“On a particularly boring day, I had a clever but unfortunate inspiration,” he once shared. “I seized a piece of cardboard, some tubes of tint and petroleum base—since I lacked real oil—and, confronting a typical Montmartre street corner, I suddenly found myself a practitioner of this difficult and thankless art of painting.” Some of Maurice Utrillo’s paintings have been excellently celebrated. His Parisian beginnings and his life has given his followers a number of masterful paintings that we still devour. Maurice Utrillo’s paintings are all available online for us to have a look at. Explore his paintings and buy Maurice Utrillo paintings online.
Maurice Utrillo’s paining oeuvre attracts the viewers with a special attention towards his humble beginnings. Some of his artworks created during this time deserve out very keen attention. We will look at three paintings created between 1905 and 1910 to explore and map the inclinations of the artist and how he initiated the journey approaching the world of Impressionist art.
These three works are La Butte Pinson (1905-8), Notre Dame Cathedral (1909), Le Place du Tertre (c. 1910). The days of Maurice Utrillo’s beginnings were marked by these three extraordinary paintings. These artworks are the most important works by Maurice Utrillo in the beginning of his journey. They overview both his major creative inclinations and highlight his greatest achievements.
La Butte Pinson (1905-8), Oil on card glued on wood - Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris
Description of Artworks & Analysis: The context of the artworks is important in the painting as it was nothing but a result of Maurice Utrillo’s stay at a house on la Butte Pinson, a hill in the suburb of Montmagny. Maurice Utrillo was a young teenager in 1896, and by then he was already struggling with alcoholism. He was often getting into trouble in wild and bohemian Paris. This was the very important time of his life as it was in Montmagny where Maurice Utrillo first began painting he created a series of works between 1905 and 1908 which stood as evidence of his natural abilities in art as he was largely untrained artistically.
This painting demonstrates the profound, lingering influence of Impressionism and such is emphasized with its softened brushwork and of course the blurred lines, the hazy light. Utrillo places a number of leafless trees between the audience and the distant and colourful huts. These leafless trees in the foreground stand in striking contrasct to the huts in the distance. The huts are bright in a winter scene. The skies fetatured is but grey. Yet, there's just a fragment of hint, blue light in the upper right corner. The ground is covered in snow and the painting suggests a tender and graceful movement of the foreground tree branches. The movement lightens as they reach the sky. This would necessarily draw the eye upward.
Notre Dame Cathedral (1909), Oil on card - Musée de l'Orangerie
Description of Artworks & Analysis: This was the result of Maurice Utrillo’s more complex experimentations with motifs. This artwork surely has the reflection and the effects of Monet’s Cathedral series. The influence of Impressionism is seen. Maurice Utrillo most likely visited the gallery of Paul Durand-Ruel in Paris which had displayed Monet's “Rouen Cathedral” series. “Notre Dame Cathedral” was the unfinished work where Utrillo only vaguely described the elaborate architectural sculpture. He obscures most of the details and preferred only to describe the effects of light. This was in line with the fundamental goal of Impressionism.
Le Place du Tertre (c. 1910) Oil on canvas - Tate Museum
Description of Artworks & Analysis: The painting showcases a view of a deserted Place du Tertre— a usually livelier public square located at the top of the hill of Montmartre. The curious details about the painting is that, according to the Tate Museum that displays the painting, Utrillo probably did not stand himself in the square to compose this painting, rather he painted it from a postcard. Although, admits the Tate "none has so far been traced that shows exactly the same view." It is known that the artist have based many of his compositions on postcard images. This painting features bright colors dulled only by the winter light, very much like his earlier work from Montmagny series.
Maurice Utrillo’s works have all along carried a subtle reflection of Impressionism yet he often broke the path with providing a flat view contrary to the depth of the Impressionists yet he took up the approach while the effects of lights were concerned. Maurice Utrillo’s works are presented in many websites and can be viewed online. Explore the artworks created by this great twentieth century artist and buy Maurice Utrillo’s paintings online.
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