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Impressionism & Post-Impressionism
Georges Seurat - Beach at Gravelines 1890Beach at Gravelines |
Johannes Vermeer - The Girl with a Pearl Earring 1665. It is not a portrait, but a ‘tronie’ – a painting of an imaginary figure. Tronies depict a certain type or character; in this case a girl in exotic dress, wearing an oriental turban and an improbably large pearl in her ear. ArtsViewer.com |
From Courtauld Institute of Art, London:
This view looking out to sea was taken from the beach in the town of Gravelines, on the coast of Northern France. Seurat liked to spend the summers by the sea, away from Paris. The sketch, painted a year before the artist’s death at the age of 31, is almost abstract in its simplification. A boat at the centre of the composition marks the horizon. Particles of sand have been found embedded in the paint, suggesting that Seurat painted this panel in the open air.
(Permanent collection label)