Tag Archives: Impressionist Art

February 17, 2023 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) by Claude Monet ca. 1865

Monet_dejeunersurlherbeArtist: Claude Monet (1840–1926)

Title: French: Déjeuner sur l’herbe (English: Luncheon on the Grass) Central panel

Depicted people:

Date: between 1865 and 1866

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions: height: 248 cm (97.6 in) width: 217 cm (85.4 in)

Collection: Musée d’Orsay

Place of creation: Chailly-en-Bière

What I love about this painting:

This painting may be unfinished, but in this section, the central panel, Monet gives us a beautiful day, sunny and warm. It’s a perfect day for a picnic with friends, to forget the stresses of life and just enjoy the beauty of the world around you. It’s the perfect counterfoil to my often-gloomy Pacific Northwestern winter, the kind of day that gives me hope that a pleasant spring waits just a few weeks away.

Thank you, Monsieur Monet. I needed this glimpse of summer.

About this painting via Wikipedia:

Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (English: Luncheon on the Grass) is an 1865–1866 oil on canvas painting by Claude Monet, produced in response to the 1863 work of the same title by Édouard Manet. It remains unfinished, but two large fragments (central and left panels) are now in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, whilst a smaller 1866 version is now in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

Monet included the artist Gustave Courbet in the painting.

The painting in its whole form shows twelve people. They are clothed in Parisian clothing which was fashionable at that time. They are having a picnic in near a forest glade. All the people are gathered around a white picnic blanket, where food as fruits, cake or wine is located. The mood in this natural space is primarily created by the play of light and shadow, which is created by deciduous tree above them. [1]

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Oscar-Claude Monet 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his long career, he was the most consistent and prolific practitioner of impressionism’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air (outdoor) landscape painting. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant, exhibited in 1874 (the “exhibition of rejects”) initiated by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon.

His last time exhibiting with the Impressionists was in 1882—four years before the final Impressionist exhibition.

Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Morisot, Cézanne and Sisley proceeded to experiment with new methods of depicting reality. They rejected the dark, contrasting lighting of romantic and realist paintings, in favour of the pale tones of their peers’ paintings such as those by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Boudin. After developing methods for painting transient effects, Monet would go on to seek more demanding subjects, new patrons and collectors; his paintings produced in the early 1870s left a lasting impact on the movement and his peers—many of whom moved to Argenteuil as a result of admiring his depiction. [2]

Credits and Attributions:

IMAGE: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) by Claude Monet ca. 1865 Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Monet dejeunersurlherbe.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Monet_dejeunersurlherbe.jpg&oldid=711036251 (accessed February 16, 2023).

[1] Wikipedia contributors, “Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Monet, Paris),” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Le_D%C3%A9jeuner_sur_l%27herbe_(Monet,_Paris)&oldid=1134534732 (accessed February 16, 2023).

[2] Wikipedia contributors, “Claude Monet,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Claude_Monet&oldid=1137970938 (accessed February 16, 2023).

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December 4, 2020 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Hastings: the Front by Theodore Casmir Roussel 1908


Title: Hastings: the Front.

Medium: Watercolor.

Signed and dated: Theodore Roussel 1908.

Dimensions: 6.75×10 inches. Framed: 13.75×16 inches.”

Hastings is a seaside town in East Sussex on the south coast of England, south east of London. In the 19th and early 20th century, when this painting made, the railway enabled ordinary tourists and visitors to reach the town, and it became a popular seaside resort.

What I love about this painting:

I love watercolors. The medium allows for a dreamy atmosphere, and in this case, the artist has presented us with the impression of a sundrenched afternoon at the seashore. Roussel’s work grew more atmospheric as he grew older, but he was known more for his classically depicted nudes than as an impressionist. However, it’s clear he had an eye for impressionism and the ability to show a story with watercolors.

Tourists stroll along the breakwater in front of the hotels, wearing broad hats and coats. Like many days at the beach on the Washington Coast, where I live, even in summer the wind often carries a chill.

About the Artist, via Wikipedia:

Theodore Casimir Roussel (1847–1926) was a French-born English painter and graphic artist, best known for his landscapes and genre scenes. He came to painting late, in 1872, after his military service had ended, and he was entirely self-taught. His earliest works were scenes of daily life, rendered in the style of the Old Masters. In 1878, he moved to London and, two years later, married the widow Frances Amelia Smithson Bull (1844–1909), a distant collateral relative of James Smithson. In 1885, he met James McNeill Whistler, who became a lifelong friend and mentor.

Credits and Attributions:

Hastings: the Front by Théodore Roussel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Wikipedia contributors, “Theodore Roussel,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theodore_Roussel&oldid=896039278 (accessed December 3, 2020).

