Theme and Variations: Impression, Sunrise

1872
Theme and Variations
Relating Music and Art
Curated by Becky Reilly

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872




With his seminal painting Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet began a tradition of Impressionism, a subgenre of Romantic art.  Rather than present a detailed, realist view, Monet sought to convey his perspective, allowing emotional participation in a scene and using self-conscious, painterly strokes.  Gone was the Old Masters' wish for realistic perfection, lost to a new style that spanned diverse media.  Perhaps the reason for Impressionism's modern popularity is not so mysterious -- beauty of the paintings aside, our culture yearns to break convention and to innovate.

The concept of Impression, Sunrise is simple enough.  Monet's view of the port at Le Havre could not be called a view, but rather his Impression the scene.  Rather than delineate objects, Monet instead creates tension through his moving, active brushstrokes and the paired complimentary orange and blue.  He was not to first to experiment in impression and unclear technique, as in J.M.W. Turner's murky Slave Ship, but his unrefined style, without attempt to hide technique, sets him apart.  Monet's impression does not convey an image but a perception of an image.

Impressionist ideas influenced all art forms, which "Clair de Lune" and "Gymnopédie No. 1" exemplify.  "Clair de Lune," inspired by a Paul Verlaine poem, is probably Claude Debussy's most famous work, the third movement of his 1905 Suite Bergamasque.  Debussy, whose music is now classified as Classical Impressionism, focuses on atmosphere and gentle tonality.  Including short sections of rubato (like from 2:18 to 2:35) to allow for interpretation and added effect, the piece's tempo ranges greatly throughout, echoing sentimentality and contemplation even through the bittersweet, quickly played sections. "Gymnopédie No. 1" instead holds true to its subtitle, Lent et Doloreux, "slow and painful."  The minimalist, ambient piece seems out of place, only having been published in 1888.  Its broken-up chords and simplicity differ greatly from "Clair de Lune."  Rather than adding extra atmospheric notes like Debussy, Satie strives for ultimate utilitarianism.  Debussy, Monet, and Satie only pursue one goal -- rather than literally depict their subject, they seek to create atmosphere and suggest themes.  They abandon conventional technique to appeal to humanity; rather than relating to a subject, viewers suddenly find themselves in the artist's mind.

  • 7:00 AM

The Fifer

Impressionism
Edouard Manet, The Fifer, 1866

A whopping 161 x 97 cm in size, just to portray an ordinary boy, presumably of the military marching band, playing a fife—in his early work The Fifer, Manet here takes a truly modern, unconventional stand that was not particularly appreciated by his contemporaries. One would find it puzzling about what had prompted Manet to pay such close attention to a nameless boy and to paint this sizeable work against the popular taste without seeing Velasquez’s earlier work Pablo de Valladolid. Following a trip to Spain, Manet found himself deeply interested in the style of Spanish painters. Similar to Velasquez’s Pablo de Valladolid, Manet places the boy in a plain, stark setting, surrounded only by the thin air. He employs the impasto technique—the solid black jacket, the thick red pants with a black contour line, and a little shadow—to create a flatness that was unprecedented to French critics. Further more, devoting the entire canvas to a working class boy upset the established “hierarchy of representation.”  The painting was rejected by the Salon of 1866 despite Zola’s strong support. Zola, in his L’Evenement, defended that he sensed a “truly modern feeling” in the work of this early impressionist giant.
  • 7:00 AM

Summer Scene

Bazille
Jean Frederic Bazille, Summer Scene, 1869

Frederic Bazille, a short-lived, early impressionist painter, painted the Summer Scene in 1869, just a year before he was killed in Franco-Prussian War. A close friend of Claude Monet, Bazille was among the few forerunners of the Impressionist movement. However, unlike Monet, who devoted himself entirely to his art, Bazille never applied himself completely to a career as a painter. Perhaps due to the finical support from his father, art merely remained a hobby to him, never something to pursue relentlessly. Nevertheless his work, which centered around the emerging idea of “modern” then, represented the cutting edge of the yet-to-coin Impressionist movement.

