Morning at Antibes by Monet in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, January 2012

Morning at Antibes

Claude Monet, French, 1840 - 1926

Geography: Made in France, Europe

Date: 1888

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 25 7/8 x 32 5/16 inches (65.7 x 82.1 cm) Framed: 35-3/4 x 41-3/4 x 5"

Curatorial Department: European Painting before 1900, Johnson Collection

Object Location: Gallery 157, European Art 1850-1900, first floor

Accession Number: 1978-1-22

Credit Line: Bequest of Charlotte Dorrance Wright, 1978

Additional information:
Publication- Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art

The ancient walled city of Antibes is a hazy, ethereal presence across the sea in this painting of the Mediterranean coast, in which Monet's smooth brushwork evokes the heat of the morning and the languid stillness of the landscape. At the suggestion of the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, the artist visited Antibes on the Mediterranean Sea from January to April 1888. During the 1880s Monet increasingly explored areas beyond Paris and Normandy in search of fresh, appealing motifs. Sometimes these ventures into new territory were accompanied by doubts and challenges, as in the south, where the brilliant sun troubled Monet. He wrote to his companion and future wife, Alice Hoschedé, from Antibes: "How beautiful it is here, to be sure, but how difficult to paint! I can see what I want to do quite clearly but I'm not there yet. It's so clear and pure in its pinks and blues that the slightest misjudged stroke looks like a smear of dirt."1 Despite Monet's misgivings about his ability to evoke Mediterranean light, in June 1888 the dealer Theo van Gogh, Vincent's brother, bought and exhibited ten paintings that Monet made at Antibes, this work among them. Jennifer A. Thompson, from Masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Impressionism and Modern Art (2007), p. 72.

Note:
1) Quoted in Monet by Himself: Paintings, Drawings, Pastels, Letters, ed. Richard Kendall (London: Macdonald Orbis, 1989), p. 126.


Text from: www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/72108.html?mulR=965157460|1