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Lot Essay
Jacques Chalom des Cordes will include this work in the forthcoming Van Dongen catalogue raisonné currently being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.
Kees van Dongen was one of the greatest chroniclers of the high life of the 20th century. His pictures are redolent of the glamour and beauty both of the highest circles of society and of the demimonde--those involved in entertainment: dancers, singers and prostitutes. His was a world of sensation and sensuality, and this is perfectly conveyed in the elegant, elongated figures that bare so much of their flesh by the sea in his painting La plage à Deauville. Resort life is captured in all its glorious ease: pleasure boats float carelessly, pushed along by a summer breeze, while various other characters are shown swimming, drying themselves, sunning themselves, shading themselves.
During the era of Napoleon III, it was essentially Eugène Boudin who raised the image of a leisurely day on the beach to the status of a valid scene for artistic representation, yet Van Dongen appears to be revelling in the very modern pleasures that such activities involve, the modern clothing--lack thereof--that Boudin's era would not tolerate. La plage à Deauville is therefore a telling comment on and celebration of Van Dongen's own times and its various delights. It is also an exercise and comment within the realms of the history of modern painting, and of modern tastes. It is intriguing to compare Van Dongen's portrayal of this scene to those captured with such a difference in sights and in atmosphere by Boudin less than a century earlier. This is a reflection of the long appeal of Deauville as a resort to the French, and especially to the Parisians. Its popularity, initially as a health resort, was cemented by the construction of a convenient rail link from Paris to nearby Trouville. Even today, the glamorous hotels, racecourses and casino in Deauville continue to attract a wealthy clientele.
In La plage à Deauville, Van Dongen presents the whole spectrum of this beach scene, with life by, on and in the water. The spectrum notion is made all the more appropriate considering the boldness of the palette and the expressionistic brushstrokes that he has used in so many areas of the canvas. While the terracotta-red color of the figures on the beach is evocative of the healthy tan of the bathers, it also reflects the influence of Van Dongen's 1910 and 1913 voyages to Egypt, during and in the wake of which his figures often took on such a hue. Here, though, it is used to great effect to chronicle the lifestyle of luxury--of elegance and indolence on the coast.
Kees van Dongen was one of the greatest chroniclers of the high life of the 20th century. His pictures are redolent of the glamour and beauty both of the highest circles of society and of the demimonde--those involved in entertainment: dancers, singers and prostitutes. His was a world of sensation and sensuality, and this is perfectly conveyed in the elegant, elongated figures that bare so much of their flesh by the sea in his painting La plage à Deauville. Resort life is captured in all its glorious ease: pleasure boats float carelessly, pushed along by a summer breeze, while various other characters are shown swimming, drying themselves, sunning themselves, shading themselves.
During the era of Napoleon III, it was essentially Eugène Boudin who raised the image of a leisurely day on the beach to the status of a valid scene for artistic representation, yet Van Dongen appears to be revelling in the very modern pleasures that such activities involve, the modern clothing--lack thereof--that Boudin's era would not tolerate. La plage à Deauville is therefore a telling comment on and celebration of Van Dongen's own times and its various delights. It is also an exercise and comment within the realms of the history of modern painting, and of modern tastes. It is intriguing to compare Van Dongen's portrayal of this scene to those captured with such a difference in sights and in atmosphere by Boudin less than a century earlier. This is a reflection of the long appeal of Deauville as a resort to the French, and especially to the Parisians. Its popularity, initially as a health resort, was cemented by the construction of a convenient rail link from Paris to nearby Trouville. Even today, the glamorous hotels, racecourses and casino in Deauville continue to attract a wealthy clientele.
In La plage à Deauville, Van Dongen presents the whole spectrum of this beach scene, with life by, on and in the water. The spectrum notion is made all the more appropriate considering the boldness of the palette and the expressionistic brushstrokes that he has used in so many areas of the canvas. While the terracotta-red color of the figures on the beach is evocative of the healthy tan of the bathers, it also reflects the influence of Van Dongen's 1910 and 1913 voyages to Egypt, during and in the wake of which his figures often took on such a hue. Here, though, it is used to great effect to chronicle the lifestyle of luxury--of elegance and indolence on the coast.