The Cliffs at Beg-ar-Fry, Saint-Jean-du-Doigt
Maxime Maufra was initially an amateur artist, but in 1883 he gave up a career in business to devote himself entirely to painting. He traveled throughout Normandy and Britany painting sea- and landscapes. During a visit to Pont-Aven in northwestern France in 1890 he met Paul Gauguin and a group of young artists who were inspired by Gauguin’s approaches to color and composition in his art. In particular, Maufra began to translate forms into flat planes of bold color arranged in decorative patterns as seen in this seascape of the Breton coast. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this painting is the way the artist framed the composition at the left with the view of a steep cliff.
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1895
- Medium
- oil on fabric
- Dimensions
- framed: height 0.665 m, width 0.8 m, depth 0.045 m; unframed: height 0.6 m, width 0.733 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Gift of Ellen Wade Chinn, Elizabeth Wade Sedgwick and J. H. Wade III in memory of their mother Irene Love Wade
Art Genome Taxonomy
10 tags
Subject Matter
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Landscapes and Waterscapes Visual · 99%
The image depicts a natural coastal environment combining cliffs, a headland, open sea, surf, and sky.
Styles and Movements
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Post-Impressionism Interpretive · 74%
The catalog describes Maufra’s contact with Gauguin and the Pont-Aven circle and his use of bold, flattened color planes in decorative arrangements; the image displays related planar organization and intensified color, though the catalog does not assign a formal style classification.
Visual Qualities
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Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 95%
The painting uses saturated greens, turquoise and deep blue-green water, pale foam, and warm orange-brown accents in the rocks.
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Rough Visual · 88%
The surface and rocky forms are handled with irregular, visibly coarse marks rather than uniformly smooth modeling.
Medium and Techniques
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Painting Both · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art classifies the work as a painting, and the image visibly presents a painted coastal scene.
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies the medium as oil on fabric.
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Impasto Visual · 98%
Paint appears visibly built up in raised, tactile strokes, especially across the surf, foreground water, rocks, and portions of the sky.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Visual · 97%
Directional, energetic strokes sweep across the water and sky, while the cliffs and headland are constructed with loose, expressive marks.
Time Periods
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19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The work is dated 1895, placing it within nineteenth-century art.
Geographic Regions
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French Art Metadata · 99%
The artist is identified as French and the place of origin is listed as France.
Source & rights
Maxime Maufra (French, 1861–1918). The Cliffs at Beg-ar-Fry, Saint-Jean-du-Doigt. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 6,723 × 5,463 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available