it’s impossible to think of Normandy without thinking of the Impressionist movement, for which the region was a great source of inspiration.
2024 is a very eventful year in Normandy, and you won’t want to miss the Normandy Impresionnist festival, celebrating 150 years of the famous movement.
Impressionism is a French painting movement from the second half of the 19th century. It marked modern art’s break with academicism, and is certainly the most popular pictorial movement in the history of art. The painters of this period wanted to break away from the overly strict rules imposed by the Academy. Impressionism began with a group of artists (including Eugène Boudin, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas , Alfred Sisley and Pierre August Renoir) who exhibited together 8 times between 1876 and 1886. Their favorite subjects were landscapes (the Seine, train stations, factories, the city) and modern life. (dance halls, opera, cabarets).
They often worked outdoors, using a palette of light colors to capture the light. Impressionist canvases lack detail and precise contours, which sometimes gives the paintings an “unfinished” appearance. They juxtapose small, visible, free and rapid strokes.
The Musée d’Orsay houses the largest Impressionist collection in the world. This year, 178 works have left the museum to be loaned to 34 regional museums, many of them in Normandy.
The special feature of this festival is that the paintings will be exhibited in numerous cultural venues in Normandy, in public spaces and in the region’s natural surroundings.
At Jumièges Abbey, for example, there will be an exhibition of sculptural works and video projections until September 25.
Flora Moscovici will be on show at the Hangar à dirigeables in Ecausseville. The 2024 edition will close at the Moulin d’Andé, north of the Seine in the Eure department.
For the full festival program, click here:
https://www.normandie-tourisme.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/festival-normandie-impressionniste-programme-web.pdf
Don’t miss the exhibitions in magnificent museums such as the Franciscaines in Deauville (“Floating world, from Japonism to contemporary art”), the Musée des Impressionnistes in Giverny (“Impressionism and the sea”), or the Musée Eugène Boudin in Honfleur (“In the company of Eugène Boudin”).
Foreign artists will also be celebrated. Such is the case of US-born Robert Wilson, also known as Bob Wilson. He will be the director of the Sound and Light show projected onto Rouen Cathedral. The show is free until the end of September. So make the most of it!
All these magnificent sites are just a stone’s throw from Belle Isle sur Risle, and our hotel is a wonderful base from which to discover the festival. When you stay with us, you’ll also be able to enjoy the colors of the Risle River, the sunsets over our park with its century-old trees, and the beauty of the Normandy countryside so often depicted in Impressionist works.
