Defining an artistic era or movement is often a difficult task, as one tries to group individualistic expressions and artwork under one broad brush. Such is the case with impressionism, which culls together the art of a multitude of painters in the mid-19th century, including Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, and van Gogh. Basically, impressionism involved the shedding of traditional painting methods. The subjects of art were taken from everyday life, as opposed to the pages of mythology and history. In addition, each artist painted to express feelings of the moment instead of hewing to time-honoured standards. This description of impressionism, obviously, is quite broad and can apply to a wide array of styles. Nonetheless, it remains a very important school in the annals of art. Any current or budding art aficionado should become familiar with the impressionist movement and its impact on the art world. This book presents a sweeping study of this artistic period, from its origins to its manifestations in the works of some of art history's most revered painters. Following this overview is a substantial and selective bibliography, featuring access through author, title, and subject indexes.
« Je peins ce que je vois et non ce qu’il plaît aux autres de voir. » D’autres mots que ceux d’Édouard Manet, à la touche pourtant si différente de celle de Monet ou de Renoir, pourraient-ils mieux définir ce que fut l’Impressionnisme ? Sans doute cette singularité explique-t-elle que, peu de temps avant sa mort, Claude Monet écrivit : « Je reste désolé d’avoir été la cause du nom donné à un groupe dont la plupart n’avait rien d’impressionniste. » Nathalia Brodskaïa dégage ici les contradictions de cette fin du XIXe siècle à travers le paradoxe d’un groupe qui, tout en formant un ensemble cohérent, favorisa l’affirmation des individualités artistiques. Entre l’art académique et le commencement de la peinture moderne non figurative, le chemin pour parvenir à la reconnaissance fut long. Après avoir analysé les éléments fondateurs du mouvement, l’auteur poursuit son étude à travers l’Œuvre de chacun des artistes et démontre comment, de cette revendication à la différence, naquit la peinture moderne.
Quel nom conviendrait mieux à cet art dont Émile Zola écrivait que «jamais auparavant des peintures ne lui avaient paru posséder une telle dignité. On peut presque entendre les voix intérieures de la terre et sentir les arbres bourgeonner». Plus qu'un art émotionnel, il s'agissait d'un art révolutionnaire qui rompait catégoriquement avec les règles rigides de l'art académique. Ainsi, les peintres purent se laisser enchanter par la lumière dansant sur les arbres, ou ses reflets dans l'eau. Expérimentée par Théodore Rousseau, la méthode allait être intensément développée par Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, Manet ou encore Berthe Morisot, chacun à sa propre manière.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born in Limoges on 25 February 1841. In 1854, the boy’s parents took him from school and found a place for him in the Lévy brothers’ workshop, where he was to learn to paint porcelain. Renoir’s younger brother Edmond had this to say this about the move: “From what he drew in charcoal on the walls, they concluded that he had the ability for an artist’s profession. That was how our parents came to put him to learn the trade of porcelain painter.” One of the Lévys’ workers, Emile Laporte, painted in oils in his spare time. He suggested Renoir makes use of his canvases and paints. This offer resulted in the appearance of the first painting by the future impressionist. In 1862 Renoir passed the examinations and entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and, simultaneously, one of the independent studios, where instruction was given by Charles Gleyre, a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The second, perhaps even the first, great event of this period in Renoir’s life was his meeting, in Gleyre’s studio, with those who were to become his best friends for the rest of his days and who shared his ideas about art. Much later, when he was already a mature artist, Renoir had the opportunity to see works by Rembrandt in Holland, Velázquez, Goya and El Greco in Spain, and Raphael in Italy. However, Renoir lived and breathed ideas of a new kind of art. He always found his inspirations in the Louvre. “For me, in the Gleyre era, the Louvre was Delacroix,” he confessed to Jean. For Renoir, the First Impressionist Exhibition was the moment his vision of art and the artist was affirmed. This period in Renoir’s life was marked by one further significant event. In 1873 he moved to Montmartre, to the house at 35 Rue Saint-Georges, where he lived until 1884. Renoir remained loyal to Montmartre for the rest of his life. Here he found his “plein-air” subjects, his models and even his family. It was in the 1870s that Renoir acquired the friends who would stay with him for the remainder of his days. One of them was the art-dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who began to buy his paintings in 1872. In summer, Renoir continued to paint a great deal outdoors together with Monet. He would travel out to Argenteuil, where Monet rented a house for his family. Edouard Manet sometimes worked with them too. In 1877, at the Third Impressionist Exhibition, Renoir presented a panorama of over twenty paintings. They included landscapes created in Paris, on the Seine, outside the city and in Claude Monet’s garden; studies of women’s heads and bouquets of flowers; portraits of Sisley, the actress Jeanne Samary, the writer Alphonse Daudet and the politician Spuller; and also The Swing and The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette. Finally, in the 1880s Renoir hit a “winning streak”. He was commissioned by rich financiers, the owner of the Grands Magasins du Louvre and Senator Goujon. His paintings were exhibited in London and Brussels, as well as at the Seventh International Exhibition held at Georges Petit’s in Paris in 1886. In a letter to Durand-Ruel, then in New York, Renoir wrote: “The Petit exhibition has opened and is not doing badly, so they say. After all, it’s so hard to judge about yourself. I think I have managed to take a step forward towards public respect. A small step, but even that is something.”
