01 Classic Work of Art, Marine Paintings, Edmond Marie Petitjean’s Ships at the Port of Antwerp – With Footnotes, #219

Edmond Marie Petitjean (1844-1925)
Navires au Port d’Anvers/ Ships at the Port of Antwerp, c. 1883
Oil on canvas
15 x 23 1/2in (38.2 x 59.8cm)
Private collection

Antwerp’s potential as a seaport was recognized by Napoleon Bonaparte and he ordered the construction of Antwerp’s first lock and dock in 1811. Called the Bonaparte Dock, it was joined by a second dock – called the Willem Dock after the Dutch King – in 1813. When the Belgian Revolution broke out in 1830, there was a well-founded fear that the Dutch would blockade the Scheldt again but, in the event, they contented themselves with levying a stiff toll. Fortunately, the young Belgium had friends in Britain and particularly in the person of Lord Palmerston, who believed the existence of Belgium would be beneficial to Britain, and that, in consequence, it was important to make sure that the newly born state was economically viable.

With his support, the Belgian government was able to redeem the Dutch Toll in 1863. By that time, the Kattendijk Dock had been completed in 1860 and the all important Iron Rhine Railway to the Ruhr had been finished in 1879. Antwerp then experienced a second golden age and by 1908 eight docks had been constructed. The opening of the Royers Lock, commenced in 1905, meant that ships drawing up to 31 feet (9.4 m) of water were able to enter the existing docks and access the new Lefèbvre and America docks. Such was the situation at the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. The British, and Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, in particular were well aware of the Port of Antwerp’s strategic importance, so much so that Churchill arrived in Antwerp on 4 October 1914 to take charge of the defence of the city and its port. More on the Port of Antwerp

Edmond Marie Petitjean, 1844 – 1925, French, was born at Neufchâteau in the Vosges. His father, a lawyer, did not allow him to study art until he had completed courses at the Faculty of Law at Nancy. From that moment, he abandoned the law and was able to devote himself entirely to his artistic career. Success followed swiftly; his work was well received at the exhibition of the Lorraine Society of the Friends of Arts, and then, in 1873, he made a brilliant début at the salon in Paris.

He was awarded an honorable mention in 1881, and a bronze medal in 1884; hors-concours, and a silver medal in 1885; a silver medal in 1889 at the Exposition Universelle, the Legion of Honor in 1892, and a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900; he was a member of the jury and of the Committee of the Artistes Français for many years.

Yet Edmond was never satisfied with his own work: “In my painting, I have searched passionately for perfections, delicacy, tenderness of expression and tone; and I feel that it will all crumble and become insipid in the Salon where, in order to elbow one’s way in, one most by violent.”

All those aspects of nature which Petitjean loved appear in his work. He could see the picturesque detail and transcribe it in full; sensitive to color, but wary of its violence. He loved the countryside, and his vision was essentially that of a country man, his inclinations leading him to the peace of rural surroundings.

Petitjean is perhaps best known for his depiction of the countryside and villages of Lorraine and Vendée. He did, however, find inspiration further afield – in the harbors of le Hâvre, Dunkerque, les Sables d’Olonne, Dieppe, Rotterdam, Bordeaux and the neighboring coastline. More on Edmond Marie Petitjean

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01 CLASSIC WORKS OF ART, MARINE PAINTINGS – WITH FOOTNOTES, #99

Eugène Boudin, (1824–1898)

Navires dans le Port à Honfleur/ Ships in the Port at Honfleur, c. 1856

Oil on wood panel

Height: 20.3 cm (8 in). Width: 26.5 cm (10.4 in).

Princeton University Art Museum

Honfleur is a commune in the Calvados department in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. Its inhabitants are called Honfleurais.

It is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement. The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood in France.

 

Located on the estuary of one of the principal rivers of France with a safe harbour and relatively rich hinterland, Honfleur profited from its strategic position from the start of the Hundred Years’ War. The town’s defences were strengthened by Charles V in order to protect the estuary of the Seine from attacks from the English. This was supported by the nearby port of Harfleur. However, Honfleur was taken and occupied by the English in 1357 and from 1419 to 1450. When under French control, raiding parties often set out from the port to ransack the English coasts, including partially destroying the town of Sandwich, in Kent, England, in the 1450s.  More on Honfleur

Eugène Louis Boudin; 12 July 1824 – 8 August 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. 

Born at Honfleur, Boudin was the son of a harbor pilot, and at age 10 the young boy worked on a steamboat that ran between Le Havre and Honfleur. In 1835 the family moved to Le Havre, where Boudin’s father opened a store for stationery and picture frames. Here the young Eugene worked, later opening his own small shop. In his shop, in which pictures were framed, Boudin came into contact with artists working in the area and exhibited in the shop their paintings. At the age of 22 he started painting full-time, and traveled to Paris the following year and then through Flanders. In 1850 he earned a scholarship that enabled him to move to Paris, although he often returned to paint in Normandy and, from 1855, made regular trips to Brittany.

In 1857/58 Boudin befriended the young Claude Monet, then only 18, and persuaded him to give up his teenage caricature drawings and to become a landscape painte. The two remained lifelong friends and Monet later paid tribute to Boudin’s early influence. Boudin joined Monet and his young friends in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1873, but never considered himself a radical or innovator.

Late in his life he returned to the south of France as a refuge from ill-health, and recognizing soon that the relief it could give him was almost spent, he returned to his home at Deauville, to die within sight of Channel waters and under the Channel skies he had painted so often. More on Eugène Louis Boudin

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Thank you for visiting my blog and also for liking its posts and pages.