The Roots of Modernism

Realism and Impressionism

The 19th century saw the rise of the middle classes due to the expansion of industrialism. As the middle classes increased in prosperity and numbers, they began playing a larger role in society, and replaced the aristocracy as the new patrons of art. Realism in art-whether in painting, or in the newly invented medium of photography-found an audience. Gustave Courbet established himself as the leader of the Realist School of painting in the Salon of 1850. One of the paintings exhibited by Courbet was the twenty-foot wide Burial at Ornams which depicted the country funeral of Courbet's grandfather.

The painting's reception ranged from disgust at the unsentimental ugliness of the scene to admiration for its sociological acuity. The social philosopher Pierre Prudhon championed Courbet's work in essays, and soon Courbet wore the mantle of Social Realist. In 1855, Courbet, angered at the rejection of two of his works by the jury for the International Exposition, withdrew all his works and built a special pavilion at his own cost to house them. He called his construction the Pavilion of Realism. The manifesto he published solidified his reputation as the leading Realist of Europe. Courbet's famous statement that he could not paint an angel because he had never seen one, nearly summarizes his insistence on observation from life, and implies his rejection of the Academic tradition.

			Burial at Ornams (left) The Academy and the Salon were to receive another insult to their authority in 1863, a date considered by most art histories to mark the inauguration of the modern period in art. The Salon of 1863 had rejected a large number of entries, and the strong protests prompted Napoleon III to order the Salon Des Refuses organized to accommodate the rejected works.
		One work became the most notorious painting of the 19th century. Its author was a well-bred gentleman who had previously shown in the official Salon. Born in 1832 to an upper middle class family, Edouard Manet was dignified, aloof, and sought the professional honors of the Salon. But, in 1836 he exhibited a painting that outraged the public and caused a storm of controversyÖa painting called the Dejeuner sur l'herbe. This "Luncheon on the grass" shocked with its realistic depiction of two gentlemen in contemporary 19th century dress enjoying a picnic with one half-clothed, and one fully nude model. Worst of all, the nude model stared directly into the viewer's eyes, shamelessly! The viewers were outraged by the scandalous behavior of contemporary youthÖespecially since they recognized one of the young men as Eugene ManetÖEdouard's brother! Terrible! Outrageous! It mattered little to the public that Giorgione had painted a similar scene of his contemporaries during the Renaissance, and that his painting the Fete Champetre occupied a position of honor in the Louvre. Nor did they know or care that Manet's poses were derived from an engraving based on a drawing by Raphael. Manet's painting, aside from the controversial subject matter was painted in a new way. He used a reductive system of values, sharply defining areas of light and shade, flattening the forms of the picture.
	In fact, Courbet himself dismissed Manet's painting Olympia as looking like a "Queen of Spades". This playing-card flatness was a new kind of pictorial space, more akin to the Japanese prints and high contrast photography Manet admired than the carefully modulated forms of Academic art. In choosing to paint scenes of contemporary life in a new way, Manet opened the door for the Impressionists. Manet himself still desired the official honors of the Salon. When Degas urged the other impressionists to swear an oath never to exhibit in the Salon, Manet declined, and, although he remained a friend of the Impressionists, we must think of him as a courageous but solitary figure, and a kind of bridge between Realism and Impressionism. In one sense, the Impressionist Movement was a logical extension of Realism. They observed contemporary life at firsthand. The Impressionists and the Realist both reacted against Academic teaching and were committed to the objective recording reality. In another sense, however, the Impressionist broke with a tradition in art that had lasted since the Renaissance, and in this sense they were truly revolutionary. The Impressionist's focus became the momentary qualities of reflected light, rather than form. Understand that, going all the way back to Giotto in the 14th century, artists struggled to represent three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional plane. The convincing illusion of form was of utmost importance to the artist-all the way up to Courbet!

Courbet himself was disgusted with the flatness of Manet's painting! Yet, even Manet retained outline and black. The Impressionist banished black from their palettes and, except for Degas (among the most classically trained of the Impressionist) they banished line as well!

The paintings were made up of dashes of paint applied textually to the canvas, creating a kind of shimmering light, and a surface that exclaimed, "I'm made of paint! I'm no mere illusion! I'm a painting!" A shift in the goals of painting after some five centuries is certainly a momentous change. The first Impressionist exhibitions were greeted with hostility and ridicule. Even the term "Impressionism" was a joke thrown at Monet's paintings. It wasn't, in fact, until their third exhibition that the Impressionist reluctantly accepted the name and used it themselves. The Impressionists were a group of individuals, and each contributed a personal vision to the collective aims of the group. Pissarro, who suffered in obscurity the longest, was one of the most faithful to the style of Impressionism, throughout his career.

