Clichy Comparative Analysis

France was the home of the Impressionist movement, providing a vast array of landscapes, people and lifestyles as inspiration. The famed impressionists used the bustling nightlife of Montmartre, studious industrial areas, and open landscapes of rural France to influence their works. Specifically, Maximilien Luce used the rural province of Brittany in Western France to inspire his work Camaret, Moonlight and Fishing Boats painted in 1894. Brittany was used as inspiration by many impressionists for its rural, unmodernized regions. On the other hand, Vincent Van Gogh used the industrial region of Clichy, a suburb of Paris, to cultivate his work Factories at Clichy in 1887. Although Van Gogh and Luce both utilize similar compositional structure, repetition …show more content…
Brittany, a rural peninsula is known for its rich wildlife and detachment from urbanization. Luce’s painting depicts an unnormally still night scene, that emphasizes the serenity and tranquility that exists in Brittany. The unnatural stillness of the boats and dark color pallete contrast starkly with Van Gogh’s brightly lit, bustling scene. The constant movement of Clichy in Van Gogh’s daytime depiction of the working factories reflects the industrial nature of the region. Furthermore, the still house in Luce’s background is the opposite of the moving couple in the center of Van Gogh’s work. Brittany was a tranquil, untouched region while Clichy was a cramped populated region. The use of many vivid colors expresses the jumbled nature of the industrial center in Clichy. Whereas, Luce’s utilization of the same mix of colors throughout the image provided fluidity and therefore further emphasized the excessive peacefulness of the scene. Overall, Van Gogh’s use of many colors and depiction of movement in his painting differs greatly with Luce’s utilization of similar colors and excessive