French painter 

At the back of the boat , 1881

Oil on panel, signed and dated "Sept. 81" 

Dimensions: 40 cm x 61 cm  

For this navy, Alfred Stevens offers an original point of view: he depicts the back of the boat on which he is. The furrow dug by the weight of the ship creates a perspective up to the horizon line; it catches the light and diffuses it over the whole painting. The painter indicates, with a brushstroke, some veils in the background.

In the background of the image, the coal boats mark their way with the large black smoke rising from the chimneys. In comparison, the sailing ships appear thin and vulnerable: the painter metaphorically represents the Industrial Revolution. Alfred Stevens questions the spectator: is he on a sailing boat or a motor boat?

Alfred Stevens is a Belgian painter in Paris. He plays a leading role in the dialogue between the two nations, in turn Belgian in France and French in Belgium. If Courbet, Manet, Rude and Rodin shone throughout Belgium, the attraction towards France has been so strong that many Belgian artists, and not least, are considered as adopted Parisians: it is the case of Alfred Stevens.

In Paris in 1844, the painter became known for his refined portraits of the beautiful world, depicting the elegant Parisian of the Second Empire. Friend of Manet, Scholl and Baudelaire, he was admitted to the School of Fine Arts and attended the studio of the great master Ingres. The wave of Japonism gave momentum to his painting from 1865.

Friend of Bazille, he portrays and develops a decorative style. Subsequently, he gradually left the polished representations of the bourgeoisie for other daily scenes, borrowing verism although always elegant (see the painting "La femme au bain", circa 1873, Musée d'Orsay). At this time, the painter knows his heyday. In France, Mathilde Bonaparte supports her work, the Belgian king places a public order for her. 

In 1880, the painter experienced difficulties: the beginnings of a new style of painting, Impressionism, called into question his pictorial approach. His doctor sent him to Menton, he traveled to the north of France. Berthe Morisot pushes him towards Impressionism which he adopts in his seascapes, whose sensitivity and modernity are in every way similar to those of Jongking.