A weekend in Normandie — Musée Musings

From Beuvron to Cabourg, Deauville to Dives, and Le Havre to Rouen. Oh My!

Me in Dives-sur-Mers Arts Center, filled with references to William the Conqueror

Bienvenue and welcome back to Musée Musings, your idiosyncratic guide to Paris and art. This week, rather than offer a review of a particular exhibition, this is a review of a particular weekend in Normandie. It wasn’t a new destination, I have stayed in Deauville (famous for its American Film Festival) a couple of times and visited Honfleur (Impressionists), Bayeux (tapestries) and Rouen (cathedral and Monet’s paintings of it). Deauville wasn’t really my kind of place - too many high end boutiques in too small a place. Apparently Deauville was where wealthy men brought their wives and nearby (working class) Trouville was where they kept their mistresses.

Last year, I went to Cabourg for the first time. Proust stayed at the Grand Hotel, I did too. Well, he stayed for months during the ‘season’ every year for years and I stayed for a couple of days in February. His room had a view of the sea and mine had a view of the town. He rented the room above his so he didn’t hear people walking around. I was happy for modern sound proofing. Proust’s fictional seaside town Balbec was inspired by Cabourg. Both have a waterfront hotel called the Grand-Hôtel. (Figs 1, 2)

Figure 2. Proust’s Bedroom, Grand Hotel, Cabourg

Cabourg is just the right size and has just the right kind of High Street - with boulangeries, patisseries and fromageries. And now it even has a museum, the Villa du Temps Retrouvé. It’s Proust but not only. Each year, there’s a temporary exhibition celebrating someone who lived during the Belle Epoque (1871-1914). This year, it’s Louis Pasteur. I’ll see the exhibition when the museum reopens in March. (Fig 3)

Figure 3. Louis Pasteur exhibition, Villa du temps retrouvé Cabourgę

I am never satisfied with going only one place to see only one thing. As I was preparing for my Cabourg visit last February, I tumbled upon this fact: David Hockney’s home in Beuvron sur Auge is very close to Cabourg. I fell in love with his Beuvron inspired paintings when I saw them at a private gallery during the pandemic and at a temporary exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie. Last year I went to Beuvron, wearing a striped top hoping to blend in with the half timbered houses that Hockney depicts so well in his own way. (Figs 4, 5) And I stumbled upon the best restaurant ever - the Pavé d’Auge.

Figure 4. Beuvron en Auge’s half timber houses

Figure 5. Beuvron en Auge seen through David Hockney’s eyes

When it came time to decide where to go for a house swap in July and simultaneously avoid Paris during the Olympics, I knew where I wanted to go. No houses were available in Cabourg, but I found one in Dives-sur-Mer - a small village just down the beach from Cabourg. I fell in love with it.

When February rolled around this year, it was back to Cabourg. Alas, 2 nights at the Grand Hotel wasn’t in the cards but 3 nights in a small apartment across the street and on the beach, was. On the way to Cabourg I had planned to stop in Caen, to eat at Le Mancel, the Chateau’s little restaurant with the creative chef. Thank goodness I booked because I got a message the night before saying that the restaurant was closed due to technical issues - I hope it has nothing to do with the young, inventive chef.

A quick look at the map and there was Le Havre, where I had never been. So that’s where I went. Le Havre’s port is the second largest in France (second only to Marseille). And it’s France’s largest container port. Which may not be great for the town’s continued prosperity if Trump’s tariffs make French products too expensive for Americans to buy.

What sealed the deal for for me is this: there’s a museum along the port. The Museum of Modern Art Andre Malraux, referred to as MuMA, which I don’t quite understand. Mu for Musée, okay. MA works in English (Modern Art) but not in French. Shouldn’t it be MaAm since it’s the Musee d’Art Moderne & André Malraux? Never mind.

Why name the museum after André Malraux? He was the Minister of Culture during the reconstruction of Le Havre, when the museum opened in 1961. Under Malraux’s leadership lots of excellent things happened (culturally speaking). For example, he instituted a law protecting historical buildings and places from being demolished. The first two places that benefited were the Marais in Paris and the town of Sarlat in the Dordogne. Another of his marvelous ideas - a law to encourage people who inherit art to donate it to the state to lower their inheritance taxes. Passed in 1968, it benefited Picasso’s heirs when he died in 1973. And benefited the state with the Picasso Museum in Paris. It continues to benefit the country as heirs continue to donate their art. MuMa is a recipient of such a donation, which is the subject of the current exhibition.

