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| Claude Monet (1840-1926) : Impression, Soleil Levant, 1872. Paris, Musée Marmottan Monet. Don Eugène et Victorine Donop de Monchy (donateurs) © musée Marmottan Monet, Paris / Studio Baraja SLB. |
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| Paris 1874 : Inventer l'impressionisme : Catalogue de l'exposition (2024). Coédition Réunion des musées nationaux - Grand Palais / Musée d'Orsay - Français - 288 pages / 250 illustrations - Courant artistique : Impressionnisme - Dimensions : 22,4 x 33 x 2,8 cm - Artistes : Berthe Morisot (1841-1895), Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) - EAN : 9782711880164 - Format du livre : Relié Plein Papier sans jaquette - Référence : EK198016 - Éditeur : RMNGP + EPMO - Diffuseur : EDITIONS FLAMMARION
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Paris 1874 Inventer l'impressionisme
Musée d'Orsay
Esplanade Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, 75007 Paris
Exposition au musée d'Orsay, du 26 mars au 14 juillet 2024, itinérance à la National Gallery of Art de Washington, du 8 septembre 2024 au 19 janvier 2025
Visited on 24 April 2024
OFFICIAL: " Il y a 150 ans, le 15 avril 1874, ouvre à Paris la première exposition impressionniste. « Affamés d’indépendance », Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley ou encore Cézanne ont décidé de s'affranchir des règles en organisant leur propre exposition, en dehors des voies officielles : l’impressionnisme est né. Pour célébrer cet anniversaire, le musée d’Orsay présente quelque 130 œuvres, et porte un regard neuf sur cette date-clé, considérée comme le coup d’envoi des avant-gardes. "
CATALOGUE: " Il y a 150 ans, le 15 avril 1874, ouvre à Paris la première exposition impressionniste. Pour célébrer cet anniversaire, le musée d'Orsay présente quelque 130 œuvres, et porte un regard neuf sur cette date-clé, considérée comme le coup d'envoi des avant-gardes. "
" « Affamés d'indépendance », Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley ou encore Cézanne ont décidé de s'affranchir des règles en organisant leur propre exposition, en dehors des voies officielles : l'impressionnisme est né. Que s'est-il passé exactement en ce printemps 1874 à Paris, et quel sens donner aujourd'hui à une exposition devenue mythique ? « Paris 1874. L'instant impressionniste » propose de retracer l'avènement d'un mouvement artistique surgi dans un monde en pleine mutation. "
" « Paris 1874 » fait le point sur les circonstances ayant mené ces 31 artistes à se réunir pour exposer ensemble leurs œuvres. Le climat de la période est celui d'un après-guerre, faisant suite à deux conflits : la Guerre franco-allemande de 1870, puis une violente guerre civile. Dans ce contexte de crise les artistes repensent leur art et explorent de nouvelles directions. Un petit « clan des révoltés » peint des scènes de la vie moderne, ou des paysages aux tons clairs et à la touche enlevée, croqués en plein air. Comme le note un observateur, « ce qu'ils semblent rechercher avant tout, c'est l'impression ». Une sélection d'œuvres ayant figuré à l'exposition impressionniste de 1874 est mise en perspective avec des tableaux et sculptures montrés au même moment au Salon officiel. Cette confrontation inédite permet de restituer le choc visuel des œuvres alors exposées par les impressionnistes, mais aussi de le nuancer, par des parallèles et recoupements inattendus entre la première exposition impressionniste et le Salon. Elle montre ainsi les contradictions et l'infinie richesse de la création contemporaine en ce printemps 1874, tout en soulignant la modernité radicale de l'art de ces jeunes artistes. "
AA: It is the last week of my three month stay in Paris. I have seen unforgettable exhibitions:
The last months of Van Gogh at Musée d'Orsay,
Mark Rothko at Fondation Louis Vuitton, the two centenary exhibitions of surrealism in Brussels, I
nternational surrealism at Musées royaux and
Belgian surrealism at Bozar. The best was saved for the last: the celebration of the 150th anniversary of impressionism at Musée d'Orsay.
