Early Modern Art

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Early Modern Art

• The Impressionists

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Salon des Refuses

• The Salon des Refusés, French for exhibition of
  rejects, is generally an exhibition of works
  rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon,
  but the term is most famously used to refer to
  the Salon des Refusés of 1863.
• It should be taken into account that during this
  time, Paris was a breeding ground for artist of
  all forms, poets, artists, sculptors, etc. Paris
  was the place to be, and the capital of the art
  world, any artist that wanted to be recognized,
  at that time, was required to have exhibited in a
  Salon, or gone to school in France. Being
  accepted into these Salons was a matter of
  survival for some artist reputations and careers
  could be started or broken, based solely on the
  acceptance into these exhibits.

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Exhibition of the Rejects

• As early as the 1830s, Paris art galleries had
  mounted small-scale, private exhibitions of works
  rejected by the Salon jurors. The clamorous event
  of 1863 was actually sponsored by the French
  government. In that year, artists protested the
  Salon jurys rejection of more than 3,000 works,
  far more than usual. "Wishing to let the public
  judge the legitimacy of these complaints," said
  an official notice, Emperor Napoléon III decreed
  that the rejected artists could exhibit their
  works in an annex to the regular Salon.

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Exhibition of the Rejects

• Many critics and the public ridiculed the
  refusés, which included such now-famous paintings
  as Édouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass (Le
  déjeuner sur lherbe) and James McNeill
  Whistler's Girl in White. But the critical
  attention also legitimized the emerging
  avant-garde in painting. Encouraged by Manet, the
  Impressionists successfully exhibited their works
  outside the Salon beginning in 1874. Subsequent
  Salons des Refusés were mounted in Paris in 1874,
  1875, and 1886, by which time the prestige and
  influence of the Paris Salon had waned.

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Impressionism Overview

• Characteristics of Impressionist paintings
  include visible brush strokes, open composition,
  emphasis on light in its changing qualities
  (often accentuating the effects of the passage of
  time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of
  movement as a crucial element of human perception
  and experience, and unusual visual angles. The
  emergence of Impressionism in the visual arts was
  soon followed by analogous movements in other
  media which became known as Impressionist music
  and Impressionist literature.

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Impressionism Overview

• Radicals in their time, early Impressionists
  broke the rules of academic painting. They began
  by giving colours, freely brushed, primacy over
  line, drawing inspiration from the work of
  painters such as Eugène Delacroix. They also took
  the act of painting out of the studio and into
  the modern world. Previously, still lifes and
  portraits as well as landscapes had usually been
  painted indoors. The Impressionists found that
  they could capture the momentary and transient
  effects of sunlight by painting en plein air.
  Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they
  emphasized vivid overall effects rather than
  details. They used short, "broken" brush strokes
  of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly blended,
  as was customary, in order to achieve the effect
  of intense colour vibration.

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Impressionist techniques

• Short, thick strokes of paint are used to quickly
  capture the essence of the subject, rather than
  its details. The paint is often applied impasto.
• Colours are applied side-by-side with as little
  mixing as possible, creating a vibrant surface.
  The optical mixing of colours occurs in the eye
  of the viewer.
• Grays and dark tones are produced by mixing
  complementary colours. In pure Impressionism the
  use of black paint is avoided.
• Wet paint is placed into wet paint without
  waiting for successive applications to dry,
  producing softer edges and an intermingling of
  colour.
• Painting in the evening to get effets de soir -
  the shadowy effects of the light in the evening
  or twilight.

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Impressionist Techniques

• Impressionist paintings do not exploit the
  transparency of thin paint films (glazes) which
  earlier artists built up carefully to produce
  effects. The surface of an Impressionist painting
  is typically opaque.
• The play of natural light is emphasized. Close
  attention is paid to the reflection of colours
  from object to object.
• In paintings made en plein air (outdoors),
  shadows are boldly painted with the blue of the
  sky as it is reflected onto surfaces, giving a
  sense of freshness and openness that was not
  captured in painting previously. (Blue shadows on
  snow inspired the technique.)

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Early Impressionism

• Édouard Manet (French pronunciation, 23 January
  1832 30 April 1883, was a French painter. One
  of the first nineteenth century artists to
  approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal
  figure in the transition from Realism to
  Impressionism.
• His early masterworks The Luncheon on the Grass
  and Olympia engendered great controversy, and
  served as rallying points for the young painters
  who would create Impressionism. Today these are
  considered watershed paintings that mark the
  genesis of modern art.

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Edouard Manet
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The Holy Family, 1518Louvre Museum Paris,
France
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Edouard Manet - Luncheon on the Grass.
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Luncheon on the Grass

• Exhibited with other impressionist paintings at
  the Salon des Refuses by Manet in 1863, this
  painting earned the impressionists a great deal
  of media attention. Whilst a nude in a classical
  setting was considered acceptable, one in a
  contemporary setting was not. Luncheon on the
  Grass caused a public scandal and was savaged by
  the critics.

