Towards Impressionism: Landscape Painting from Corot to Monet — arthistoryblogger.blogspot.com

The Frye Art Museum in Seattle has a wonderful new exhibit that just opened, Towards Impressionism: Landscape Painting from Corot to Monet.  This features late 19th century French plein-air painting and chronicles the emergence of Impressionism.  The exhibit will run from May 12 – August 5, 2018. According to the Frye website:"Towards Impressionism traces the development of French landscape painting from the schools of Barbizon and Honfleur up to Impressionism, featuring over forty works from the extraordinary collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims. Selections from the Frye Art Museum’s own holdings will be incorporated into the show, making this a unique opportunity to situate masterpieces from the collection within their original context."The Reims museum has one of the world’s foremost collections of landscape paintings by artists associated with the Barbizon colony—artists like Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, Jean-François Millet, and Constant Troyon who gathered in the village of Barbizon between 1830 and 1855 to paint in and around the nearby Forest of Fontainebleau."Eugène Boudin. La marée montante (baie de Saint-Valéry) (Rising Tide (bay of Saint-Valéry)), 1888. Oil on Canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Jules Warnier-David. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. Through the many works in this exhibit the beginnings of plein-air painting in 19th century France are chronicled, this directly led to the start Impressionism later in the century. Plein-air painting was revolutionary in the early 19th century, for centuries landscapes were painted inside the studios of artists.  Landscapes were painted for a back drop in history paintings rather than being considered their own category.   Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Le coup de vent (The Gust of Wind), ca. 1865–70. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Jules Warnier-David. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer.However in the mid-19th century several inventions made plein-air painting easier: the portable and lightweight French box easel, canvas boards which were useful for smaller and portable paintings and collapsible tin tubes for paint (invented in 1841 by John Rand).  Using these items, painters began to set up canvases in nature and paint the world around them.The exhibit opens with some little known studio landscape painters such as Jean-Victor Bertin who is referred to as a link between the Neoclassical style and the Barbizon School. Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña. Landscape at Barbizon, n.d. Oil on canvas. Frye Art Museum, Founding Collection, Gift of Charles and Emma Frye, 1952.035. Photo: Spike Mafford. The group  of painters mentioned earlier became known as the "Barbizon School" as they were based out of the town of Barbizon and painting the Fontainebleau forest.  The Barbizon painters were revolutionary artists and were largely responsible for the new shift in how landscape painting was thought of then and now.  They were influenced by earlier painters such as Turner and Constable in Britain.  Constable had work in the 1824 Salon in Paris where they were able to see his paintings first hand.Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Monte Cavo, ca. 1825–28. Oil on cardboard. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Paul Jamot. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. The exhibit Towards Impressionism focuses on the French painters who were inspired to capture the natural world.  Landscapes began to take on a new level of detail and importance.  The nuances of color, light, shadow and atmosphere were all captured.  Unlike religious or history paintings which sought to tell a specific story, a landscape painting was capturing an everyday moment and typically had no narrative.  This led to new ideas about composition outside the scope of narration.  Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Le lac: effet de nuit (The Lake: Night Effect), ca. 1869. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Jules Warnier-David. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. The works of French painter Camille Corot, (1796-1875) are strongly featured in the exhibition. Through his close observation of the natural world Corot revolutionized landscape painting and elevated how people thought of it.  Referred to as "The Poet of Landscape" in this exhibit, there were over a dozen of Corot's paintings.Corot's earlier work was in the more Neoclassical vein and he was included in several of the Paris Salon exhibits.  His later work shown in the exhibit turned to nature and plein-air painting. Charles-François Daubigny, Stormy Landscape, 1865, Oil on wood. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Daubigny was another member of the Barbizon school, before seeing this exhibit I didn't realize how much I appreciated his work.  Reproduced his works appear dark and monochromatic, but in person there is a lot of depth and his atmospheres seem to shimmer with reflected light.Théodore Rousseau. La mare (The Pond), 1842–1843. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. Théodore Rousseau was known for his dramatic use of light and rich colors.  In person his paintings have a strong sense of place.  