The Beach at Trouville

There’s a framed print that’s been hanging in my parent’s living room for as long as I can remember. I don’t know much about it, I never really thought to ask, but some of my earliest memories are of me staring at it closely, trying to figure out how such messy dollops of paint can come together to create such a wonderful picture. It was one of the first paintings I really appreciated and for that reason I’ve always loved it. And last Saturday, whilst walking off a particularly nasty hangover, I turned a corner and there it was, the original painting. It’s on loan from London’s National Gallery as part of an exhibition which explores they way artists have portrayed “Work, Rest and Play” over the past 400 years. And it’s superb. Next time you are anywhere near the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery at the top of Park Street, check it out – I promise you you won’t be disappointed. As for my childhood painting, it’s called “The Beach At Trouville”, it’s by Claude-Oscar Monet, and I’m still amazed at how such messy dollops of paint can come together to create such a wonderful picture.