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Edouard Manet Olympia
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Olympia

• Though Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass (Le
  déjeuner sur l'herbe) sparked controversy in
  1863, his Olympia stirred an even bigger uproar
  when it was first exhibited at the 1865 Paris
  Salon. Conservatives condemned the work as
  "immoral" and "vulgar." Journalist Antonin Proust
  later recalled, "If the canvas of the Olympia was
  not destroyed, it is only because of the
  precautions that were taken by the
  administration." However, the work had proponents
  as well. Émile Zola quickly proclaimed it Manet's
  "masterpiece" and added, "When other artists
  correct nature by painting Venus they lie. Manet
  asked himself why he should lie. Why not tell the
  truth?"

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler (July 11, 1834
July 17, 1903)

• He was an American-born, British-based artist.
  Averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in
  painting, he was a leading proponent of the credo
  "art for art's sake". His famous signature for
  his paintings was in the shape of a stylized
  butterfly possessing a long stinger for a tail.
  The symbol was apt, for it combined both aspects
  of his personalityhis art was characterized by a
  subtle delicacy, while his public persona was
  combative. Finding a parallel between painting
  and music, Whistler titled many of his paintings
  "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes",
  emphasizing the primacy of tonal harmony. His
  most famous painting is the iconic Whistles
  Mother, the revered and oft parodied portrait of
  motherhood. A wit, dandy, and shameless
  self-promoter, Whistler influenced the art world
  and the broader culture of his time with his
  artistic theories and his friendships with
  leading artists and writers.

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James Abbott McNeill Whistler
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• Painted in 1862 it is a portrait of his Irish
  model and girlfriend, Jo Hiffernan The White
  Girl (Symphony in White No. 1). Shown in London
  first and then in Paris, it provoked a buzz of
  irrelevant interpretation. The expressionless
  young woman in innocent white, standing on a
  wolfskin with a lily in her hand (that floral
  emblem of the Aesthetic Movement), was declared
  to be something except what she actually was a
  model posing in Whistler's studio to give him a
  pretext to paint shades of white with extreme
  virtuosity and subtlety. The story was that there
  was no story. It was Whistler's first sally
  against the narrative insistence in French and
  (especially) British art, though by no means the
  last.

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Claude Monet

• Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 5 December
  1926) was a founder of French impressionist
  painting, and the most consistent and prolific
  practitioner of the movement's philosophy of
  expressing one's perceptions before nature,
  especially as applied to plein-air (in the open
  air) landscape painting. The term Impressionism
  is derived from the title of his painting
  Impression, Sunrise.

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Impressionists

• Impressionism is a term that came to designate
  the work of a diverse circle of artists who
  shared a desire for artistic independence and an
  allegiance to modern expression. Formed in the
  last quarter of the 19th century, this small,
  diverse group included Claude Monet,
  Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar
  Degas, Berthe Morisot, Paul Cézanne, and Camille
  Pissarro.

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Impressionists

• Over the span of 12 years (1874-1886) these
  artists mounted eight exhibitions, and although
  they quickly became known as the Impressionists,
  they never adopted an official name. Their
  Impressionist styles remained distinctive and
  diverse, but they shared common goals in their
  rejection of traditional academic ideals and
  their support of a modernist vision based on the
  experience of visual sensations and a personal
  point of view.

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Impression Sunrise1872 Oil on canvas
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• Haystacks is the title of a series of
  impressionist paintings by Claude Monet. The
  primary subjects of all of the paintings in the
  series are stacks of hay that have been stacked
  in the field after the harvest season. The title
  refers primarily to a twenty-five canvas series
  begun the autumn of 1890 and continued through
  the following spring, using that year's harvest.
  Some use a broader definition of the title to
  refer to other paintings by Monet with this same
  theme. The series is known for its thematic use
  of repetition to show differences in perception
  of light across various times of day, seasons,
  and types of weather. The subjects were painted
  in fields near Monet's home in Giverny, France.

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Haystack Snow Effect 1891
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Haystacks at Giverny in The Evening Sun 1888
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Haystack, Sunset (1890/91)
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Haystacks End of Summer
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Haystacks on a Foggy Morning1892
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Water Lilly Series

• Water Lilies (or Nympheas) is a series of
  approximately 250 oil paintings by French
  Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926). The
  paintings depict Monet's flower garden at Giverny
  and were the main focus of Monet's artistic
  production during the last thirty years of his
  life. Many of the works were painted while Monet
  suffered from cataracts.

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Claude Monet - Water Lilies (1916)
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Water Lily Pond
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Water-Lilies, Evening Effect
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir

• Auguste Renoir and Monet worked closely together
  during the late 1860s, painting similar scenes of
  popular river resorts and views of a bustling
  Paris. Renoir was by nature more solid than
  Monet, and while Monet fixed his attentions on
  the ever-changing patterns of nature, Renoir was
  particularly entranced by people and often
  painted friends and lovers. His early work has a
  quivering brightness that is gloriously
  satisfying and fully responsive to what he is
  painting, as well as to the effects of the light.