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April 17, 2020 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Monet Painting in His Garden by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1873

Monet Painting in His Garden by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Date: 1873

Medium: oil on canvas

Dimensions : Height: 46 cm (18.1 in); Width: 60 cm (23.6 in)

Collection: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

What I love about this painting:

Renoir shows us that Claude Monet’s garden is lush and a little wild, like the man who owns it. Yet, although he is the subject of this painting, Monet is completely focused on his work. The colors are vivid, which inspires me since my own garden is only now shaking off the depredations of winter. I would love to spend time in this riotous garden.

Renoir visited his good friend many times during the years Monet lived at Argenteuil, a village on the right bank of the Seine river near Paris. In 1873, Monet purchased a small boat equipped to be used as a floating studio, which must have been a draw for Renoir and his friends.

About the artist (via Wikipedia):

In 1862, Auguste Renoir began studying art under Charles Gleyre in Paris. There he met Alfred Sisley, Frédéric Bazille, and Claude Monet.  At times, during the 1860s, he did not have enough money to buy paint. Renoir had his first success at the Salon of 1868 with his painting Lise with a Parasol (1867), which depicted Lise Tréhot, his lover at the time. Although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, recognition was slow in coming, partly as a result of the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War.

Renoir was inspired by the style and subject matter of previous modern painters Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet. After a series of rejections by the Salon juries, he joined forces with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and several other artists to mount the first Impressionist exhibition in April 1874, in which Renoir displayed six paintings. Although the critical response to the exhibition was largely unfavorable, Renoir’s work was comparatively well received.  That same year, two of his works were shown with Durand-Ruel in London. 

 

Credits and Attributions:

Monet Painting in His Garden by Pierre-Auguste Renoir / Public domain

Wikipedia contributors, “Pierre-Auguste Renoir,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pierre-Auguste_Renoir&oldid=949963500 (accessed April 17, 2020).

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Renoir-Monet painting.png,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Renoir-Monet_painting.png&oldid=338421916 (accessed April 17, 2020).

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April 3, 2020 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: The Boating Party, by Mary Cassatt 1893

Artist Mary Cassatt
Year 1893
Medium oil on canvas
Dimensions 90 cm × 117.3 cm (46 3/16 in × 35 7/16 in)

What I love about The Boating Party by American artist, Mary Cassatt, is impression of movement, of the life of the water. It has a feeling of contentment, of peace. There is a serenity about this painting that evokes wonderful memories of boating and water sports, of the time when my family still lived on a lake. It reminds me of the sheer joy and freedom of being on the water with no purpose other than to enjoy one’s self.

About this painting, from Wikipedia:

Art historian and museum administrator Frederick A. Sweet calls it “One of the most ambitious paintings she (Cassatt) ever attempted.” His 1966 analysis focuses on the balance of the “powerful dark silhouette of the boatman”, the angle between the oar and the arm that “thrusts powerfully into the center of the composition towards the mother and child” and “delicate, feminine ones.”

Cassatt placed the horizon at the top of the frame in Japanese fashion.

  • In 1890 Cassatt visited the great Japanese Print exhibition at the ecole de Beaux-arts in Paris.
  • Mary Cassatt owned Japanese prints by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806).
  • The exhibition at Durand-Ruel of Japanese art proved the most important influence on Cassatt.

(Influence of) Manet

Frederick A. Sweet suggests that Cassatt may have been inspired by Édouard Manet‘s Boating from 1874.

I hadn’t considered that position of the horizon as being a traditional Japanese style until I read that paragraph. Then I realized that most Western artists place it lower on the canvas. In Western art, the sky (an allegory for God) traditionally dominates the work.

This painting has made me aware of  how greatly the ability to travel the world via ocean liners and contact with other cultures changed the way we produce art. Impressionism was new and daring in its time. The eye of the artist was freed from traditional confines of the various schools (Hudson Valley, etc.) by exposure to the simplicity and elegance of the previously unknown tradition of Japanese art.

Every new painting I come across leads me to another, which often leads me to another country and another tradition of style and form.

My life as an admirer of art is one of constantly finding something new about history and the world around me.

About the artist, Via Wikipedia:

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and print-maker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh’s North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of “les trois grandes dames” (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.

Credits and Attributions:

The Boating Party by Mary Cassatt, 1893–94

Wikipedia contributors. “The Boating Party.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Dec. 2018. Web. 8 Mar. 2019.

