Research of Impressionism

Events leading up to the impressionist exhibtion in 1874

By the end of 1869 all impressionists knew eachother well. Cafe Guerbois on the Rue des Batignolles was the headquarters where the Impressionists artists would meet.In journals from Renoir,Monet and Degas  they had stated that they had learnt alot from the gatherings at cafe Guerbois.

In the days at the cafe each individual artist had a personality that shone through:

• Manet was the dominating personality being ironic and giving cruel remarks.
• Degas commented on the unsuitability of making art available to the lower classes.
• Duranty proclaimed that he was a realist artist.
• Bazille appeared that he had sufficient academic training and he expressed his ideas clearly and held his own in conversation.
• Sisley was very timid.
• Renoir too averse to aesthetic disputes.

Manet believed that it was preferable to move abruptly from light to dark.In the open air paintings the colour of shadows was not actually black but was rich in colour. Impressionists used shadows to unite a picture in one dominant mood.

Nearly everyone in the group was influenced by Japanese art and applied the work to their own taste and needs. Manet was confirmed by the Japanese for his use of patches of colour. Monet followed the Japanese omission of detail in his pictures as a whole.

The painters agreed with the entires that the contemporary scene was their only possible subject matter. Bazille said that the artists choice of subject matter is not really important and that it should be taken from nature and scenes which are before the artists eyes. 

Impressionism was a northern style, Renoir was far less of an Impressionists when he worked in the mediterranean.

Monets paintings had not always been as delicate as it became in London. Seitz suggested that Monet may have found a precedent for such a tonal and geometric composition in Japanese prints or in the work of whistler.This can be seen in the work that Monet did called Hyde Park.

 Monets painting: Hyde Park - 1871

 

 There was a considerable opinion of the extent to which Monet and Pissaro were influenced by the works of Constable and Turner. The two extremes positions in this controversy was that the English painters exercised  a decisive influence or that they exercised none. In accounts from this period in letters from Pisarro two were written both both seemed to be written from different people.

• One letter had said that he was very entusiatic about the London landscape and that he studied the effect of fog,snow and springtime. He worked from nature, plein air, light and fugitive effects.
• The second letter he had discovered that Turner and Constables work had no understanding of the analysis of shadows, Turner used it as an effect for the absence of light. Turner with his use of tone did not apply it correctly or naturally.

Pissaros style developed in England and he and Monet achieved a looser technique and a greater lightness of colour. In Pissaros painting Entrance to the Village of Voisins painted in 1872  he converys the soft spring sunshine more effectively than in any other of his earlier works.

Pissaros work: Entrance to the Village of Voisins - 1872

Monet Painting done in London : Westminister Bridge

Monets Paintings done in Holland

Monet surprised his friends by his range and variety which were evident his pictures painted in Holland, which were different from the ones painted in London. Some of them are less atmospheric freely and broadly handled with scalloped brush strokes giving movement to the waves.

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In France during the war Renoir  had little opportunity to paint, at the beginning of 1870 two of his works was accepted by the Salon. La Baigneuse au Griffon and Femme d'Alger. Renoir would do sketches of different scenes from windows. He had been interested in painting the streets, quays and bridges of Paris, in works of Pont Neuf and Pont des Arts this shows his improvement of light and atmosphere.

The year after the war Pissarro returned to France in 1871, he was joined by several younger friends, the most gifted out of them all been Cezanne.

Pissarros Work: Pont Neuf

Pissarros work: Pont des Arts

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After the war prospects seemed bright for the young artists. Hoschede a director for a Paris department store sold a group of their works belong to Monet, Degas, Sisley and Pissarro. In a result the prices of their paintings were high.

The most tragic result of the war for the Impressionists group was the death of Bazille, who was killed in action at the end of 1870.

The Salon of 1873 was so hostile to novelty that once again a Salon des Refuses was set up. This was unsatisfactory to the Impressionists group and from 1873 onwards the group stopped sending work to the Salon. Long before, in 1867 Monett and Bazille concieved a plan for holding a group exhibition seperate from the Salon. Monet had the idea again in 1873 but Duret and others discouraged him. Degas was enthusiastic about the idea and proposed for a new group exhibition, at first it was proposed to invite some of the old masters like Corot, Courbet and Daubigny but this idea was abandoned. Degas insisted that they should invite some respectable artists who appear less offensive and revolutionary to the public. Artists like Boudin, Stanislas, Lepine and Giuseppe de Nittis.

The exhibiton was opened on the 15th of April to the 15th May 1874 at the Boulevard des Capucines and Rue Dawnou. Altogether 39 artists participated in the exhibition with over 165 works. Between 1874 and 1886 there were a total of eight Impressionists exhibitions.