Alfred Stevens: The Sea

"Female Painter by Edge of the Sea" by Alfred Stevens

"Two events happened in 1880 in the life of Alfred Stevens. Firstly, the Paris authorities made a compulsory purchase of his house and demolished it to make a new road and passageway, which they named after the artist. This was not the only compensation. He was paid 300,000 francs as well. Secondly, he developed bronchial problems and was told to go to the seaside for some fresh air, instead of breathing in the turpentine fumes in the studio.

Stevens duly went off to Sainte Adresse for two months and took to painting the sea. The great dealer, Georges Petit, must have felt that an artist as good as Stevens could paint anything he chose to paint, and duly made a contract with him to take everything he painted in the two-month stay for 50,000 francs! It was a bold decision but a sound one because it would allow people without the resources of Vanderbilt or King Leopold to own a good painting with a famous signature.

Stevens embraced the sea as readily as he had embraced the subject of women. It was another inexhaustible theme - the sea and shore from calm to storm, with or without beaches, bathers, headlands, fishermen and seagulls. To a painter of cashmere shawls and undulating silk fabrics, Stevens was acutely aware of every nuance of color, sea, sky and shore presented him with. 

Of course, he soon realized the potential of combining his two subjects. We find ladies at the beach and, often, single figures stand at the water's edge looking with longing for the return of a vessel bearing their loved one. His routine took him to the Channel coast in summer and the Riviera in winter."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Alfred Stevens" by Paul Mitchell.)