The subject matter of the painting was familiar yet unusual at the time. Its familiarity lies in the popularity of the theme picnic, or Dejeuner sur I’Herbe, that was frequently depicted by contemporary artists. In fact, Bazille posed for Monet in one of his Le Dejeuner. However, Summer Scene reflects something more than just the idea of modern leisure and the interactive relationship of men and nature. The subject matter of a group of male bathers in a world where female nudes dominated the body discourse, was rare and little-recognized. The depiction of bathing scenes makes it guiltless and acceptable for the viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism without necessarily associating its nudity with sexual act. Robert Brettell says, “Bathers are nude because they have to be; they are merely engaged in a cleansing ritual.” Similarly, the borrowing of classic poses for his modern figures allows Bazille to access the subject of male nudes without violating the conventional bourgeois morality. The modern Saint Sebastian in the foreground, and the wrestling nudes in the background which recalls traditional Greek gymnasium, suggest viewers that this is a modern form of Arcadia, an idealistic life of brotherhood that resembles the ancient Greeks, not necessarily a depiction of homosocial (or sexual) discourse.

The painting was well received and accepted by the Salon of 1870. To me it presents something unique and inspiring comparing to his contemporaries. If Bazille weren’t killed in the following year, he might find his own direction and certainly add variety to the gallery of 19th century paintings.

  • 7:00 AM

Umbrellas - Umbrellas

Impressionism
Umbrellas
Curated by Max Cantu-Lima
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Umbrellas, 1880-1886

 In the 19th century, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted Umbrellas in two phases.The scene displays people caught in the in-between of departure and arrival, hiding under their umbrellas to avoid collisions.  Largely consisting of blues and greys, the painting contains Renoir's impressionistic style of loose brush strokes. The second phase of the composition took place in 1885 when Renoir went through a midlife crisis of sort. Beginning to evaluate himself and his style, Renoir looked back to classical art, specifically Ingres.

Returning to the painting, he adjusted the main woman on the left. He removed her look of hated and altered the dress and painted with muted colors - creating a more simple, working-class style than she had before. Her face, along with the child and women to her right, display Renoir’s ability to paint within the classical, detailed style.

Through the umbrellas, the hoop, and the basket, Renoir creates circular movements throughout the composition. The umbrellas positioned in ways far from impressionism, form a linear pattern. Having visited with Cezanne in 1882, the tree in the back ground could very well contain traces of his influence.
The painting thus has a conflicting merging of styles. The on-going impressionists and the classical art that preceded them, forms a busy and, at first appearance, a complex piece of art.

  • 8:00 AM

The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise

1876
Camille Pissarro, The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise, 1876
Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist painter. Although he was born on St. Thomas, an island in the US Virgin Islands, he moved the Venezuela at the age of 21. The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise was painted in 1876, while Pissaro was living in France. This painting is primarily a landscape, noted for its definitive division of color. Joachim Pissarro, Camille Pissarro’s great grandson is a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. With regard to The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise he stated, “Essentially complex, his work made use of a phenomenal imagination, an unusually rich, innovative visual mind, a vast curiosity about techniques of all sorts, a profound poetic sensitivity, and an unquenchable passion for painting, as well as a strongly defined set of intellectual positions.”

Pissarro had a unique set of interests and talents that are all apparent in The Garden of Les Mathurins at Pontoise, the most interesting of which is his imagination. This scene is breathtaking, the use of color, and the whimsical nature of the subject matter all allow the viewer to be swept into a world of wonder and beauty. The woman who stands in the right half of the painting twirls what seems to be a fan. This is the most captivating part of the composition. The mystery that it creates in the painting kept me sitting in front of it at the Nelson for hours. It could be simply a fan that shows the woman’s status in society, or it could be a ball that symbolizes the mystery of 19th century French life. The circle glows and creates an aura around the woman that is paralleled in the sky, which only adds to the light feeling of the painting.

