This years Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Exhibition is French Impressionism with works from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. It closes on 3rd of October and is well worth a visit. We went to the members preview, the evening before it opened on the 25th ofJune 2021. These previews are one of the great advantages of NGV membership!
There are more than 100 works on display from artists including Money, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro and Van Gogh; 79 of which have never before been exhibited in Australia.
It is a beautifully curated exhibition with the emphasis on the connections between the artists. The accompanying words – either on the gallery walls or in the notes accompanying the paintings (from which all my quotes are taken) – explain who was influenced by who, who helped by who, who connected to who. The quotes come from letters and diaries of the artists. By the end you feel as though you’ve been in the company of a whole community of artists.
Introduction
In 1874 a group of artists in Paris formed a society in order to exhibit their work outside the official Salon exhibition program sponsored by the French government. The new group staged 8 public exhibitions between 1874 and 1876. The role of camaraderie and social connections between the artists played an important role in the development of their art which took a name applied by journalists: They are Impressionists in the sense that they render not the landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape.
Two quintessentially Impressionist paintings greet you on entering; the exhibition. Presented side by side they are by Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir who met as art students in Paris and undertook numerous painting excursions together in the 1860s. As you can see both were committed to painting the world around them as they saw it … and en plein air (outdoors) but their foci differed. So, we have two very different paintings. From Monet painted in 1875 – The richness I achieve comes from nature, the source of my inspiration.
And from Renoir, a painting with a very lengthy title painted 1874-76 – An artist, under pain of oblivion, must have confidence in himself, and listen only to his real master: Nature.
Before The Impressionists
In first few rooms we find paintings from older artists who influenced the Impressionists; these are artists who painted in the Forest of Fontainebleau and the nearby villages of Chailly and Barbizon and who became known as the School of Barbizon. This is a work by Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña who was described by Renoir as his ‘grand homme’ (great hero). Diaz, finding the younger artist struggling to compose a painting in the Forest of Foutainebleau gave him on the spot lessons in how to lighten his palette, which he never forgot.
Monet was impressed by the older artist Constant Troyon and sought his advice which was: Go to the country from time to time and make studies, and above all develop them … show me what you’re doing and with enough courage you’ll make it. Troyon was known for his landscapes and animal paintings.
Another older painting in the same circle as Diaz and Troyon was Jean-François Millet. Seeing these paintings impresses on the viewer how radical the Impressionists were with their new approach to art.
Millet was a friend of Théodore Rousseau, whose work is also on display in this part of the exhibition. This forest view is typical of Rousseau’s style during this period: shadowy trees appear silhouetted against a sunlit field, as reflections of autumnal colours ripple in the watery surface below.
This is an early work by Monet, who said: Rousseau made some very beautiful landscapes. The accompanying note says the artists choice of subject matter and darker colour palette echo the rural labourers and tranquil forest views of Millet and Rousseau.
Boudin exemplar to the Impressionists
The next room is full of the most exquisite paintings designed to show how Eugène Boudin influenced the Impressionists. He was 16 years older than Monet but both grew up in Normandy and were lifelong friends. Monet credited Boudin with his artistic creation: One day Boudin said to me: ‘Learn to draw well and appreciate the sea, the light, the blue sky’. I took his advice …
Here are some of Boudin’s beautiful paintings. I had trouble picking just three. Worth going to the exhibition just to see all of them. Although greater riches await the visitor.
I shall do other things but I shall always be the painter of beaches, Boudin 1865
By the 1870s Boudin had moved away from crowded beaches to focus on views of harbours, ports and coastlines.
And here is one from a decade later. According to the accompanying note Charles Baudelaire said Boudin’s skills of observation made it possible to ‘divine there the season, the hour, the wind. I don’t exaggerate!’
In the 1890s Boudin turned his attention to Venice and the French Riviera; a short time after Monet had visited this same place in 1888.
You can see why Monet would say always: I have said it before and can only repeat that I owe everything to Boudin and I attribute my success to him.