As it stands facing the sea, MuMa is definitely a modern museum even if it is 65 years old. Its vast, flexible space, within its glass and steel envelop, rests on a few posts and sits on a concrete base. The museum is bathed in natural light, the same changing light that inspired so many of the painters whose work is displayed in the museum.

The paintings here, according to the museum, enter into a “dialogue with the elements of the maritime landscape, offering the visitor what the artist Dufy demanded for himself: ‘… a certain quality of light, a scintillation, an aerial palpitation…'" (Figs 6-8)

Figure 6. Musée de l’arte moderne, André Malraux, Le Havre

Figure 7. Me getting ready to walk into MuMa, Le Havre

Although the museum’s collection includes a few paintings from the 15th to the 18th centuries (which are jarring to see) the bulk of the collection is 19th and early 20th centuries, mostly French. According to the museum’s website, MuMA’s impressionist painting collection is second only to that of the Musée d’Orsay. There are paintings by artists who lived and worked in Normandy like Monet, Corot and Boudin (more and better paintings here than in the Boudin Museum in Honfleur) as well as Delacroix, Courbet and Degas. The list is a who’s who of French modern art.

What cinched the deal for me was the temporary exhibition about the collector Olivier Senn (1864–1959) who started his collection with works by Delacroix and Courbet. He ended it with works by his contemporaries, like Maurice Denis and Albert Marquet. The collection numbered more than 500 works at Senn’s death. The donation the museum received from his heirs in 2004 includes 205 paintings as well as drawings by Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Degas, Courbet, among many others. (Fig 9)

Figure 9. Senn collectionneurs et Mécènes, Exhibition Poster

This exhibition is beautifully, thoughtfully presented. The collection includes sketches and studies for three paintings by Degas. The paintings are not here. Instead, each is reproduced on a huge scale on a separate wall, with the associated drawings mounted on the reproductions. (Fig 10) In another space, there is a blow up of a photograph of the collector in his Paris home. And mounted alongside are some of the paintings in the photo. (Fig 11, 12) There are inventories of what Senn bought and some of the lists seem purchases en vrac, (in bulk) without him knowing exactly what he was buying. There were walls of paintings by artists Senn particularly favored, like Albert Marquet, a lifelong friend of Matisse. The exhibition’s poster is a painting by Marquet. (Figs 13, 13a 14)

Figure 10. Drawings by Degas exhibited on an enormous reproduction of the painting for which they were used.

Figure 11. Olivier Senn in his Salon with the paintings behind him assembled on the wall next to the photo

Figure 12. Woman at Desk, Albert Marquet, the painting and a blow up of the painting

Figure 13. Sales receipt for one of many purchases by Olivier Senn

Figure 13a. Sales receipt for one of many purchases by Olivier Senn

Figure 14. Seated Woman, Albert Marquet - painting by one of Senn’s favorite artists used for poster of exhibition.

As I walked through the exhibition, two thoughts took over. Firstly, how nice it was to see a collection created by someone who the Nazis had nothing to do with. There was no trauma recounted, no decades of effort to reconstitute a collection that had been confiscated from its Jewish owners. The second thing was, how fickle taste is. Senn couldn’t have known that Marquet, whose works he admired, would never achieve the level of recognition that other artists in his collection, did. (Figs 15, 16) It was a thought that came back to me a couple days later at another exhibition.

Figure 15. The Seine, Albert Marquet, 1905

Figure 16. One of many paintings by Eugène Boudin in Senn collection at MuMa, Le Havre

If you go to this museum, and I think you should, do NOT eat at the restaurant. The service is awful, the food is worse and the prices are high. My slice of magret de canard, which I ordered ‘a point,’ was so overcooked I couldn’t cut into it. The accompanying eggplant purée was so salty, I couldn’t eat it. The cheese course was okay, but the watercress alongside it should have been thrown away a couple days earlier.

