The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum will celebrate the 30th anniversary of its founding by presenting Impressionists at the Waterside—Depicting Urban Resorts: Paris, the Seine, and Normandy, in partnership with The Sankei Shimbun newspaper group. The exhibition features some 80 works of such timeless art as Renoir’s “Dance at Bougival” and Monet’s “The Japanese Bridge” on loan from many of the world’s finest museums, including the National Gallery in Washington, DC, USA; Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France; and Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, Germany. It will open to the viewing public from October 22, 2013 to January 5, 2014*.
The Impressionism movement flourished in the second half of the 19th century and it corresponded with a growing association of the waterside, particularly in France, with leisure and recreation, enriching the quality of people’s lives. Impressionists at Waterside is a two-part exhibition, the first focusing on Impressionist painters and their works featuring the Seine, a motif inspired as much from the uniquely eloquent depictions of reflections on the water as it was from the simple, yet elegant lifestyles of Parisians drawn to the river and nearby resorts that sprung along it. The second part introduces artists and their paintings of the beautiful swimming beaches, villas and hotels, sheer cliffs and bustling ports along the 600-kilometer Normandy coastline.
Impressionists at the Waterside also attempts to explore light and landscapes—two salient characteristics of Impressionist paintings—by examining the lives of urbanites in 19th-century France through a unique thematic perspective of resorts and the pursuit of a more leisurely life.
*Closed on Mondays, except on national holidays, which are observed on Tuesdays; also closed during the New Year holiday season.