Watery surfaces
Next come paintings focussing on the depiction of water; a favoured subject for the Impressionists. Édouard Manet dubbed Monet the ‘Raphael of water’, his achievements in capturing its many moods and appearances overshadowing those around him. In this Monet was encouraged by the older artist Charles Francis Daubigny who had a studio boat for painting on location. It’s a bit hard to see his influence from this painting; I can’t remember if there were any others on display.
It’s a bit hard to go from that to this beautiful Monet; but you note this is some 40 years later. Monet went there in 1908 and painted 37 canvases. He was always more interested in capturing the play of light and reflection on the city’s waterways than painting its famous monuments.
But in the rest of the room there are paintings made closer in time to the Daubigny. I loved those by the British painter Alfred Sisley; who said: The artist’s impression is the life-giving factor … the surface, at times raised to the highest pitch of liveliness, should transmit to the beholder the sensation which possess the artist.
Sisley painted nearly 300 scenes of the riverside town of Saint-Mammés between 1880 and 1885: Every picture shows a spot with which the artist has fallen in love, he said.
And here is another; according to the artist: The sky must be the medium, the sky cannot be a mere backdrop.
Here is another picture including water; this time by Paul Cézanne, who worked along the older painter Pissarro; who said: From far off one often gets and entirely different idea of things. But likewise when one is too close one sees nothing; you can’t see a Cezanne by holding it against your nose.
Still life as studio practice
The next rooms display lesser known work by the familiar Impressionists. Still life paintings were easier to arrange and also found a ready market.
Sisley only ever painted nine still lifes; thankfully preferring his beautiful landscapes. He is said to have been encouraged by Monet to paint this one.
And here is Renoir. It is said to mark Renoir’s closest collaboration with Monet; the young artists painted the same subject, sitting side by side before the arrangement. Monet’s version is in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
And here is the more familiar still life from Cézanne, who has been called the master of still life. He is famous for saying: I want to astonish Paris with an apple.
Overall I wasn’t so keen on these works. Berthe Morisot links them to the Impressionist movement by saying: to catch the fleeting moment – anything, however small, a smile, a flower, a fruit – is an ambition fulfilled. I agree about the smile, not so sure about the flower and fruit.
Renoir and experimentation
One of the highlights of the whole exhibition for me was seeing the diverse work from Renoir on display. Apparently he was worried he hadn’t had any artistic training and in the 1880s experimented with a range of pictorial effects… landscapes,,figural works .. scenes of suburban Paris or more far-flung destinations. Be the end of the decade his friends feared he had gone too far; Camille Pissarro feeling he had become incoherent. I was amazed at the variety.
We are all familiar with this Renoir style, and this painting is on the exhibition marketing material. It’s very big; extraordinary colour and movement. He painted this after spending time in the Louvre studying and copying from the old masters.
These rosy cheeked girls are also familiar. I have a print of a similar painting bought at another exhibition here is Melbourne a long time ago. The girls are the daughter of Eugène Manet and Berthe Morisot and her cousin. Such exuberantly pretty works were received with mixed enthusiasm by Renoir’s contemporaries.
These girls are very different; The sense of relaxation and informality inherent in the scene is mirrored in the artist’s long, flowing brushstrokes.. Surprisingly, I thought, this was painted in the studio, not outdoors.
Here is a landscape in a region where Cezanne painted regularly and this picture is said to reflect Renoir’s admiration for his fellow artist. The two artists worked in harmony here in 1882.
This picture is painted in Renoir’s signature fluttering brushwork and offers a quintessential expression of his high Impressionist style.
These paintings were displayed on one side of a wonderful large, beautifully lit room divided diagonally by a long blue seating arrangement. Designed to allow visitors to sit and admire the paintings on either side for as long as they like – although on our preview night this option wasn’t taken up by anybody that I saw. I tried to capture it in a picture – not very successfully! Note the enthusiastic exhibition patron about to photograph the Dance at Bougival.
We’re only half way through the exhibition but I’ll stop this blog here – so many pictures. Part II can be found here.
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