French Impressionist

	The leader of the Impressionists, Claude Monet was born in Le Havre, a port city in France. He spent the early part of his career as a talented caricaturist. He was mentored by Boudin, and soon, under his teacher’s influence, began painting out-of-doors. His lifetime love of painting "en plein air" began at this point. Monet was to develop into one of the great landscape painters of all time. In 1859 Monet studied at the Atelier Suisse. There, he met Pissarro, and began a friendship based on similar approaches to painting. Monet served two years in the French military in Algiers. On returning to Paris, he continued his studies in the studio of Gleyre where he met Renoir, Bazille and Sisley. These friendships were to develop into the circle of painters we know as the Impressionists, and, along with Pissarro, were to change the direction of painting forever. Monet and Pissaro spent the years of the Franco-Prussian War (1970-1871) in London. There, they studied the works of Constable and Turner. Surely, the works of Turner must have had a profound effect of Monet’s goals in painting. One can hardly look at the Venetian Lagoon scenes of Turner without thinking how similar they are to later Impressionist works. It was in London that Monet met the picture dealer Durand-Ruel, who became the great supporter and friend to the Impressionists. From 1871 to 1878 Monet lived and painted in Argentueil, outside of Paris. His painting Impression:Sunrise was completed in 1872. The work was exhibited in the photography studio of Nadar. A critic for the paper Le Charivari saw the work and dubbed it, facetiously, "Impressionism". Well, the name stuck. Voila! Impressionism!
Monet, of all the Impressionists and their followers was the most devoted to painting the changing ephemeral effects of light and color in the open air. His interest in light and color led him to create series of works depicting a subject seen at different times of day, in different lighting conditions. One such series is devoted to the study of light and atmosphere on the façade of Rouen Cathedral. He shows us the grand portal in bright sunlight, in cool afternoon shade, in cloudy weather and in mist and rain, transforming the well-known west front into a series of visual experiences.
	He painted with loose brushstrokes, placing strokes of paint beside other strokes of paint of a different color. When the two colors blend from a certain distance in the viewer’s eye, they create a shimmering image that seems to have more life and light than in the conventional painting techniques used since the Renaissance. The intent of the painting, then, is light and color rather than form. In Monet’s Haystack series, for example, the color and light tend to render their subject almost insubstantial…something of a ghost image, in some cases. Referring to one of Monet’s paintings of Rouen Cathedral, the former Director of the National Gallery in London, Sir Kenneth Clark once said, "Of course, the façade of Rouen Cathedral never actually looked like a melting ice-cream cone." His comment is not sarcastic. Although the Impressionists emphatically demanded that they painted what they saw, in fact, they had developed an approach to painting that opened a door into new areas of distortion for expressive purposes. In fact, some of Monet’s paintings of the façade of Rouen do like melting ice-cream cones. One can be pretty sure that the actual cathedral never looked quite like that. Monet’s brushwork becomes as important as the subject, as important as his color choices and value decisions. A third subject is introduced. If the first subject is the actual scene, the second is the effect of light on the scene, and the third is the paint itself. We may even say that the order of value is reversed: paint takes primary focus in some cases, light takes second place, and the subject of Roen Cathedral comes in last.

We should remember that since the Renaissance painters had sought to show the three-dimensional appearance of the world in two dimensions. They desired to make the flat canvas appear to contain a three-dimensional world. In Monet’s paintings, especially the late work--the three-dimensionality of the natural world becomes dissolved in strokes of paint.

By 1883 Monet settled at Giverny, about 40 miles outside of Paris. It was here that he created the water gardens that increasingly absorbed his interest. By 1890 Monet was no longer an impoverished artist. He purchased the house at Giverny, and in 1899 he began the great series of water-lilies that were to be the dominant theme of his last great works. If we follow the stylistic changes of the water-lily paintings, we can detect in the later large-scale paintings a lyrical abstraction of the surface organization. The brushstrokes become larger and more rhythmic. Great figure "8’s" of paint swirl through the surface. The paint itself exhibits a textural life of its own, separate from any implied reality. Some of these canvasses appear to be so abstract that the viewer must make a conscious effort to recognize a subject other than that of the pure organization of forms and colors activated by the paint application.

In his late years, Monet was given a commission by the state for a series of water-lily paintings. In 1914 he had a studio built on his property to house these exceptionally large canvasses. Many of these works are now in the Orangerie and Jeu de Paume in Paris. The Museum of Modern Art in New York also has some exceptional canvasses from the commission.

In his later years, Monet suffered from failing eyesight. He complained especially of a distortion of color. However, he continued to paint until the time of his death. Many major museums in the United States and Europe have examples of his work.

Since his death, Monet’s paintings have been reproduced widely, and have found a kind of secondary life in popular calendars and posters. It is difficult to imagine the contempt with which the term "Impressionism" was originally coined, and the hostility with which his works were initially met.

