Attracted by country scenes, Pissarro moved to various homes around Paris and painted the surrounding landscapes. By the 1860s, landscape painting had become more acceptable in France, and although in 1863 he exhibited at the Salon des Refusés, from 1864 to 1870 he regularly exhibited at the official Salon. These early works were broadly and expressively painted, showing the influence of his teachers, but in a brighter palette.
In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Pissarro escaped to the safety of London. There he met the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922), who bought two of his London paintings. He also met Monet there, and the two friends painted together and visited art galleries. After the war, he settled in Pontoise and was often joined by Cézanne, who shared his interest in composition and structure. After about 1874, he began experimenting with Impressionist techniques, sometimes working with palette knives and applying paint in patches of color.
During the 1880s he also began painting the bridges, quays, barges, steamboats and smoking factory chimneys of modern industrial life. He painted market scenes and figures more frequently, creating vibrant and luminous effects with small dabs and dashes of complementary colors and flecks of light with his flickering brushwork. Believing that all painting was a learning process, he frequently advised younger artists and experimented with new ideas. In the 1880s, he tried Pointillism with Seurat, painting in dots of pure color that merged when viewed from a distance. Despite his changes of style, throughout his career Pissarro always focused on direct observations of light and atmospheric conditions, refusing to yield to social or artistic conventions.
Key Works
L’Hermitage c.1868, SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM MUSEUM, NEW YORK, US
A Fair at the Hermitage near Pontoise c.1878, COURTAULD INSTITUTE GALLERIES, LONDON, UK
Apple Picking 1886, OHARA MUSEUM OF ART, KURASHIKI, OKAYAMA, JAPAN
The Boieldieu Bridge at Rouen, Setting Sun, Foggy Weather 1896, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
The Boulevard Montmartre on a Cloudy Morning 1897, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
MANET
1832–1883 • REALISM
Bar at the Folies-Bergère
1882 OIL ON CANVAS
96 × 130 CM (37¾ × 51¼ IN)
COURTAULD INSTITUTE OF ART, LONDON, UK
In his last great work, Manet captured the interior of a popular bar and restaurant. The barmaid boldly looks back at the viewer and the glittering, bustling interior is reflected in the long mirror behind her. Manet was awarded a medal for it at the Paris Salon in 1882. He died the following year.
Modern art begins with Édouard Manet. With his painting technique and interpretation that defied established artistic conventions, he attempted to capture modern life and the impressions of passing moments; to depict what the eye perceives within seconds. All too predictably, these innovations were viewed as outrageous, but his influence on subsequent painting was immense.
Manet came from a bourgeois Parisian family (his father was an official in the Ministry of Justice and his mother was the daughter of a diplomat). His decision to become an artist met with parental opposition but, inspired by the old masters, particularly the Spanish painters with their dramatic compositions and tonal contrasts, he was determined to achieve his aim. After an episode in the merchant marines, he studied with Thomas Couture (1815–79) for five years. In 1856, he visited art collections in Holland, Germany, Prague, Austria and Italy—and in Spain ten years later.
From 1852, Paris underwent a massive modernization program. Its cramped, Medieval alleyways were destroyed and replaced by long, wide boulevards lined with cafés and shops. In the midst of all this change, Manet rejected the old style of painting, choosing instead to paint contemporary life around him. With his bold brushwork, absence of half tones, juxtapositions of strong color, flattening of forms, inconsistencies of scale and irreverent subject matter, his version of modernization caused outrage.
Although he was striving to be modern, Manet still sought acceptance. When one of his works was rejected from the Salon in 1863, he exhibited at the Salon des Refusés. The painting was Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. Featuring a naked woman between two fully clothed men, it scandalized viewers. The unfinished treatment also appeared to insult academic art. For several years, the Salon jury continued to reject his paintings, not understanding what he was trying to do and seeing him simply as a bad artist who only wanted to shock. Nevertheless, Manet inspired the young group of artists who became known as the Impressionists. For the next few years, he led these artists’ discussions in the Café Guerbois and he continued to paint a broad range of contemporary subjects in loose brushstrokes. He was not intentionally scandalous, and for his entire life he sought recognition in the official art quarters. He simply aspired to do something new and his innovations gradually changed ideas about art.
Key Works
Music in the Tuileries Gardens 1862, NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe 1862–3, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Olympia 1863, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Luncheon in the Studio 1868, NEUE PINAKOTHEK, MUNICH, GERMANY
The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico 1867–8, STAATLICHE KUNSTHALLE, MANNHEIM, GERMANY
The Railway 1872, THE NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON DC, US
DEGAS
1834–1917 • IMPRESSIONISM
The Dance Class
1874 OIL ON CANVAS
83.2 × 76.8 CM (32¾ × 30¼ IN)
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, USA
Viewers’ eyes are drawn around this unusual asymmetrical composition that is clearly influenced by photography and Japonisme. Ballet students and their mothers crowd in a dance studio, while Jules Perrot, one of the best known ballet masters of the time, conducts a class. Appearing as a frozen moment in time, Degas worked hard to make the dancers appear spontaneous and natural.
Although he exhibited with the Impressionists and is regarded as one of their founders, the work of Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas has distinct differences. He became famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing, concentrating on photographically inspired compositions and contours. His dynamic work turned mundane moments and situations into scenes shaped by light.
With his skills in the depiction of movement, sensitive portraiture and masterful understanding of color and line, Degas’s work can really be viewed as a mixture of Impressionism, Realism and Neoclassicism. Like Manet, he was born in Paris to an affluent family and was initially trained for the law, but left to study art with Louis Lamothe (1822–69), who had been a pupil of Ingres. He also went to the École des Beaux-Arts but preferred to study on his own, copying old masters in the Louvre. He also visited Italy, staying in Naples, Rome and Florence, and studying artists such as Botticelli and Raphael.