Memories of that disappointing meal disappeared the next day, which I dedicated to the art of eating, at the Pavé d’Auge in Beuvron. When I ate there last February, I had to rush back to Cabourg for a meeting at the museum. When I ate there in July, I had to get back to Cabourg to see the Patrouille air show. (Fig 17) This time, my calendar was open. I leisurely enjoyed all four courses of my meal as well as the little dishes that preceded each one. With mignardises and homemade caramels and the perfect café to end. (Figs 18-22). At a farm just around the corner from the restaurant, where on my way, I admired the cows and hens and ducks, on my way back, I stopped to buy a jar of apple gelée and one of homemade confiture au lait, (dulce con leche). After an afternoon dedicated to fine dining, I took a leisurely walk through Cabourg and along the Proust Promenade, where at 8:00 p.m. I admired the St Valentine’s Day feu d’artifice. (Fig. 22a)

Figure 17. Patrouille de France, Cabourg beach, July 2024

Figure 18. The amuse bouche before the meal began, Pavé d’Auge in Beuvron-en-Auge

Figure 19. A slice of artisanally and humanely raised foie gras sautéed perfectly, Pavé d’Auge in Beuvron-en-Auge

Figure 20. Cheese course with 5 local cheeses, Pavé d’Auge, Pont l’Eveque, Neufchatel, Camembert, Liverot.

Figure 21. Tarte tatin with French vanilla glace and creme fraiche

Figure 22. Mignardises that accompanied a perfect cup of café

Figure 22a. Feu d’artifice, Cabourg, an annual even St. Valentine’s evening

The next day, I went to the Franciscaines in Deauville, the convent turned hospital turned arts center. It’s a multi-purpose space where you can read a book or watch a film or hang out with friends. It’s also a place where you can see temporary art exhibitions. The one on through May is “Julie Manet et ses cousines. La liberté de créer au feminin” (The freedom to create in the feminine). I saw an exhibition about Julie Manet, the daughter of the impressionist Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet (the younger brother of Édouard Manet), a couple years ago at the Musée Marmottan-Monet.(Fig 23) Mission Accomplished: Julie Manet It included paintings of her by her mother and her uncle and by Edgar Degas and Auguste Renoir. Those two men, with Stéphane Mallarmé, were stand-in family for Julie, when at the age of 16, both of her parents were dead. That exhibition traced Julie Manet’s life, from her idyllic childhood to her semi-autonomous teen years (which she shared with her cousins) to her life as wife, as mother and as champion of her mother’s and her uncle’s legacy. The first year after her mother’s death, Julie catalogued 400 of her mother’s works for a posthumous exhibit arranged by Impressionist friends. In 1961, near the end of her own long life, Julie published the catalogue raisonne of her mother’s work.

Figure 23. Julie Manet exhibition at Musée Marmottan-Monet, 2021-22

The exhibition at the Franciscaines focuses on Julie and her cousins, Jeanne and Paule, (Figs 24 - 26) the daughters of her mother’s older sister, Julie’s aunt, Yves Gobillard. By the time Julie’s mother died, her cousins’ parents were also dead. And so they lived together, as Berthe Morisot suggested in her dying letter to Julie. While the youngest of the cousins, Jeanne, practiced piano, Julie and Paule painted. The first part of the exhibition focuses on the years the three girls lived together in Paris and traveled together during the summer and fall - from Brittany to Burgundy via Normandy (1895 to 1898). The freedom to devote their lives to their individual pursuits came to an end on the same day for Julie and Jeanne. On May 29, 1900, in a double ceremony, Julie married Ernest Rouart, one of Degas’ students and Jeanne married Paul Valéry, one of Mallarmé’s. Both brides put aside their girlish pursuits of piano and paint brush. They were women now.

Figure 24. Portrait of Julie Manet painted by her cousin, Paule Gobillard (this is the image on the exhibition poster)

Figure 25. Poster for exhibition, Julie Manet & Ses Cousines, La Liberté de Créer au Féminin

Figure 26. Portrait of Jeanne Gobillard Valéry painted by her sister Paule Gobillard

Only Paule who never married, continued to paint seriously. She joined two women's groups of painters. She exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and was a member of the Salon d'Automne. The second part of the exhibition, the smaller part, includes lots of paintings by Paule, most of them unpublished. (Figs 27-29) And I thought about Julie devoting her life to her mother’s legacy but not her cousin’s. If she had worked as tirelessly to promote Paule, would we know Paule’s name, would we know her work?

