Seine

The Seine (/seɪn/ SAYN; French: La Seine, pronounced: [la sɛːn]) is a 776-kilometre (482 mi) long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin in the north of France. It rises at Source-Seine, 30 kilometres (19 mi) northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plateau, flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Havre (and Honfleur on the left bank). It is navigable by ocean-going vessels as far as Rouen, 120 kilometres (75 mi) from the sea. Over 60 percent of its length, as far as Burgundy, is negotiable by commercial riverboats and nearly its whole length is available for recreational boating; excursion boats offer sightseeing tours of the Rive Droite and Rive Gauche within the city of Paris.

There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city. Examples in Paris include the Pont Louis-Philippe and Pont Neuf, the latter of which dates back to 1607. Outside the city, examples include the Pont de Normandie, one of the longest cable-stayed bridges in the world, which links Le Havre to Honfleur.

Seine (Van Gogh series)

Seine (paintings) is the subject and location of paintings that Vincent van Gogh made in 1886. The Seine has been an integral part of Parisian life for centuries for commerce, travel and entertainment. Here Van Gogh primarily captures the respite and relief from city life found in nature.

A few of the paintings were made in Paris and the rest in the northwestern suburbs of Paris in Clichy and Asnières. Through these works the audience can see a transition in Van Gogh's work from one of dark colors and serious themes to more joyous use of color and light and choice of themes.

In the Netherlands Van Gogh was influenced by great Dutch masters as well as cousin-in-law Anton Mauve a Dutch realist painter who was a leading member of the Hague School. In Paris Van Gogh was exposed to and influenced by Impressionism, Symbolism, Pointillism, and Japanese woodblock print genres which were overtime integrated into his works. The spring of 1887 seemed to trigger an awakening within Van Gogh where he experimented with the genres to develop his personal style.

Seine (department)

Seine was a department of France encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs. Its capital was Paris and its official number was 75. The Seine department was abolished in 1968 and its territory divided among four new departments.

General characteristics

From 1929 to its abolition in 1968, the department consisted of the city of Paris and 80 suburban communes surrounding Paris. It had an area of 480 km² (185 sq. miles), 22% of that area being the city of Paris, and 78% being independent suburbs. It was divided into three arrondissements: Paris, Sceaux, and Saint-Denis.

Formation

The Seine department was created on March 4, 1790 as the Paris department. In 1795, it was renamed the Seine department after the Seine River flowing through it.

At the first census of the French Republic in 1801, the Seine department had 631,585 inhabitants (87% of them living in the city of Paris, 13% in the suburbs) and was the second most populous department of the vast Napoleonic Empire (behind the Nord department), more populous than even the dense departments of what is now Belgium and the Netherlands. With the growth of Paris and its suburbs over the next 150 years, the population of the Seine department increased tremendously.