![]() ![]() They were interested in nature and landscape scenes (one can think of Monet’s harbor views, seascapes and garden impressions), as well as urban everyday life scenes (think of Degas entering dance halls, opera houses and ballet classes to paint these everyday subjects then and there, or Renoir’s keen eye for Parisian leisure-seekers). The greatest difference between the style and method of the Impressionists compared to the art of the established Académie des Beaux-Arts was that these artists moved away from completely realistic depictions of historical subject matter. This was the first time that Paris had witnessed a large-scale independent exhibition of avant-garde art, a direct challenge to the salon, the academic tradition’s historical subject matter and methods, and the official art world. The artists, however, co-opted the term and were from then on to be known as the Impressionists. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape,” were the mocking words of Leroy. As the well-known story goes, art critic Louis Leroy gave a seething review of the exhibition, mockingly naming the group Impressionists, after Monet’s painting Impression: Sunrise which was particularly ridiculed by critics. Approximately 200 works were exhibited, and seen by about 4000 people. ![]() The exhibition included works by Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Berthe Morisot. ![]() Following the example of the ground-breaking 1863 Salon des Refusés, in the spring of 1874 a group of unacknowledged French painters, who at the time called themselves Le Societé Anonyme des Artistes and organised exhibitions that were not controlled by the reigning Paris Salon, organised an exhibition in the former studio space of one of their friends, the notorious photographer Nadar. ![]()
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