 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841-1919 French Impressionist The Luncheon of the Boating Party   Le Moulin de la Galette (above) Dance at Bougival

Almost everyone likes Renoir But that wasn’t always the case. The Impressionists were vilified in their early careers, and suffered from poverty and privation. It may be hard to imagine now that a painting such as the one reproduced here was actually a revolutionary work when it was first painted. The Impressionists turned away from Romanticism and Academicism, concentrating instead on capturing the effects of light on everyday subjects. Their brushstrokes were loose and sketchy. The traditionalists of the time felt assaulted by the non-traditional approach of the Impressionists. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges in 1841. By age 13, he was working in a porcelain factory in Paris, learning careful craftsmanship, and developing a light, airy palette of color. He would study paintings in the Louvre in his free time, and was especially drawn to the lighthearted themes and pastel coloration of Rococo art. In 1862 Renoir studied under the artist Gleyre, and met the painters Monet, Bazille, Sisley and others, who were to form the circle later known as the Impressionists. Monet and Renoir became close friends, and often painted outdoor scenes together. By the late 1870’s Impressionism began to be accepted, and the fortunes of the painters working in this style improved. The painting reproduced here, The Luncheon of the Boating Party(illustrated left), which hangs in the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, was painted in 1880. The young woman in the lower left wearing a floral-trimmed hat is Aline Charigot. She is 21 in this painting, and ten years after this was to become Renoir’s wife. The scene takes place on the island of Chatou on the Seine outside Paris. This was a favorite haunt of the Impressionists. Today it is known as the Island of the Impressionists, and you can have lunch in the same restaurant as Renoir. The owner, and the man responsible for renting boats, is Alphonse Fournaise Jr., whom you see standing with his muscular arms resting on the railing behind him. The man in the far bottom right of the picture in the straw hat is Gustave Caillebote. His painting in the Chicago Art Institute is one of their great treasures of Impressionist art. Another guest at the luncheon party is the journalist Paul Lhote. He is the man in the straw hat in the upper right, inclining his face toward a woman who raises her gloved hands to her cheeks. He seems to be rather drawn to this elegant woman. Paul Lhote, in fact, was drawn to the Impressionists because of the proximity of such beautiful women, rather than for any particular love of art. Several actresses, models, wealthy collectors and a diplomat and his secretary round out the collection of friends and acquaintances in Renoir’s painting. One of the most enigmatic characters in this picture must be the sister of Alphonse Fournaise. She is the woman leaning on the railing at left with her hand supporting her face. At the time this was painted, she was 34. The patrons of the restaurant used to refer to her as the "lovely Alphonsine." Her life was an unhappy one. She was widowed at a very young age and never remarried. She died in poverty at age 91, alone. Documents suggest that paintings Renoir had given her when he himself was poor and unknown may have helped to support poor Alphonsine in her old age. The freshness and immediacy of this painting is characteristic of Impressionist work. The paint is handled in a loose and spontaneous manner. The colors are bracing, and the light actually appears to flicker as it warms the faces of the guests at the luncheon. It was the Impressionist’s intent to record scenes of everyday life, to disregard the old traditions of history painting, of mythological subjects, of dull convention. They preferred to focus on momentary expressions and momentary impressions of light and color, especially in outdoor scenes. In Renoir’s painting we see a group of attractive people at leisure, enjoying free time, the women wearing fashionable hats and pretty dresses. The industrial revolution did indeed allow a great many people the luxury of free time. Mass-production meant that even those lower on the economic scale could dress, for the first time in history, in fashionable clothing. In the past, the poor wore clothes of sturdy homespun. A poor man’s suit was meant to last him a lifetime. So, we see a genuine pleasure in the improved standard of living. There is a slight irony in this. The painter himself worked 15 hours a day at his easel, toiling in obscurity and poverty for years before achieving fame. Even while recording leisure with his brush, Renoir was at work!

Some critics have discerned a hidden Romanticism in these paintings despite the Impressionists implicit rejection of it. They see, in what Sir Kenneth Clark called "the melting ice-creams" of the dappled paint, a kind of turning-away from the harsh realities of the newly industrialized world, and a convenient amnesia regarding the labors of those in the factories.

In 1880 Degas began to suffer from failing eyesight. He had always worked in pastels, and began to depend more on this medium as his eyesight weakened. At the same time he began using sculpture as an expressive medium. The tactile sensibility took over for the purely visual as he modeled in wax and clay. In the 1890’s as it became increasingly difficult for him to see, he worked more intently on modeling. His studies of horses in action, women bathing and nude dancers continued the themes he had explored throughout his mature career. Only one model was cast in bronze in Degas’ lifetime and exhibited. This sculpture is called Fourteen-year-old Dancer. The small bronze, dressed in a tulle tutu is in the Musee D’Orsay in Paris. Copies are in other collection throughout the United States and Europe.

Degas spent the last twenty years of his life somewhat removed from the world. He was virtually blind in his last years, but his complete devotion to his work commanded universal respect from both his fellow artists and the from admirers of art.

  ~Benita Goldman~