Each of his works strongly evoke a time of day or season in the year.  Perhaps that is because (according to the informative exhibit labels) he "would return to the same site again and again to complete a work."The painting above has a near cinematic feeling to it, Rousseau imbued each element in a landscape with a feeling of grandeur.  His work is something I kept returning to within this exhibit and also in my mind after I left. Henri-Joseph Harpignies. De Saint-Privé à Bléneau: souvenir de l'Yonne (View from Saint-Privé towards Bléneau: Memory of the Yonne), 1885. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer Another factor in the increase of landscape painting was the Industrial Revolution and the response to it.  As the Industrial Revolution started to transform the landscape with factories, railroads and increased urban areas, the idea of capturing the pristine natural world gave rise to a new inspiration for creating landscape painting.Henri-Joseph Harpignies (1819-1916) was another member of the Barbizon School and here he is not only depicting a landscape but a traditional and vanishing way of life.  The work is quite large and his vivid blue sky makes this painting stand apart from others, however that same vivid blue would be used again and again by the Impressionists.Eugène Boudin. La marée montante (baie de Saint-Valéry) (Rising Tide (bay of Saint-Valéry)), 1888. Oil on Canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Jules Warnier-David. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) was a landscape painter who worked after the Barbizon school.  His father ran a shop that framed paintings and as a child he met several of the Barbizon painters who encouraged him to also paint.  He had a successful career as a landscape painter, perhaps known best for his seascapes.  Later he became the painting teacher of the young Claude Monet, passing along to him the lessons from the Barbizon school of artists.Boudin is best known for his many seascapes, he used a lighter and brighter palate than the Barbizon school with his style creating a "bridge" between those plein-air painters who were working in Fontainebleau and the later Impressionists.Stanislas Lépine, The Banks of the Marne, 1878-82, Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Stanislas Lépine was a French painter who exhibited his work in the original Impressionist Exhibit, yet today he is not as well known as the other Impressionists.  Within his painting, The Banks of the Marne, are a lot of similarities in style with Monet and the other Impressionists.  For a time he too studied under Corot.I am really drawn to the variety of painting within this exhibit, in the 21st century it may seem hard to believe that landscapes could be so revolutionary but at the time they were.Claude Monet. Les rochers de Belle-Île (Rocks at Belle-Île),1886. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. Claude Monet (1840-1926) is best known as the founder of Impressionism and is perhaps the most famous of the Impressionist painters.  His paintings were more concerned about light and color than about capturing subject matter or details.  The painting shown above, Les rochers de Belle-Île, provides a good example of his signature style which focused on how much color one sees in each object. The rocks aren't brown, the sea isn't blue and the grass isn't green.  He adds dabs of red, violets and yellow to each object showing how light reflects off the surfaces of everything. His  method captured the fleeting feeling and changing conditions of outdoor light.While Monet's style is completely different from the Barbizon school, it is very interesting to be able to walk back and forth between the works and see how everything influenced everything else. Pierre Auguste Renoir. Marine (Seascape), undated. Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Photo: C. Devleeschauwer. Pierre Auguste Renoir did fewer pure landscape paintings than the other Impressionists, his plein-air paintings were typically cityscapes, but he painted the above work.  With a few strokes he manages to capture the essence of this sweeping seascape which has a quality of abstraction.Camille Pissarro, The Louvre, 1902, Oil on canvas. © Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims, Legacy Henry Vasnier. Camille Pissarro was another of the Impressionists, he had studied with Corot and was the only painter to exhibit in all of the Impressionist exhibits.  He made several studies from this viewpoint of the Louvre museum in various times of the day and year just as Monet had done with the Rouen Cathedral.Impressionism was a short lived movement, the first exhibit was in 1874 and the eighth and last in 1886. However its influence upon later painting styles was tremendous.  In many regards the birth of modern art emerged from the plein-air painting of the 19th century.  I plan to return to Towards Impressionism several times between now and August 5 when the show closes, I know that each time I will see something new.Towards Impressionism: Landscape Painting from Corot to Monet is curated by Suzanne Greub and managed by her team at Art Centre Basel in collaboration with the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Reims and the City of Reims, France. The installation at the Frye Art Museum is overseen by Amanda Donnan, curator, and David Strand, head of exhibitions and publications. 

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