Claude Monet. Volume 1. Nina Kalitina
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Название: Claude Monet. Volume 1
Автор: Nina Kalitina
Издательство: Confidential Concepts, Inc.
Жанр: Иностранные языки
Серия: Prestige
isbn: 978-1-78525-697-4, 978-1-78310-595-3
isbn:
Oil on canvas, 91.8 × 61.9 cm. Allen Memorial
Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin (Ohio).
In April 1867, Frédéric Bazille wrote to his parents: “We’ve decided to rent a large studio every year where we’ll exhibit as many of our works as we want. We’ll invite the painters we like to send paintings. Courbet, Corot, Díaz, Daubigny, and many others… have promised to send us paintings and very much like our idea. With those painters, and Monet, who is the strongest of all, we’re sure to succeed. You’ll see, people are going to be talking about us.”
Organising an exhibition turned out to be no simple matter – it required money and contacts.
One month later, Bazille wrote to his father:
I told you about the project of a few young men having an independent exhibit. After thoroughly exhausting our resources, we’ve succeeded in collecting a sum of 2,500 francs, which is insufficient. We’re thus forced to give up on what we wanted to do. We must return to the bosom of officialdom, which never nourished us and which renounces us.
In the spring of 1867, Courbet and Édouard Manet each had their own solo exhibitions, after the Salon’s jury refused the paintings that they wanted to display there. Inspired by these examples, the future Impressionists never abandoned the idea of an independent exhibition, but left it to slowly ripen as they continued to work.
Friends of the artists worried about the consequences of such an exhibit. The famous critic Théodore Duret advised them to continue seeking success at the Salon. He felt that it would be impossible for them to achieve fame through group exhibitions: the public largely ignored such shows, which were only attended by the artists and the admirers who already knew them.
Duret suggested that they select their most finished works for the Salon, works with a subject, traditional composition, and colour that was not too pure: in short, that they find a compromise with official art. He thought the only way they could cause a stir and attract the attention of the public and critics was at the Salon.
Some of the future Impressionists did endeavour to compromise. In 1873, Renoir painted a huge canvas entitled, Riding in the Bois de Boulogne, which claimed the status of an elevated society portrait. The jury rejected the painting and Renoir displayed it in the Salon des Refusés, which had reopened in 1863.
When the time came to organise the first Impressionist exhibition, Bazille was no longer with the group, having died in 1870 in the Franco-German war, so the bold and determined Monet assumed leadership of the young painters. In his opinion they had to create a sensation and achieve success through an independent exhibition, and the others agreed with him.
Sainte-Adresse, 1867. Oil on canvas, 57 × 80 cm.
Gift of Catherine Gamble Curran and family, in honour of the 50th anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Seine at Bougival, 1869. Oil on canvas, 65.4 × 92.4 cm.
Currier Museum of Art, Manchester (New Hampshire).
Exhibiting on their own nevertheless was a little frightening and they tried to invite as many of their friends as possible. In the end, the group of artists exhibiting turned out to be a varied bunch. In addition to a few adherents of the new painting, others joined in who painted in a far different style. Edgar Degas, who joined the group at this moment, proved to be especially active when it came to recruiting participants for the exhibition.
He succeeded in attracting his friends, the sculptor Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic and the engraver Giuseppe de Nittis, both very popular Salon artists. Degas also actively tried to persuade top society painter James Tissot and his friend Alphonse Legros (who was living in London) to join their cause, but was unsuccessful. At the invitation of Pissarro, they were joined by an employee of the Orleans railroad company who was painting plein-air landscapes named Armand Guillaumin. Paul Cézanne travelled to the exhibition from his native town of Aix-en-Provence, also at Pissarro’s invitation.
The young Cézanne had broken with official painting in his earliest works, but he no longer shared the Impressionists’ outlook on art. His participation may have aroused the concern of Édouard Manet, who definitely had been invited. According to his contemporaries, Manet said that he would never exhibit alongside Cézanne. But Manet may have simply preferred a different path. According to Monet, Manet encouraged Monet and Renoir to continue in their attempts to conquer the Salon. Manet found the Salon to be the best battlefield.
In Degas’ opinion, Manet was prevented from joining them because of vanity. “The Realist movement doesn’t need to fight with others,” Degas said. “It is, it exists, and it must stand alone. A Realist salon is needed. Manet did not understand that. I believe it was due much more to vanity than to intelligence.”
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