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January 10, 2020 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: Bridge at Ipswich by Theodore Wendel ca. 1905

  • Artist:  Theodore Wendel  (1859–1932)
  • Title:    Bridge at Ipswich        Date:   circa 1905
  • Medium: oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: Height: 61.5 cm (24.2 ″); Width: 76.2 cm (30 ″)
  • Collection: Museum of Fine Arts

One of the artists whose work I viewed at the Tacoma Art Museum last Friday is a little known Impressionist painter,  Theodore Wendel. I had never heard of him and have had a difficult time finding information on him. By digging around, I was able to cobble together some of this very intriguing artist’s story.

Most of the photos  that I shot with my cell phone while at the museum are not useful other than to identify the artists whose work I viewed. For that reason, I have returned to Wikimedia Commons to find a good example of his sterling work. Today’s image, Bridge at Ipswich, is a perfect example of his best work.

What I find interesting about this painting is how small the sky is and how large the bridge. Most plein air painters make the sky a prominent feature of their work. I like the way the land beyond the bridge dominates the painting, despite the size and solid feeling of the bridge.

About the Artist:

Theodore Wendel was born on July 19, 1857, in Midway, Ohio. He studied at the McMicken School of Design. In 1876 he traveled to Munich, where he enrolled in the Royal Academy. He associated with a group of artists, including Frank Duveneck. He studied at Duveneck’s school of art until returning to the US in 1882. In 1886 he went to Giverny, France, where he met and became close friends with Claude Monet.

Monet and the art of his circle impressed Wendel. He was one of the first artists to change their style from the heavier palette of classical realism to the lighter palette of Impressionism.

He returned to America in 1889 and adapted this new influence to the landscape of New England. He taught at Cowles Art School and at Wellesley College until his marriage in 1897. He married one of his students, Philena Stone.

He and his wife purchased a farm in Ipswich. Both painting and the craft of managing his farm consumed him—he loved both occupations equally.

Unfortunately, after an infection in the jaw in 1917, Wendel was mostly unable to paint until his death in 1932.

Credits and Attributions:

Wikimedia Commons contributors, “File:Theodore M. Wendel – Bridge at Ipswich – 1978.179 – Museum of Fine Arts.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Theodore_M._Wendel_-_Bridge_at_Ipswich_-_1978.179_-_Museum_of_Fine_Arts.jpg&oldid=358706162 (accessed January 10, 2020).

Most of the information for this article was gleaned from Theodore Wendel, an American impressionist, 1859-1932, by John I.H, Baur.

I also found information on Wendel at the Vose Galleries website, Theodore Wendel, 1859 – 1932.

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March 8, 2019 · 6:00 am

#FineArtFriday: The Boating Party, by Mary Cassatt

What I love about The Boating Party by American artist, Mary Cassatt, is impression of movement, of the life of the water. It has a feeling of contentment, of peace. There is a serenity about this painting that evokes wonderful memories of boating and water sports, of the time when my family still lived on a lake. It reminds me of the sheer joy and freedom of being on the water with no purpose other than to enjoy one’s self.

About this painting, from Wikipedia:

Art historian and museum administrator Frederick A. Sweet calls it “One of the most ambitious paintings she (Cassatt) ever attempted.” His 1966 analysis focuses on the balance of the “powerful dark silhouette of the boatman”, the angle between the oar and the arm that “thrusts powerfully into the center of the composition towards the mother and child” and “delicate, feminine ones.”

Cassatt placed the horizon at the top of the frame in Japanese fashion.

  • In 1890 Cassatt visited the great Japanese Print exhibition at the ecole de Beaux-arts in Paris.
  • Mary Cassatt owned Japanese prints by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806).
  • The exhibition at Durand-Ruel of Japanese art proved the most important influence on Cassatt.

(Influence of) Manet

Frederick A. Sweet suggests that Cassatt may have been inspired by Édouard Manet‘s Boating from 1874.

I hadn’t considered that position of the horizon as being a traditional Japanese style until I read that paragraph. Then I realized that most Western artists place it lower on the canvas. In Western art, the sky (an allegory for God) traditionally dominates the work.

This painting has made me aware of  how greatly the ability to travel the world via ocean liners and contact with other cultures changed the way we produce art. Impressionism was new and daring in its time. The eye of the artist was freed from traditional confines of the various schools (Hudson Valley, etc.) by exposure to the simplicity and elegance of the previously unknown tradition of Japanese art.

Every new painting I come across leads me to another, which often leads me to another country and another tradition of style and form.

My life as an admirer of art is one of constantly finding something new about history and the world around me.

About the artist, Via Wikipedia:

Mary Stevenson Cassatt (May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and print-maker. She was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania (now part of Pittsburgh’s North Side), but lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.

She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of “les trois grandes dames” (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.

Credits and Attributions:

The Boating Party by Mary Cassatt, 1893–94

Wikipedia contributors. “The Boating Party.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 9 Dec. 2018. Web. 8 Mar. 2019.

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