Figure 27. View from the Window, Paule Gobillard

Figure 29. Francois (Paule’s nephew) in the Salon, Paule Gobillard

Julie’s mother, Berthe Morisot, was a rebel. She rejected marriage until she was 32, when financial circumstances no longer permitted that luxury. When she did marry, she was lucky enough to find a man who ‘allowed her’ to continue painting. Julie and Jeanne were not rebels and so they stopped painting and playing the piano seriously when they married. as women of their class were expected to do. Julie didn’t pick up a paint brush again seriously until after her sons were men, until after her husband was dead. According to one critic, this exhibition is a sociological fresco of a particular family of a particular class at a particular moment in history. Because of all the paintings and photographs and letters, we see lives filled with music, painting, writing. Yet lives that were “a thousand miles from the artistic effervescence of Montmartre, of the Bateau Lavoir.”

The weekend was lovely but it wasn’t over. On the way back to Paris, I stopped at the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen. This past July, I saw two exhibitions, one on James McNeil Whistler, another on David Hockney. This time, there was only a tiny exhibition on the spire of the Cathedral of Rouen which had burned in 1822. As I happily walked through the permanent collection, I saw paintings I knew from recent Paris exhibitions. Like the poster for an exhibition at the Musée Marmottan-Monet and a horse painting by Gericault, that I saw at the Musée de la vie romantique or maybe it was at the Chateau de Versailles. (Figs 30-32)

Figure 30. Claude-Marie Dubufe, La Lettre de Wagram, 1827, Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts

Figure 31. Poster for Theatre des Emotions, Musee Marmottan-Monet

Figure 32. One of many horses painted by Gericault, this one is in Rouen, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts

Just two hours away from Paris and it’s a different world. Where people walk slower and prices are lower. Something I appreciated the evening I returned to Paris. My friends Bobby and Meredith from Columbia, SC were in Paris when I was in Normandy. Our paths intersected on the night before their departure. We met at a classic bistro in the 6th, Chez Dumonet. As I perused the menu at home I noted that the restaurant actually encourages sharing. Meredith was easily convinced to share a starter of artichoke hearts while Bobby dug into a slab of foie gras literally hidden by thin slices of black truffle. My veal chop was succulent, Meredith’s cassoulet was filling - we each left half of ours uneaten, which was lucky for me because the restaurant also happily packs up doggy bags. With the restaurant’s sharing policy in mind, I convinced my companions to share a cheese plate and then a dessert. (Figs 33-35)

Figure 33. This was Bobby’s foie gras, unlike the one I ate, this one was like a paté showered with truffles

Figure 34. Meredith’s Cassoulet - she ate 1/2 and I took the other 1/2 home and ate it over 3 nights!

Figure 35. This was a lovely apple tart. We each ate a quarter and I had the final quarter for dessert next day!

And there were left overs from those two, too! Our three hour meal was filling and filled with conversation. Bobby and Meredith walked me to the metro station and I made my way back to my apartment late on a Monday night. The metros were full and so were the streets. As long as you are mobile, being a woman alone in Paris is not a problem - just watch out for the cyclists because they are not watching out for you! Gros bisous, Dr. B.

Thanks to everyone who commented on last week’s post on Suzanne Valadon and on other posts, they are much appreciated. No ranting this week! Although there’s plenty to rant about!

New comments on Painting for the Joy of Painting:

The Valadon, etc article is terrific. So far as I can tell, you got everything right, which is amazing since Valadon was a mythomane (compulsive liar). I was going to write her biography and worked on it for about two years, but by then I had realized i really hated her. She lied about everything. So I gave up. just stuck all my research in a drawer and forgot about it. But oddly, her art is brutally honest. I like it a lot, and like it better over the years. Julia Frey, Côte d’Azur & Paris, author of Toulouse-Lautrec a life and Venus Betrayed: The Private World of Edouard Vuillard

The self-portraits are a hoot! One can imagine many interactions and thoughts of the family members. Jo

Dr. B.Good on you for poking your readers with a reminder of what is going on in the U.S.: “With D.E.I. programs in the United States gone with the stroke of a malicious pen, would any museum dare mount this exhibition in the U.S.”!

