Jacques-Émile Blanche, The Beach at Dieppe

by Atelier Liesjes

The beach of a seaside resort on the English Channel, seen from slightly above. To the left, the water stretches out in a pale green, almost milky-white hue; dozens of bathers are swimming in it, small dark dots with the occasional pair of red swimming trunks, and further out on the water lies a rowing boat with a figure at the oars. Groups of people are standing and sitting on the wide sandy beach: women in dark dresses and large straw hats, men in black coats, children in red swimsuits. In the foreground sits a woman in a yellow dress with a white hat, a child beside her; to the right, the coastline rises towards the town’s houses and the chalk cliffs. On the horizon, the sea is barely distinguishable from the sky; so pale is the transition. Blanche paints with swift, open brushstrokes and leaves much of the canvas unpainted, giving the impression that light is shining through. The colours are bright and cool: sea green, ivory white, sandy yellow, with dark areas in the clothing serving as a counterbalance. The style is Impressionist, akin to the work of Boudin and to French beach painting of the 1880s; the subject is not the sea but modern leisure life on the coast. The paint is applied in short, fleeting brushstrokes, as if the scene had been captured on the spot in a matter of hours. Jacques-Émile Blanche (Paris 1861 – Paris 1942) grew up in an artistic milieu and developed into a versatile portraitist of Parisian society. He exhibited at the Salon and in London, painted writers and musicians such as Proust and Debussy, and spent his summers on the Normandy coast. His beach scenes were created during the same years in which Boudin and Monet were also exploring the Normandy coast. A vibrant, sunny work for a contemporary interior.