Étretat, Beyond the Cliffs. Courbet, Monet, Matisse

Over time, some of the paintings depicting Étretat have acquired iconic status and become part of the collective imagination. This exhibition, in partnership with the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, is devoted to representations of Étretat, based on four major works held in the collections of the two institutions, all of which were painted in Étretat: two Waves  by Gustave Courbet (1869–1870), and two paintings by Claude Monet,  The Luncheon  (1868–1869) and  Rough Sea, Étretat  (1883). These works testify to the central role played by this village, located on the Normandy coast, in the development of new pictorial languages ​​over the course of the 19th  century Through a selection of paintings, drawings, photographs and archives, the exhibition traces the story of the discovery of Étretat by artists, painters and writers alike, and highlights its construction as a mythical landscape, from Eugène Isabey to Henri Matisse.