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Le Moulin de la Galette (1876)
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Le Moulin de la Galette (1876)

• The Moulin de la Galette was one of 21 works
  shown by Renoir at the third Impressionist
  exhibition in 1877. Every Sunday afternoon young
  people from the north of Paris contributed in the
  dance-hall and in the courtyard behind it in fine
  weather. Most of the figures in Renoir's work,
  rather than being habitués of the Moulin were in
  fact portraits of his friends, with the
  occasional professional model posing for thin.
  The scene which Renoir has painted in this work
  is not an authentic representation of the
  clientele of the Moulin, but rather a
  scrupulously organized series of portrait.

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Luncheon of the Boating Party
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Luncheon of the Boating Party

• The painting depicts a group of Renoir's friends
  relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise
  along the Seine river in Chatou, France. The
  painter and art patron, Gustave Caillebotte, is
  seated in the lower right. Renoir's future wife,
  Aline Charigot, is in the foreground playing with
  a small dog. In this painting Renoir has captured
  a great deal of light. As you can see the main
  focus of light is coming from the large opening
  in the balcony, beside the large singleted man in
  the hat. The singlets of both men in the
  foreground and the table-cloth both work together
  to reflect this light and send it through the
  whole composition.

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Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81

• The painting captures an idyllic atmosphere as
  Renoir's friends share food, wine, and
  conversation on a balcony overlooking the Seine
  at the Maison Fournaise restaurant in Chatou.
  Parisians flocked to the Maison Fournaise to rent
  rowing skiffs, eat a good meal, or stay the
  night.
• The painting also reflects the changing character
  of French society in the mid- to late 19th
  century. The restaurant welcomed customers of
  many classes, including businessmen, society
  women, artists, actresses, writers, critics,
  seamstresses, and shop girls. This diverse group
  embodied a new, modern Parisian society.

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Degas--Impressionist

• Degas did not fit nicely into the Impressionist
  definition. His style was not that of short dabs
  and dashes in an attempt to capture light.
  Instead he was lumped with the Impressionists
  because they shared the same philosophy to move
  artistic expression towards modernism. Contrary
  to his fellow impressionists, Degas had never
  really wanted to be completely detached from the
  past, and his artistic challenge was always to
  build a link between the old and the new. Out
  of the group, Degas was the strangest. His
  contemporaries labeled him as eccentric and
  bizarre and made no efforts to gain any sympathy
  either from strangers or his critics.

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Edgar Degas
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Degas-Ballet

• In the early 1870s the female ballet dancer
  became his favorite theme. He sketched from a
  live model in his studio and combined poses into
  groupings that depicted rehearsal and performance
  scenes in which dancers on stage, entering the
  stage, and resting or waiting to perform are
  shown simultaneously and in counterpoint, often
  from an oblique angle of vision.

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Degas--Ballet

• The dancer/ballet images produced by Degas
  combined all of his interests the instantaneous
  glimpse of figures in action the indoor,
  controlled lighting, often coming from below as
  in foot-lights and the view from peculiar
  vantage points, such as from wings, balcony
  boxes, or from below the stage. All of these
  features were used by Degas to enhance his candid
  glimpses of dancers working at their craft.

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Degas Dancer Taking a Bow
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Berthe Morisot

• Berthe Morisot was the third daughter of a
  prominent and wealthy government official.
• The family moved to Paris in 1852, where her
  father served as the Judicial Adviser to the
  Auditor's Office. This powerful position, with
  its high salary and important political
  associations, allowed the Morisots to lead a
  privileged lifestyle as members of the upper
  middle class.

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Berthe Morisot

• Raised accordingly, Morisot and her sisters were
  provided tutors for languages and literature and,
  in 1857, art lessons. Morisot and her older
  sister Edma quickly developed both a passion and
  a high level of skill in drawing and painting.
  Alongside her sister, Morisot copied masterpieces
  at the Louvre and painted out of doors under the
  direction of well-known landscape painter Camille
  Corot. She first exhibited her paintings at the
  prestigious annual Salon in 1864, and her work
  was shown there regularly through 1873.

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Berthe Morisot
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Mary Cassatt

• The daughter of an affluent Pittsburgh
  businessman, whose French ancestry had endowed
  him with a passion for that country, she studied
  art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in
  Philadelphia, and then travelled extensively in
  Europe, finally settling in Paris in 1874. In
  that year she had a work accepted at the Salon
  and in 1877 made the acquaintance of Degas, with
  whom she was to be on close terms throughout his
  life. His art and ideas had a considerable
  influence on her own work he introduced her to
  the Impressionists and she participated in the
  exhibitions of 1879, 1880, 1881 and 1886,
  refusing to do so in 1882 when Degas did not.

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Mary Cassatt
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The Child's Bath Mary Cassatt
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Mary Cassatt