Sur la falaise

In the winter of 1878, Pierre-Auguste Renoir met Paul Bérard, the diplomat and banker who would become one of the artist’s most significant patrons. Following their initial encounter, Bérard commissioned Renoir to paint his daughter, Marthe, and, pleased with the outcome, invited the artist to visit his estate outside of Dieppe. Renoir went on to spend July to September 1879, as well as the six subsequent summers, living and working at Bérard’s Château de Wargemont. There, he created more than three dozen works, the majority of which were portraits of the family, as well as several decorative panels for the house. In addition to commissions from the Bérards – executed alongside those for other affluent Parisians holidaying in Normandy – Renoir painted several scenes inspired by his experiences roaming this stretch of the French coast line, including the celebrated Pêcheuses de moules à Berneval (Dauberville, no. 215; The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia) and the present Sur la falaise.

Although principally known for his paintings of women and children, during these summers Renoir delved into the landscape genre, primarily as a ‘a form of relaxation’ (C. Bailey, ‘The Greatest Luminosity, Colour, and Harmony: Renoir’s Landscapes, 1862-1883,’ in C. Bailey and C. Riopelle, Renoir: Landscapes 1865-1883, exh. cat., National Gallery, London, 2007, p. 64). Such a sense of gentle tranquillity suffuses the present work in which the surf barely appears to ripple. Swathes of white allude to the bleached chalk cliffs that line the Normandy coast while the sea is a lustrous blend of cobalt and aquamarine. To produce such gossamer, luminous veils of pigment – as evanescent as the seafoam itself – Renoir thinned his pigments so that they appear like watercolours. While the painterly effect is uniform across the canvas, Sur la falaise is a study in visual contrasts, between the flat, calm waters of the Channel and the ‘Rococo flourish’ of the cliff edge (C. Riopelle, ‘Cliffs at Berneval, 1879,’ ibid., p. 206).

Relishing the dramatic perspectival juxtapositions from atop the cliff, Sur la falaise offers a vertiginous plunge onto the sea. On the grassy knoll overlooking a sandy cove, a well-dressed gentleman gazes out over the landscape, watching the peaceful rhythm of the waves as they reach the shoreline. Scholars posit that the figure – dressed in a fashionably light suit and boater hat – is Jacques-Émile Blanche, who Renoir tutored in painting that first summer at the Château de Wargemont. Blanche was the son of a prominent psychiatrist and art collector, and the family later commissioned three paintings from Renoir depicting scenes from Wagner’s Tannhäuser. However, his identity ultimately remains a mystery to the viewer—seen only from behind, the figure remains anonymous, a detail which underscores his smallness amidst the dramatic landscape. Indeed, Sur la Falaise plays with the tradition of the Sublime, in which man’s experience of the natural world is one of awe and wonder. Here, Renoir’s protagonist appears to have been caught in such a moment, ‘in contemplation before infinity’ (Catalogue des Tableaux Modernes, exh. cat., Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1899, p. 6).

Beyond the Blanche family, Bérard’s summer home was a lively, sociable place, with visits from Louis Cahen d’Anvers, the Ephrussi family, and the collector Victor Chocquet, who acquired Sur la Falaise shortly after it was completed. Chocquet, an early admirer of Impressionism, assembled a large collection of art by the movement’s key representatives. He particularly appreciated works by Paul Cezanne and Renoir, owning the latter’s Alphonsine Fournaise (À la Grenouillère) and La Yole, among others (Dauberville, nos. 321 and 141; Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and The National Gallery, London). Renoir also painted several portraits of Choquet and his wife, examples of which can be found in the collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, respectively (Dauberville, nos. 541 and 416).