Museum Description This museum is intended for guests to focus on the beauty and the variety that relates to the ocean, beaches, and sea. There is a blindside to the importance of the beach and the multitude of things it can provide to a person. I want to display a multitude of pieces, whether it be beach goers, sea life swimming in the ocean, basking in the sunlight, surfers, and more! Beach culture, life, and the beauty and different states the beach can be, also showing the different types of beaches and the power and craziness to the ocean, as well.
Impact Statement The soothing calmness of the ocean provide a state of serenity to all who experience. The ocean can heal in many ways and provide a feeling of connection standing in the water, basking in the sun or moonlight. While viewing the pieces in this museum, I want guests to leave with a new sense of connectivity to the beach and a new point of view that draws them to the beach or to try something new that the beach has to offer. The ocean can be both inviting and intimidating, there is a beautiful combination to it. The ocean is ever changing and a vast place that can be both beautiful and scary, it just depends on how you view or treat it, and what you do to experience it.
Invitational Shores
In this room, you will be transformed to one of the many stages the beach has to offer. This room displays the exciting and welcoming pleasantries the beach has to offer to individuals. In these pieces we see how the artists make us feel as though we are standing on the shore observing everything happen around us.
Zinaida Serebrikova, Menton Beach with Umbrellas, 1931
Content: This piece displays a perfect way to thoroughly enjoy a day at the beach, endeavoring in all it has to offer. Whether it be relaxing in a beach chair, taking a walk down the shore, or take a dive into the crisp ocean waves. Due to the brightness of the piece, and the necessity of umbrellas (as stated in the title), we can infer that it is a sunny day, perfect for all the previously stated activities.
Mary Cassatt, Children Playing On The Beach, 1884
Context: Mary Cassatt was an American artist who lived in France for most of her life and career. This piece is rumored to be a nostalgic tribute to Cassatt's younger sister who died just 2 years prior in 1882, (Specific Context). Cassatt was in such pain after losing her beloved sister that she did not paint for 6 months after. This piece demonstrates Cassatt's ability to capture the natural attitude of children. She centered the attention of the painting on the girls, treating the seascape background more loosely.
Theo Van Rysselberghe, The Burning Time, 1897
Form: The combination of vibrant orange and yellow hues in contrast to the darker blues and purples envelope the viewer into a warm hug that feel as though they had just been covered in layers of sand. This piece truly belongs in this room since it shows how welcoming and hospitable and inviting the beach can be. The gaggle of women in this piece purely enjoying one another company, be it on the sand or playing in the shallow shore, goes to show what a variety of activities one can do at the beach.
William Merritt Chase, At the Seaside, 1892
Form: (Composition) This painting features a broad expanse of families scattered across the shoreline of the beach, relaxing and enjoying the scenery of painted fluffy white clouds in the sky that echo the white of the children's dresses and parasol in contrast to the rigid waves of the deep blue sea. In opposition to the blue hues of this piece are the standout umbrellas of this piece, which pop out due to their distinct vermilion and chartreuse color.
Treacherous Seas
In opposition to the welcoming and inviting impression the warm sand and light splashes of a beach can provide for an individual, there's the darker part to the great sea. The further you venture from the shore and the mainland the closer you get to the powerful and viscous side of the ocean. In room 2, you are tossed into the haunting experience that is the deep sea. These pieces showcase how truly terrifying it can be, and the dangers and destruction the sea can cause.
Jean Pillement, A Shipwreck in a Storm, 1782
Content: This piece depicts the horrors an angry storm can turn a once calm ocean into a monstrous sea. With a shipwreck being nearly moment away from sinking, our eyes get directed away from one tragedy and move to the chaos of the survivors just barely managing to emerge from the sea onto the craggy cliff of a nearby collection of rocks. Simply putting yourself in the shoes of the woman with her hands projected up and outward, you are transformed into the horrors of the untamable ocean.
Ivan Aivazovsky, The Shipwreck on Northern Sea, 1865
Form: Similarly to other pieces in this room, Aivazovsky captures the horrific beauty of an oceanic storm. Utilizing the dark colors associated with a storm, in contrast to the moonlight brightness reflecting upon the midnight sea, we see how mesmerizing the horror can be. With the use of realism it is almost as though we are seeing this in person. The scale of this piece is simply haunting. The fleeing victims of the shipwreck in the foreground create the illusion as though the ship is tiny in comparison to the large and open sky and the crashing waves of the sea.
