The beauty of rain in paintings. expected or feared, delicate or stormy, metaphorical or very real, the rain has often entered the imagination of artists ...

3. synonymous with life and regeneration ...
expected or feared, delicate or stormy, metaphorical or very real, the rain has often entered the imagination of artists ...

4. The Art of Rain
The beauty of rain in paintings

5. A wintery afternoon ...
The two main figures walk underneath an umbrella.
They are dressed in the height of contemporary Parisian fashion.
They are unambiguously middle class.
In the background
a maid in a doorway, a decorator carrying a ladder,
one man appearing to jump from the wheel of a carriage,
another pair of legs appear below the rim of an umbrella.
Figures isolated, they appear to hurry rather, absorbed in their own thoughts.
The umbrellas shield them "not just from the rain, but, also it seems, from other passers by".
Gustave Caillebotte
Rue de Paris, temps de pluie
Paris Street, Rainy Day
1877
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

8. A busy Parisian street
and
umbrellas ...
In the foreground six principal figures,
a mother and her two daughters, each fashionably dressed in the styles of 1881,
a female figure caught in the act of raising or lowering her umbrella, suggesting that the rain is about to start or stop;
a milliner's assistant or modiste, with a hatbox, is without an umbrella,
and
a keen male figure next to her seems to have taken notice.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Les Parapluies
The Umbrellas
1881-1886
The National Gallery, London

13. A typical Parisian theme ...
A gentleman in a top hat, bored and lost in his thoughts,
a sophisticated lady, decorated with a hat and feathers and a empty gaze.
a waiter, standing, his only interest is the passers-by who remain anonymous and unrecognized
in the frenetic hustle and bustle of the big city in the rain.
Albert Weisgerber
Pariser Café
Café parisien
1906
Lenbachhaus, Munich

17. After a good rain ...
most of the streets of Paris them would become muddy morasses.
Some entrepreneurial lower-class Parisians would lay a plank across the mud, and charge
a small fee to people (presumably mainly from the middle and upper classes, especially women).
A family crossing the street over one of these plank bridges …
the proprietor of the plank is at left,
stretching out his arm for payment.
Louis Léopold Boilly
L'Averse ou Passez payez
Passez Payez or Pay to Pass
1803-1804
Musée du Louvre, Paris

21. A sudden shower ...
Three young women as three beautiful Graces sheltering from the rain under a leafy tree.
Affluent young women dressed in fashionable, badminton players.
Badminton was brought to England by British officers living in India in about 1873. It quickly became a popular
game among the gentry, who played it in the fantastic gardens of their country houses and was a favourite with
ladies and gentlemen alike.
Charles Edward Perugini
A Summer Shower
Une douche d`été
1888
Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston upon Hull

24. the river, a space of concentrated light and movement, where sky and earth meet
the verticality of the trees
and
the rain, which can be glimpsed in the delicate circles of the water.
Gustave Caillebotte
L' Yerres, effet du pluie
The Yerres, Effect of Rain
1875
Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University, Bloomington

27. a train driven at full speed by a steam locomotive,
a white road,
a little carriage with its red-orange wheel,
fields,
white houses with stark red roofs,
the reflections of the rain ...
it's the middle of June, poppies can be made out in dotted lines …
Vincent van Gogh
Paysage d'Auvers après la pluie ou Paysage avec carriole et train
Landscape at Auvers after Rain or Landscape with a Carriage and a Train
June 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

31. The driving rain - slashing, slim strokes of coloured pastel …
a huge expanse of turf
five jockeys engaged in play in the midst of a rain shower.
We do not know who the jockeys are – their faces are turned from us or are shadowed by their hats.
The form of illustration of the rain is once more illustrative of the tremendous influence of Japanese
woodblocks in 19th century Europe.
Edgar Degas
Jockeys sous la pluie
Jockeys in the Rain
1880-1881
Burrell Collection, Glasgow

35. A gray, wet day ...
a distant carriage,
leafless trees,
pedestrians,
and
and shining cobblestones in the weak light of a cloud-filled sky.
Camille Pissarro
Route de Versailles, Louveciennes, effet de pluie
Route de Versailles, Louveciennes, Rain Effect
1870
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

39. the promenade,
umbrellas,
people walking in the rain,
a policeman with a cape,
a man standing beside a horse and cart.
(The title of the work refers to a line from either William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night,
where the fool, Feste, closes the play with a song having as its refrain "the rain It raineth
every day" Act 5, scene.)
Norman Garstin
The Rain It Raineth Every Day
La pluie il pleut tous les jours
1889
Penlee House Gallery and Museum, Penzance

43. the poetry of daily life …
the scene at rush hour on a wet day
Nicolas Sicard
L'Entrée du pont de la Guillotière par un temps de pluie, Pont de la guillotière à Lyon
Entrance to the Guillotière, Bridge in Lyon
1879
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon

47. a Village in Normandy,
rain-soaked cobbled street
people under open umbrellas ...
Christian Krohg
Village-rue en Normandie
Village Street in Normandy or Village street in Grez
1882
Bergen Kunstmuseum, Bergen

51. Rainy street scene
with the reflections of people and vehicles passing by
The wide avenues and new brick row houses of Boston’s fashionable South End,
example of American Impressionism and genre painting depicting urban scenes, very popular
during 19th century ...
Childe Hassam
Rainy Day, Boston
Jour de pluie, Boston
1885
The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo

55. The distinctive sheen of rainwater on the street and kerb …
under a grey sky
a group of mourners leave the Montmartre cemetery …
appear elegant in their black morning garb,
the men in top hats and women in deep lace veils.
The guard in the brightness of his uniform,
the fashionably dressed woman with the pink bow in the hair
and her fluffy white dog
seem out of place in these surroundings.
Jean Béraud
Le retour de l'enterrement
Leaving Montmartre Cemetery
1876
Private collection

59. The drizzle of a rainy day has emptied the Place de la Concorde of its usual bustle of people, carriages and cars ...
imposing architecture,
decorative streetlights,
flags piercing the grey skies above
and
in the middle of this open space,
as a magnet,
the young Parisienne’s gaze at the viewer’s glance.
the fashionable girl, elegantly adorned with crimson accessories to highlight the tinted lips,
transforms the view of an urban space into the portrait of a resident in front of her property.
The capital belongs to its city dwellers, and Béraud cannot portray the one without the other.
Jean Béraud
Parisienne un jour de pluie, place de la Concorde
Parisian on a rainy day, place de la Concorde
1890
Private Collection

63. The Art of Rain The beauty of rain in paintings
L’art de la pluie La beauté de la pluie dans la peinture
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