WILHELM ANDERSEN
(Danish, 1867 – 1945)
First Summer Light over Notre Dame, with Bateaux-lavoirs on the Quai in the Foreground
Signed lower right: W. Andersen; circa 1920
Oil on canvas 29 3/8 x 22 1/8 in. (72.1 x 56.2 cm)
In Period Style cove gilt carved frame
with acanthus leaf decorated corners: 37 ½ x 31 ¼ in. (95.3 x 79.4 cm)
Condition:
Excellent. This work was recently restored by a professional fine art conservator and a report is available.
Provenance:
Private collection, Brussels
The Subject:
First Summer Light over Notre Dame depicts washing boats on the Seine where people would come to have their clothes cleaned by laundresses. In the eighteenth century, the government in Paris forbade anyone to wash their clothes anywhere else but on one of these boats and as many eighty were docked along the Seine.
Figure 1 Renoir, Bateaux-lavoirs on the Seine near Paris, ca. 1872
By 1919 when Wilhelm Andersen arrived in the City of Lights, the boats were becoming less in use but their picturesque quality and unique history made them a popular subject for the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists. For example, Renoir painted Bateaux-lavoirs on the Seine, near Paris, circa 1872, and fifteen years later van Gogh, also drawn to this intrinsically French theme, produced Bateaux-lavoirs on the Seine at Asnières, Paris in the summer of 1887.
Figure 2 Calotype of the river Seine and washing boats from Pont-au-Change, Paris, ca. 1850.
Figure 3 Van Gogh, Bateaux-lavoirs on the Seine at Asnières, Paris, 1887
Immersed in the new and exciting culture of Paris, in First Summer Light over Notre Dame Andersen chose an innately French subject and placed it before an iconic French institution, Notre Dame, seen in through the morning haze in distance and reflected in the foreground waters of the river. He deftly constructed a convincingly three-dimension space into which the boats and river recede. Using a lightened palette and loose brushwork to render the scene, Andersen was clearly influenced by the art of the Impressionists he saw while in Paris. The Deer Park Painters Guild artists, with whom Andersen exhibited in Denmark, shared the Impressionist’s interest in capturing light at different times of day. In First Summer Light over Notre Dame, however, we see Andersen also embracing some of the stylistic elements favored by the Impressionists to capture the effects of light: Andersen depicts the façade of the cathedral using short, choppy brushstrokes, as though the details of the building are obscured by an early morning atmospheric haze.
The Artist:
Wilhelm Andersen (also known as Jørgen Wilhelm Andersen) was, like many artists of his time, primarily self-taught or learned to paint by apprenticing with, or painting with, fellow artists. He developed a wonderful aptitude for capturing the spirit of landscapes as well as still-life’s. He was particularly active during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century. Andersen first exhibited his art is in 1919 at age 52 when he was invited to join the Deer Park Painters Guild. This Guild was established in 1913 by two well-known Danish artists, Hans Gyde-Petersen (1862- 1943) and Arthur Nielsen (1883–1946). This Guild of Artists would go off into the thousand-acre forested park in northern Sjaelland, just north of Copenhagen, where they would paint this special landscape en plein air in Jægersborg Dyrehave. Soon after its formation three of Denmark’s most famous artists were made members: Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916); Peter Ilsted (186 –1933); and an Honorary Emeritus membership was given to Peder Severin Krøyer (1851–1909).
That same year of 1919, Andersen moved to Paris where he was invited to join the Société du Salon d’automne, with whom he exhibited his work. Founded in 1903 as an alternative venue to the more conservative Paris salons, it provided an opportunity for new aspiring artists. They exhibited their work in the recently completed Grand Palais built for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900.
Figure 4 Grand Palais, Paris
Andersen could not have exhibited in more illustrious company. Other artists participating in the Salon d’Automne, (or Société du Salon d’Automne) included Édouard Vuillard, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Paul Gauguin, Georges Rouault, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes and Marcel Duchamp, Kees van Dongen, Jacques Villon, Francis Picabia, Othon Friesz Albert Marquet, Georges Rouault, Eugène Carrière, Félix Vallotton, among others Participating in the annual exhibitions from 1919 to 1925, Andersen was bestowed the prestige of an Honorable Mention in 1923, possibly for this work First Summer Light over Notre Dame, with Bateaux-lavoirs on the Quai in the Foreground.
In 1925 Andersen chose to return to his native Denmark where he continued painting with the Deer Park Painters Guild, and exhibiting with his colleagues. His reputation continued to further blossom in Copenhagen and in 1929 he had his first one-man show at the prestigious Hans Frandsens Kunsthdal (Gallery) in Copenhagen. He remained an active artist moving to Assens on the west coast of the island of Funen in central Denmark until he died in 1945.