Before the word was minted, impressionism existed - for instance in the work of J. M. W. Turner. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Camille Pissarro and Claude Monet went to exile in London and admired Turner and John Constable, both long dead by then. In France, Pissarro, Monet and their friends had already been increasingly drawn to outdoors painting. They continued to pursue new insights in vision and perception that led to the birth of a new aesthetics.
On the 15th of April, 1874, the Exhibition de la Société anonyme des peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs et lithographes was opened at 35 boulevard des Capucines, the studio of the great photographer Nadar. Intentionally or not, the choice of location was meaningful. Photography was becoming a superior way for portraits, family scenes and landscapes. Liberated from documentary duties, visual arts explored uncharted dimensions with new energy.
Most of the pictures in the exhibition were traditional, but a special group stood out - Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. They did not care to be labelled, but journalists and critics needed tags. Based on the title of a painting by Monet (see above), the journalist Louis Leroy of the humoristic magazine Le Charivari derided the group with the bon mot "impressionnistes". As sometimes happens, the word lost its sting of ridicule and turned official.
The epochal exhibition was not an audience draw (with only 3500 visitors), unlike the great official exhibition of the year, the Salon (300.000 visitors). Four works were sold - more than 160 were sold from the Salon. The society that arranged the exhibition went into receivership. But eight exhibitions called impressionist were arranged in 1874-1886, all differently organized. Camille Pissarro was the only one displayed in all.
The exhibition was by no means a scandal for the artists. They achieved world fame. But the failure of the critics to register its epochal importance left a permanent mark in the profession of criticism. From then on, critics have been ultra shy in condemning anything they fail to understand or appreciate. The artists had the last laugh. For the critics, the exhibition turned into a scandal .
In today's exhibition the legendary works are eternally young. The hanging and lighting are superb. The non-reflecting glass is invisible. Impressionist paintings require a special way of viewing. You move back and forth to appreciate the splotches of colour up close until the view borders on abstraction, then from a distance you figure out the structure. There are no contours nor perspective. Once you find your ideal observation point, the radiation of light and colour invites you to a mesmerizing experience, a feast for the eyes, a journey full of illuminations. From the painting, the artist is watching you. You are on a time travel to the fleeting instant which the artist wanted to catch. It is an impossible mission, and the painting is a record of evanescence in search of lost time. The subtle blur develops into a refined means of art.
Both the Salon and the Impressionistes of 1874 are on display.
I am particularly moved by:
Two eponymous paintings: Claude Monet: Boulevard des Capucines (1873-1874) Kansas City AND Boulevard des Capucines (1873) Moscow, possibly no 97, Impressionistes 1874
Antoine Guillemet: Bercy en décembre (1874) No 878, Salon 1874
Édouard Manet: Le Chemin de fer (1873) No 1260, Salon 1874
Félix Bracquemond: La Locomotive, d'après J. M. Turner (1875) Possible no 25, Impressionistes 1874
Stanislas Lépine: Montmartre, la rue Cortot (vers 1871-1873) no 82, Impressionistes 1874
Alfred Sisley: La Route de Saint-Germain à Marly (1872) No 161, Impressionistes, 1874
Berthe Morisot: Vue du petit pont de Lorient (1869) Probable no 107, Impressionistes, 1874
Giuseppe De Nittis: Che freddo ! (1874) No 1395, Salon, 1874
Edgar Degas: La Repasseuse (1869) No 61, Impressionistes, 1874
Berthe Morisot: Le Berceau (1872) No 104, Impressionistes, 1874
Paired hanging 1: Eva Gonzalès: Une loge aux Italiens (vers 1874) Refusé, Salon, 1874
Paired hanging 2: Auguste Renoir: La Loge (1874) No 142, Impressionistes, 1874
Claude Monet: Coquelicots (1873) No 95, Impressionistes, 1874. NB On
1 July 2024, AFP reported that the Riposte Alimentaire activist group had stuck an adhesive poster on the non-reflective glass of this painting to draw attention to global heating.
