Beautiful Impressions

Written in Art
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By Elizabeth Kostova

Béatrice de Clerval (1851-1910), Impressionist painter, is known for relatively few canvases, many of which are housed in the Musée de Maintenon in Paris, and some of which are held in private collections. A native Parisian who painted intimate family scenes in her suburb home in Passy, as well as landscapes in the nearby Bois de Bolougne and on the coast of Normandy, she apparently ceased her career at the age of twenty-nine.

Her work has been compared to that of Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot in its feel for the lives of women in their domestic settings, and to that of Morisot, Alfred Sisley, and Camille Pissarro in its skillful rendering of landscapes, particularly gardens. Like Claude Monet and many others, Clerval was also drawn by the changeable Channel coast, with its various moods of water and sky and its dramatic cliff formations.

Although Clerval excelled at painting people, particularly the female servants who sat for her portraits, she also displayed an affinity for swans, which she observed and sketched in the Bois de Boulogne.

Elizabeth Kostova is the author of the international best seller The Historian and The Swan Thieves. She graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.

IMAGE:Woman at Her Toilette, c 1875/80 by Berthe Morisot, Courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago

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5 Comments - Leave a comment!
  • http://thetruebookaddict.blogspot.com/ Michelle Miller/the true book addict

    An interesting post…thank you. I’m looking forward to reading The Swan Thieves. The Historian remains one of my favorite books.

    I received my giveaway prize of the Lucy Cousins books. My son read the fairy tale book from cover to cover that day! Thanks again :)

  • Vicky Alvearl Shecter

    I’m embarassed to admit that I’ve never heard of this artist. Beautiful, though! Looking forward to learning more.

  • Beth O.

    Everyone else on the web says this woman is fictional…..so what is it, truth or fiction?

  • ratna

    I have been listening to this as an audiobook, and it has inspired me to set up my easel again. I also did a websearch for Béatrice de Clerval and altho disappointed she did not exist, I appreciate the weaving of this story, the painting of language.

  • Wmcewen

    just finished The Swan Thieves.  what a book.  I couldn’t put it down, wonderful story, wish I could find more paintings by Beatrice de Clerval, really related to the story as I too am a painter of mainly portraits and a relatively thwarted painting career (five children, several husbands, many many jobs, and now, old age have all prohibited my work but I just started a new portrait — really inspired by the book, can’t wait to read The Historian.  Barbara Cunningham McEwen (79 yrs old)