It seems that at any moment the woman could place the mysterious circle above her head and fly away, leaving all her worries behind. Her feeling of freeness and serenity in the moment of flight would be much like the feeling of calm and relaxation I felt sitting with this work.
  • 12:00 AM

Gare Saint Lazare

Gare Saint Lazare

Claude Monet, Gare Saint Lazare, 1877
Gare Saint Lazare, with its iron beasts emitting clouds of smoke and steam, was an ideal location for Monet to paint the effects of light on surfaces. Monet painted the station differently from his contemporaries, although the technique of painting subjects at different times was not implemented until the 1890s. Monet painted at least seven canvases of Gare Saint Lazare at different angles. The Paintings appeared in the third impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Monet’s representations of Gare Saint Lazare depict his turn to urban landscapes while painting the modern life that Zola encouraged artists to portray. Before moving to England, Monet lived in the suburbs of Paris and took the train into this station. He attempted to create the atmosphere that he felt in the presence of this new industrial terminal. Monet focused less on the iron of the building or train, but showed the altered light of the skylights reactivity with its surfaces amongst the steam. Eliminating line and details, Monet focused most on capturing the smoke that escaped the trains' furnaces.

Although Monet would later paint structures, Gares Saint Lazare was his last depiction of an urban setting. He would continue to experiment with the effects of light on his subjects until his death.
  • 12:00 AM

Paris Street; Rainy Day

Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877.
With the rise of Realism and photography in the realm of nineteenth century art, painters turned to what they knew to create: miraculous works of art. This is exactly what Gustave Caillebotte executed with his 1877 oil-on-canvas piece Paris Street; Rainy Day. The painting portrays a couple walking along the rue de Turin in Paris, France, located just around the corner from the Saint-Lazare train station. Not so coincidentally, this spot could be viewed from the window of Caillebotte's Paris study.

Though the setting of the painting provides interesting historical background, the technique makes the painting incredibly captivating. At first glance, the brushstrokes differ drastically from the strategically placed geometric splotches of Cezzane or the smoothed figures of Degas, yet his sweeping brushstrokes (as evident in the cobblestone road) uniquely emphasized the exactness of the Parisian architecture.  However the most interesting aspect of the painting is his use of focus to simulate photography with his painting. Caillebotte creates symbiosis between the architectural accuracy of the scene (such as the detailed scaffolding of the newly renovated buildings in the background) and experimentation with optics. The couple in the foreground of the painting has a slightly unfocused appearance, drawing the eye to the other complexities of the painting.

Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day represents a bold response to the changing artistic realm, and brought an interesting and wildly different perspective of a modernizing Paris. The painting strayed away from many of the brightly colored paintings of the Impressionist movement and instead used a fisheye effect to create complexity. As far as many reactions to photography were concerned, Paris Street; Rainy Day epitomized this Impressionist goal.
  • 12:00 AM

Morning on the Seine near Giverny

Giverny
Claude Monet, Morning on the Seine near Giverny, 1897


Light pierces the tree line, but the shadows of night linger over the river.  Trees move according to the morning breeze.  The waters of the Seine capture all these in nature’s mirror.  The world has awakened. 


Claude Monet painted Morning on the Seine near Giverny in 1897 on a boat that he had converted into a maritime studio.  Monet worked on the Seine River series from 1896 to 1897. He would leave his house, located in Giverny, France, before the sun rose and go out on his boat to paint the same spot over and over again.  These paintings of the Seine showed Monet just how much light affected his art because each painting looks unique,despite their common background and composition. 


All paintings in the Seine series possess Monet’s blurry brushstrokes.  This out of focus collage of trees and water was typical of the Impressionist painters that Monet led.  The trees in Morning have no definite outlines and end in blobs of color.  This technique conveys the motion of the scene.  The trees shake in the wind and the river ripples as Monet’s boat and other forces disturb the water’s surface.  In Morning, Monet captures the constant movement and liveliness of nature.  The blurred movement in Impressionist paintings received inspiration from the newly made technology of photography.  When one moved while taking a photo, the picture would become blurred, ruining the photograph.  Impressionists saw a photographer’s mistake and used it to represent movement in art. 


Monet’s Morning on the Seine near Giverny may act as one in a series, but its use of light and shadows make it unique.  The early sun in Morning illuminates the top right hand corner.  The light pierces through the trees in a triangular shape, causing for a divide in the shading of the trees.  Where the light strikes the trees, the shadows that obstruct the onlooker’s view of the finer details in the trees disappears.  These aspects are also mirrored in the water’s reflections of the scene.  The final outcome happens to be a lack of the blurriness in the triangle of light that allows the viewers to find the literal end of the branches.  Monet’s experiment in lighting resulted in unique pictures of the same scene that all possess a staple of the Impressionist movement.
  • 12:45 PM