“Elements marins,” by Jean de Botton (Courtesy photo)
“The Grand Tour in Thirty Days” will open on Saturday, May 23 at Wiscasset Bay Gallery, which is celebrating its 42nd year.
An old-fashioned steamer trunk tour, the exhibition takes the viewer to some of the most popular and remote locales across Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries through the eyes of its artists. From the sun-drenched colorful isle of Burano in the Venetian lagoon to a babbling mountain brook in the Swiss Alps, visitors can observe the evolution of painting from realism to impressionism to modernism.
Of particular interest on the modernist front is an oil on panel by French artist, Jean de Botton. Botton has captured a sailboat regatta off the coast of Saint-Tropez with his distinctive sense of design and paint handling. In “Elements marins,” a line of triangular sails form a geometric pattern of white against the deep blue Mediterranean Sea.
“Burano, 1924,” by Luigi Moretti (Courtesy photo)
Botton led a colorful life traveling and creating art around the world while also serving as a ballet librettist, writing scripts for Parisian ballets and painting the legendary dancer, Josephine Baker. His paintings can be found in the collections of many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musee d’Art Moderne de Paris.
Moving north to the Scottish coast in Robert Weir Allan’s boldly painted oil, large rugged headlands are set against a clearing sky. In a protected cove, four children swim in the surf while their mother watches carefully and tends to the younger siblings on the shore. Weir has employed a loose impressionistic brushstroke to render the atmospheric effects created by the wind and sea.
The American artist Polly Parker Nordell likewise utilized an impressionist technique to exemplify the joys of childhood. A group of young girls and boys are seen in Paris’ Luxembourg Gardens playing with balloons and toys amidst purple shadows and dappled patches of light.
Other noted American and European works in the exhibition include Leon Kroll’s “Mont Sainte-Victoire,” Kurt Leyde’s “Campo del Sur, Cadiz,” Auguste Herzog’s “Outside the Berlin Cafe,” Ivan Kuleff’s “Citrons,” and Mary Cassatt’s “Sara Smiling.”
“The Grand Tour in Thirty Days” will be on display at Wiscasset Bay Gallery, at 75 Main St. (Route 1) through Wednesday, June 24. For more information, call 882-7682 or go to wiscassetbaygallery.com.
