails, birds, and waves punctuate the scene, like musical notes on the choppy water.
The Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur is one of two canvases that Monet exhibited in his first show, at the Paris Salon of 1865. The Paris-born artist was only 25, and lacked regular academic training, but his work received immediate acclaim from artists, critics, and public alike. This picture was singled out for the most praise. In the influential Gazette des Beaux-Arts, the distinguished art critic Paul Mantz proclaimed:
CRITIC (ACTOR):
“The taste for harmonious schemes of color in the play of analogous tones, the feeling for values, the striking point of view of the whole, a bold manner of seeing things and of forcing the attention of the spectator—these are qualities that Monet already possesses in high degree. His Mouth of the Seine abruptly stopped us in passing, and we shall not forget it.”
NARRATOR:
When Monet painted this seascape in 1865, Impressionism was just developing. His early success at the Salon was short-lived. In 1867, for example, his entry was rejected. Over the next few years, Monet became friends with Édouard Manet, and began to work with Impressionist painters Renoir and Pissarro, whose pictures you’ll also find in the Norton Simon Museum. In 1874, in the first independent Impressionist group exhibition, Monet showed twelve paintings. One of them, Impression: Sunrise, gave the movement its name.
Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
1865
Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
On View
In 1865, a twenty-four-year-old Claude Monet made his Salon debut with this picture and its pendant (today in the Kimbell Art Museum), declaring an allegiance to Courbet, Manet, and the Realist avant-garde. We stand on a jetty looking across the harbor at Honfleur, a town on the Normandy Coast where the Seine empties into the English Channel. The sails of fishing boats swell with a wind that stiffens waves in the foreground and sends clouds rolling across the sky. For all its salty immediacy, the picture was painted not outdoors—en plein air—but back in Monet’s Paris studio, on the basis of sketches he had made on-site.
Details
- Artist Name: Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926)
- Title: Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
- Date: 1865
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 35-1/4 x 59-1/4 in. (89.5 x 150.5 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1973.33.2.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
The artist, sold 1865 for Ff 300 to;
Alfred Cadart, Paris.
Rousselle, sold 24 July 1922 to;
[Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, stock no. 23.095, sold 28 September 1922 to];
Georges Bernheim, Paris, still in 1924, possibly 1926.
Y. de Saint-Albin, Paris;
Jacques de Saint-Albin, Paris, by 1959.
Remond, Geneva.
[Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, by 1968, sold 1973 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Alfred Cadart, Paris.
Rousselle, sold 24 July 1922 to;
[Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, stock no. 23.095, sold 28 September 1922 to];
Georges Bernheim, Paris, still in 1924, possibly 1926.
Y. de Saint-Albin, Paris;
Jacques de Saint-Albin, Paris, by 1959.
Remond, Geneva.
[Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, by 1968, sold 1973 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
- Paris, Salon, to
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