Winslow Homer, Northeaster, 1895
Context: This artwork shows how even out of harms way, unbeknownst to anyone, the ocean can still be a dangerous place, even if its simply waves crashing on a rock. Homers painting depicts the struggle between the sea and the rocky shore during a violent winter storm. The title of the piece "Northeaster" refers to the phrase, nor'easter, which is a particularly intense and long-lasting storm. (Specific) When Homer first exhibited the piece in 1895, it included 2 men crouching on the rocks. However in 1901, he returned to the painting and removed the men, intensifying the spray from the waves. This change was an example of Homer's shift in focus from depicting the relationship between humans and nature to focusing on the power of nature itself.
Horace Vernet, Stormy Coast Scene After a Shipwreck, 1820
Content: With the ongoing use of shipwrecks to depict the treacherous seas, this piece depicts the survivors of an unseen ship that has crashed on a rocky shore during a violent storm. The painting depicts a scene of chaos, with waves crashing upon the rocky shore. The survivors of the assumed shipwreck are exhausted, distraught, or grateful to have made it ashore, or at least those who made it out seemingly alive. Upon further inspection we can see a man holding who we can imagine to be his wife who if not dead is unconscious in his arms as a result of their previous life threatening situation.
The Calm
As the saying goes, the sun will come out after the storm, and so comes the calm. While sticking relevant to theme, Following Room 2, the Treacherous sea, comes our 3rd and final room in the museum, The calm. Similar to the first room, our final room displays the beautiful stillness and somewhat healing aspects you can go through in the presence of the sea.
John Frederick Kensett, Sunset, 1872
Context: Artist John Frederick Kensett was an American landscape painter and engraver born in Cheshire, Connecticut. He specified on landscape because he wanted to celebrate the divine qualities of nature while conveying a sense of the American spirit. Kensett's signature style was a combination of grays, but in his late career he used a warmer, more saturated palette, as we can see in this piece. Sunset and other later pieces would use light and color to explore a wider range of aesthetic possibilities.
James Hamilton, Beach Scene, 1865
Form: In this piece we are hit with a multitude of colors, of those we notice the primary cool blue hues that seem to overtake the light warm sunset like colors. While looking at this piece it is almost as though the storm phase or darker colors are leaving the scene (or rolling in) and the light orange and peachy colors are leaving as the sunlight dims. On theme with the calm, we notice an implied texture in the middle foreground that appears to be a group of people crowded on the shoreline. This tells us that they are in a serene state, careless of the coming or going storm.
Peter Severin Krøyer, Boys Bathing at Skagen. Summer Evening, 1899
Content: This piece encapsulates the innocence and purity as well as the calm side of the ocean. In opposition to the wild reckless ocean, this piece shows the complete and utter calmness in which 2 young boys are seen bathing in it. Regarding the ocean to something as harmless and still as a bath is believable when viewing this painting. With a boat drifting through the night breeze and the boys both sitting on the shore and and carefully gliding through the shallow depth of the ocean, basking in the moonlit water puts into perspective how calm the ocean can truly be.
George Lemmen, Beach at Heist, 1891
Form: George Lemmen managed to create a tight network of tiny round or oval dots arranged horizontally on the canvas which allowed him to create distinct colored zones clearly separated by a line of complementary colors. These shapes took on weird, anti-naturalist contours such as the huge bluish cloud which seems to invade the sky. Lemmen Created an almost TV static appearance to his piece nearly looking unreal. The compelling and differing colors tie to the calm and relaxing idealism in which they seem almost nostalgic creating a sense of calmness.
I hope each and every one of you have thoroughly enjoyed your trip through my museum and that I have been able to enlighten you to the beauty and variety that relates to the ocean, beaches, and sea. To fully understand the diverse sea, one must view the ocean at each stage, whether it be the welcoming shores, the monstrous open ocean, or the serene calmness of an empty beach. With an open mind and willingness to learn, I hope you can find a new found appreciation or connection for the ocean, as intended.