Edgar Degas: Aux courses en province (vers 1869) No 63, Impressionnistes, 1874
Giuseppe De Nittis: Dans les blés (1873) No 1394, Salon, 1874
Claude Monet: Impression, soleil levant (1872) No 98, Impressionnistes, 1874
Claude Monet: Le Havre, bateaux de pêche sortant du port (1874) No 96, Impressionnistes, 1874
Camille Pissarro: Gelée blanche (1873) No 137, Impressionnistes, 1874
Auguste Renoir: La Danseuse (1874) No 141, Impressionnistes, 1874
Paul Cézanne: La Maison du pendu, Auvers-sur-Oise (vers 1873) No 42, Impressionnistes, 1874
Auguste Renoir: La Seine à Champrosay (1876) No 195, Impressionnistes, 1877
Claude Monet: La Gare Saint-Lazare (1877) No 102, Impressionnistes, 1877
Gustave Caillebotte: Peintres en bâtiment (1877) No 6, Impressionnistes, 1877
Auguste Renoir: Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) No 186, Impressionnistes, 1877
Auguste Renoir: La Balançoire (1876) No 185, Impressionnistes, 1877
The final section is dedicated to the second impressionist exhibition (1877), according to some historians the first, because it was the first officially called impressionist, and it was distinguished by remarkable artistic coherence as distinct from the highly disparate 1874 exhibition.
As a man of the cinema I embarked on a project of revisiting world art at the time of the digital turn. Digital in the beginning was advertized by its power to make images bright and clear. My attitude was critical because reality is not bright and clear - it can be made look bright and clear only by omitting the infinity of fine soft detail in both directions of "the powers of ten" - the cosmos and the microcosmos. Of course major trends of art have been bright and clear such as Medieval art, Byzantine art, comic strips and Pop Art. Renaissance painting was against bright and clear imagery by devices including sfumato and infinity horizon.
In the beginning, digital was not good in catching atmosphere. The bright and clear vision meant that scenes seemed to take place on Mars. Catching the heat, the wind, the air, radiations, vibrations and reflections were strengths of the impressionists. Even shadows were luminous, people dancing by the river were seen as creatures of sunlight reflected from the water.
In contrast to classical schools of painting, impressionists avoided big subjects, eternal issues, storytelling, ideas and ideals, monumentalism, heroes and villains. They were inspired by the instant, the speed, the people in their environments, urban or rural. Panta rhei. There was an urge towards pure art, against any external meaning. There was a feeling of the life force, but also energy and dynamism in general, even if the subject is a train or a boat. It was about life itself and motion itself.
Charles Baudelaire had written in 1860 an essay on Constantin Guys called "Le Peintre de la vie moderne" where he urged young artists to break away from academic traditions and create art to express the ephemeral quality of modernity. The exhibition of 1874 was the breakthrough of such a project. Impressionism changed permanently also poetry (Rimbaud, Verlaine) and literature (Chekhov, Proust). In the spirit of impressionism, Chekhov abandoned Aristotelian drama and pioneered a new kind of play, substituting catharsis with epiphany.
Impressionism's passion for the fleeting moment and transience, its fascination in action and movement for their own sake, its "everything flows" feeling and its joy of life were also shared by the new art of the cinema. Impressionism was born in the age of photography taking over the documentary function of visual arts. Impressionism caught the sense of motion in blurred visions. The motion pictures of the Lumière brothers had an affinity with impressionism in their compositions and their affection for the changing reflections of light, the "beauty of the foliage moving in the wind" and the insight that there are no big subjects and small subjects. There are only differences of the grandeur of spirit in approaching those subjects. An artist can discover eternity reflected in a drop of dew.
Aspects of the impressionist sensibility are highly topical in the age of the internet. Never have we lived in the moment like now. From our vantage point, impressionism 150 years ago, then perceived as radically modern, now appears as an oasis of contemplation.
The exhibition catalog is of high value both for the insights of its essays and articles and its solid documentation. The illustrations are wonderful. The reproductions fail to do justice to the glory of the colour of the original paintings.
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PS 6 June 2024. Why no history? The impressionists were "painters of modern life". They had just experienced a modern war, the Franco-Prussian War and the subsequent civil war (the Paris Commune and the Semaine sanglante). The number killed during the Bloody Week was "extraordinarily high by historical standards" (Wikipedia), double as many as in Gettysburg ten years earlier and at least as many as during the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. The impressionists did not look back. They avoided history. They focused on the moment. In the moment they saw eternity.
