Wednesday, October 22, 2014

(Not-So-) Wordless Wednesday: Mom's 1953 Europe Road Trip - Impressionists

From Mom's Europe trip diary, in the "PLACES VISITED" section: 
October 22, Thursday – Road between Paris and Rouen, France
Checked out of hotel - went to the Museum where the French Impressionists are.*  Really did like these paintings especially Renoir, Van Gogh, Monet, and Sisley.  Left Paris for Rouen where we plan to spend night** before going on to Le Havre.

* Mom would have seen the Impressionist paintings at what is now the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, which was constructed in 1861 during the reign of Napoleon III. The building originally contained tennis courts (jeu de paume is French for tennis).  During World War II, the Nazis used the building as a place to store much of the art they looted from private collections.  From 1947 to 1986, the building contained the Musée du Jeu de Paume, and held many important impressionist works now housed in today's Musée d'Orsay.

The pictures that follow are by the four Impressionists Mom particularly liked, and I have verified they were at the Jeu de Paume in the year she visited it.  All of them are now at the Orsay.  Furthermore, I have chosen paintings that were done in towns that Mom conceivably could have passed through on her way to Rouen:  Asnières-sur-Seine and Argenteuil.
Le restaurant de la Sirène à Asnières [Mermaid Restaurant at Asnières-sur-Seine. Oil on canvas, 1887] / Vincent van Gogh / Public domain
La Seine à Argenteuil [The Seine River at Argenteuil. Oil on canvas, circa 1873, edited] / Pierre-Auguste Renoir / Public domain



Rue de la Chaussée à Argenteuil [Causeway Street at Argenteuil. Oil on canvas, 1872] / Alfred Sisley / Public domain
La Cathédrale de Rouen. Le Portail et la tour Saint-Romain, plein soleil
[Rouen Cathedral. Portal and Saint-Romain Tower, full sunlight. Oil on canvas, 1893]
/ Claude Monet / Public domain

** According to the "HOTELS STOPPED AT" section of the trip diary, my mother and her friends stayed at the Hotel de la Poste in Rouen on their last night in Europe.

Here is the map for this day and the next:



This is the 76th in a series of posts transcribing entries in my mother's 1953 Europe Trip journal.


© Amanda Pape - 2014 - click here to e-mail me.

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