I read and enjoyed every word of today’s post—perhaps enjoying more than any of the words your image of the chocolate/pear crumble from Brigat, whose aphrodisiac suggestivenesss is so strong your post might be subject to notice from the Adult Reading Police. (A post on my blog, titled “Thirst Satyrday for Eros: Understanding Eros” [http://moristotle.blogspot.com/2014/09/thirst-satyrday-for-eros-understanding.html], by Jim Rix, the author of “Jingle Jangle: A Perfect Crime Turned Inside Out,” once received such a notice: “This post was put behind a warning for readers because it contains sensitive content…Your readers must acknowledge the warning before being able to read this post.”) That’s a joke, of course, because how could an image of a dessert be more “sensitive” than your post’s explanation for Valadon’s first name “Suzanne,” illustrated by Tintoretto’s painting, “Suzanna at her bath spied upon by Elders”?

But it’s all for art’s sake, right? I wish the Adult Reading Police could have seen that that was the case for everything published on Moristotle & Co. as well!

Your paragraph about composer Erik Satie’s devastation as a result of Valadon’s ending her affair with him prompted me to listen to a bit of the piece (“Vexations”) he supposedly composed as a result of being dumped. I think he just had a few screws loose. No wonder Valadon broke it off!

I love the way all of your posts inspire further research and discovery! Good work, Dr. B!

More later…there’s so much here to discuss! Morris, N. Carolina

Comment from Morris, part II

Okay, here are some additional thoughts from my reading (every word of) this post.

First, I really, really appreciated learning how much female models were demeaned as “being models, not painter,” and female painters required to cover their nude male subjects’ private parts. I did not know that. Good work on your part for showing us some original works to compare with the versions as altered per requirement.

Second, clever of you to offer big kisses to entice readers to go ahead and read your “summary of art-related abominations below.” But why should any reader NOT want to read every last word you had to say about art—with or without kisses? I hope that artists, gallery owners, et alia WILL join the growing cadre of resisters to Trump’s abominations.

You say that “apparently it’s legal” for Trump to fire the Kennedy Center’s board of directors and install HIMSELF as the board’s president. PLEASE check that out more; at least say more about HOW that’s legal (if you determine that in some sense it is). It certainly doesn’t smell good. Morris, N. Carolina

I very much liked your blog on Suzanne Valadon and was amazed to learn she was the model for so many iconic paintings, esp Renoir's boating party. She was right in the thick of it. If I were in Paris, I would go to the exhibition straight away. Mark, Boston

Please check out the "Femmes Curated by Pharrell Williams" exhibit at Emanuel Perrotin gallery in March. Kenturah Davis, a close friend of our family, is one of the exhibitors. Would love to hear what you think. Nomi

So surprised that Renoir used a model, Suzanne Valadon, as I thought he probably sketched a dancing couple in a cafe and used as a guide for the painting. YEP, thanks to you, still learning and keeping the brain cells engaged…. Bill, Ohio

Wonderful post. I wonder if Suzanne Valadon has been fictionalized in any novels? And re the current administration's dunderheaded cuts, freezes, etc., I'm alternating between furious and despondent. It is truly terrible. Sarah

New comment on Joan Mitchell: A Life in the Abstract:

As an America I am ashamed of the Male Abstract Artists and Gallery Owners of the late 40s and 50s and how they treated these women who were extraordinary. In the mid to late 70s as an Art Student, the men only taught about the male abstract artists in our classes, leaving us, the young women without these important mentor women artists. Phoenix

New Comment on Beef Cake, although reference is to painting by Tamara de Lempicka

Bonjour, I have a belief that figure 26 is a depiction of the nude masturbating. Her right leg is taut and foot arched as she rubs her left nipple. I have painted life drawings I've done and they are relaxed like the sitter. 'What we see" ?? Thanku for sharing fabulous art and their journeys. Viv

New Comment on Girls in Cars.

Dear Beverly, Dr. B, the first photo here is of Kizette and her father which I have taken from a biography of Tamara by Laura Claridge ‘A Life of Deco and Decadence’. I thought her dress here was quite like the one in Fig 29 of your musing (last photo ), the second picture, your Fig 19 is on the cover of the biography. I’ve been a fan of the work of Tamala and thus was very appreciative both of your informative musings and the copies of her paintings you included. Your missives are always a welcome highlight of my day. Dolores