1988 Impressionism National Gallery of Art, Washington Book

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Impressionism National Gallery of Art, Washington
© 1988 National Gallery of Art, Washington
Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Edgar … Read more Impressionism National Gallery of Art, Washington
© 1988 National Gallery of Art, Washington
Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Edgar Degas, Eugène Manet, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot - all are famous as participants in the struggle that became the impressionist revolu-tion. Their paintings, usually light-filled landscapes or casual scenes of contemporary life, appear to be pleasant views of an innocent era, a time when the world looked fresh and verdant and its inhabitants healthy and handsome.
During the 1860s and 1870s, when the movement began and attained its height, however, the artists and their works were disparaged and ridiculed. The subjects of their paintings were considered trivial or degenerate, while their contemporaries felt insulted and threatened by what they considered unfinished and thus dangerously radical sketches.
The artists whose paintings are included in this postcard folio did not, at least at first, intend to be revolutionary. Rather, they wanted to revitalize the stale practices and rigid standards of the Academy and the School of Fine Arts, and the officially sanctioned exhibition called the salon. Instead of heroics from ancient history, they chose subjects devoid of overtly didactic content, ordinary activities drawn from daily life, as in Morisot's Hanging the Laundry out to Dry, Tissot's Hide and Seek, Manet's Gare Saint-Lazare, Boudin's Concert at the Casino of Deauville, and Degas Dancers at the Old Opera House. Their other principal subject was landscape, usually views of the suburban and rural countryside where the artists lived, as in Monet's Bridge at Argentevil and Artist's Garden at Vétheuil, Cézanne's Landscape near Paris, Pissarro's Hedge, Renoir's Pont Neuf, Paris, and Sisley's Meadow.
4 3/4” H x 6 3/4” W x 1/2” D See less