Jameson Rowley
History of Modern Art
Mysoon Rizk
April 19, 2012
Antibes Seen From La Salis Extra Credit Paper
When guests are walking through the Impressionist Gallery at the Toledo Museum of Art two paintings by Claude Monet are on display, and hang side by side for them to see. The first is one I spoke of in a previous paper entitled Water Lilies (1914 – 1917), and the second Monet painting is entitled Antibes Seen From La Salis (1888). Antibes Seen From La Salis (1888) is a painting Monet created in impressionistic form which displays the shoreline, and cityscape of the city of Antibes seen from across the water in La Salis. Although this painting is not of Water Lilies as is most of Monet’s works, Antibes Seen From La Salis (1888), is still very much a masterfully crafted piece which was what invoked me to want to study this painting in further detail.
The craftsmanship in the painting can be seen in its bold brushstrokes and intricate detail. The bold, bright work certainly gives the viewer a descriptive impression of what it would be like to be standing in the place of Monet when it was created. It is a very colorful painting, and is very easy on the eye. You can definitely get a sense of what you are viewing when looking at this work although you may not now the specific location the painting depicts. It is certainly not an abstract type of painting, but was made to give viewers an impression of the scene Monet depicted.
Created in 1888, and an oil on canvas work Antibes Seen From La Salis (1888) was purchased by the Toledo Museum of Art in 1929 with funds from the Libbey Endowment. Document sheets which are available in the Toledo Museum of Art’s reference library, and are also attached to this research paper show that this painting had but one previous owner, Paul Durand – Ruel of Paris from 1892 – 1921. Durand’s father was a very successful art dealer himself, and over time Paul took up the family’s practice of dealing art. He was an important advocate, and also a very successful art dealer of the Barbizon school. He later became influential in Impressionist circles, and would later successfully deal Impressionist art as well. The two pages of documents also shows that this painting has been on display at exhibitions around the globe over the span of its lifetime in places like Paris, London, New York, Chicago, and Montreal to name a few.
In the TMA close by the painting a plaque on the wall hangs next to Monet’s Antibes Seen From La Salis which gives an interesting take on the artist, and work of art. The plaque’s description reads:
[The shimmering light of the mid-afternoon infuses Claude Monet’s painting of the old fortified coastal town of Antibes in the South of France. Monet travelled there in January of 1888 and was dazzled by the light and the striking scenery of the legendary Cote d’ Azur (Azure Coast). However, he sometimes struggled with how to represent it on canvas, writing to his friend the sculptor Auguste Rodin, ‘I’m fencing and wrestling with the sun. And what a sun it is! In order to paint here one would need gold and precious stones.’
Monet chose to paint this view from the vantage point of the Garden of La Salis looking across the water to Antibes. He positioned himself at the bottom of the garden, close to the water. A large twisting olive tree dominates the composition, and Antibes sparkles in the distance. His efforts to express the light and color of the Mediterranean fulfilled a promise to his companion, Alice Hoschede, that what he would paint in Antibes would be ‘Sweetness itself, white, pink, blue, all of it enveloped in this fairy – tale like air.]
For me this quote on the plaque which was created by an employee of the Toledo Museum of Art really sums up this painting well. It provided me with significant detail which really shed some light on the painting. Having realized that, I feel that it was an important piece of literature to include in this paper.
The plaque is important because it gives the title of the work, the name of the creator of the work, and also it gives the year it was completed, three very important facts for viewers of any piece art. Other than the title, artist, and year it was created, the inscription also clued me in about what I was looking at in the picture. Without having read it next to the painting on the plaque I would not have known that I was looking at Antibes seen from La Salis, and also that the water in between the two places was water of the Mediterranean. I also wondered what kind of tree was on the painting, because it took up so much of the canvas, and I was also able to learn that it was in fact an olive tree.
Today the price of this painting may range anywhere from a million dollars to several million dollars if not more. It was created by one of the most important and well known painters in modern art, who was also the father of the Impressionist movement Claude Monet. It is a very beautiful painting to look at, and also tends to frequently attract visitors to it. Antibes Seen From La Salis (1888) fits in well with its surroundings in the Toledo Museum of Art, and is a great piece of history. I think its place in the TMA helps to accentuate Claude Monet as an artist being that it hangs only a few feet from another Monet painting, and it can give you a happy first impression of the museum after entering it, something that may help to convince a visitor to make a return visit to the museum in the future.
In conclusion I’d like to say that Antibes Seen From La Salis is a great addition to the Toledo Museum of Art’s collection of Impressionist art. Monet was one of the most famous painters of his time, and his art is very deserving of the praise that goes along with each work. If you have never had the opportunity to see this painting in person, and sometime have the time to, I strongly urge you to see it.
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