On April 15th, 1874 an exhibition opened in a French studio. Critics warned pregnant women that their unborn children would become ill just by entering the exhibit. Two men named Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne took the brunt of the criticism. Who were these men? They were the leaders of the Impressionist movement, although it didn’t always have that name. It was an artistic movement that took place in the late 19th century, approximately from 1874 to 1886. In a world where everyone painted in the dark with fine, blended paint strokes the paintings that were introduced in this exhibit were considered sloppy and unconventional. Claude Monet was one of the ringleaders in this new way of painting, but impressionism also affected music and literature of the day.

Oscar Claude Monet

Oscar Claude Monet was born in Paris on November 14, 1840. When he was four years old, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy to help his aunt and uncle with their family owned grocery store. He disliked the usual school studies and started to draw charcoal caricatures which he would sell for about 10 to 20 francs a piece (about $60 today). (Sabbeth, 23). He took drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard. However, on the beaches of Normandy where he liked to walk, he met a fellow artist by the name of Eugène Boudin who convinced him to paint. At first, Monet did not want to paint, he only wanted to draw. Time after time, he would come up with excuses to keep away but there came a day where he simply ran out and gave in. Boudin taught him how to use oil paints as well as the “en plein air” (outdoor) techniques.

When he was 15 years old, tragedy struck with the passing of his mother. Since he didn’t get along well with his father, he moved in with his widowed aunt, Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. He continued to study under Boudin and when he was seventeen, he announced to his father that he wanted to be a painter. He ended up working in his aunts’ attic for a while, although she was unable to support him. When he turned 18, he was forced to join the military and serve his country. Almost immediately he was shipped out to Africa where he caught Typhoid Fever. He was sent back home less than three months later and worried for his safety; his aunt paid his dues for him so that he would not have to return. That was when he had his chance to go to Paris.

His father actually wrote to the Municipal Court and asked that Oscar be a candidate for the title of Pensioner of Fine Arts, which was denied because of his “less respectable” caricatures. (Rewald, 39). Regardless, he traveled to Paris and saw the Salon before it shut down for the year. It was in an exhibition hall called the Palais de l’Industrie. Each year the jury of the Municipal Court would choose about four thousand works to be featured in it. (Sabbeth, 6). He marveled over the works of Daugigny and Corot. Monet became a student of Charles Gleyre, who was a master at the École des Beaux-Arts. Although Claude Monet learned many things from him, he steered away from the traditional way of painting and became obsessed with light and how it reflected off of objects. He even went so far as to wear black while he was painting outside so that the light wouldn’t reflect off of his clothes and interfere with his surroundings. (Sabbeth, 31). Lila Cabot Perry, a later student of his, said of his methods:

I remember him once saying to me, “When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you – a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here is an oblong of pink, here is a streak of yellow and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve expression of the scene before you.” (Kleiner, 990).

Claude Monet even went so far as to say that color was his “day-long obsession, joy and torment”. (Kleiner, 982).

In Paris, Monet made many friends. They would paint by day and at night they would meet in the Café Guerbois to talk about how, what and where to paint. Quite often it was more of a debate than a discussion. Their only true commonality was that they liked to paint during the daylight hours. Pierre-Auguste Renoir held the belief that only nice and beautiful things should be painted. Edgar Degas was the opposite; believing that unpleasant things should be painted and that painting should take place inside – never outside. Still these men came together because they were all rejected from the Salon year after year.

Although painting was his first love, Claude Monet did fall in love with a woman named Camille Doncieux and they had a son together named Jean. Times were hard but got progressively harder when France and Prussia went to war. Monet had no interest in being drafted again and so he fled to England and wife and son took cover at the house of a close friend. It was in London where Monet discovered that he loved painting fog and he would stand outside and paint for hours capturing the different light effects through a series of quick paintings.

Emile Zola, a close friend of Monet wrote:

“In the country Claude Monet prefers a view of an English park to a corner of the forest. He takes pleasure in discovering traces of humanity everywhere; he wants to live continually in a human environment. Like a true Parisian he takes Paris with him to the countryside, he cannot paint a landscape without including well-dressed men and women.” (Adams, 178).

With the birth of his second son, Michel, more heartache came to follow. His beloved wife Camille was unable to regain her strength and died shortly thereafter. Monet fell into a deep depression and did not paint for six months. He later married a woman named Alice, whom he was close to, and moved to Giverny where he lived out the rest of his days.

A Limited Company of Painters, Sculptures and Engravers

The Impressionist Movement was monumental, however it was only led by a small, indefinable group of people: Gustave Caillebotte, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley. (Neff, 18). Of some of these, it is even still debatable as to whether or not they are true impressionists. Some are in this group only by association with one. It really began in 1863, when only 2,217 out of 5,000 works of art were chosen to be featured at the Salon. Artists who were rejected protested so much and so loudly, that Emperor Napoleon III decided to hang the pieces of art in a different gallery he called The Salon des Refusés. Of the thousands of pictures hanging in that exhibit, one seemed to stick out a bit more than all the others. It was the “Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe” by Edouard Manet, also known as “Luncheon on the Grass”. A hostile critic even wrote:

“A commonplace woman of the demimonde, as naked as can be, shamelessly lolls between two dandies dressed to the teeth. These latter look like school boys on a holiday, perpetrating an outrage to play the man… This is a young man’s practical joke – a shameful, open sore.” (Tansey, 981).

Although it outraged and disturbed some, it actually inspired people like Claude Monet.

So it happened on April 15th, 1874 that 30 artists gathered together and planned to open their own exhibit. They would have it at Félix Tournachon’s, a photographer better known as Nadar, studio. They would simply have to come up with a name for their new clique. Many ideas were tossed around, but it was finally decided that they would be called “A Limited Company of Painters, Sculptures and Engravers”. It was a mouthful and it was dull, but it wouldn’t last.

One of the pictures featured in the first exhibit was Monet’s “Impression: Sunrise”. People started to call them “impressionists” as if to mock them. Having just come out of a war, people were not ready for change. That was what the Limited Company brought with them and featured at their exhibit – a new technique of expressing themselves. As history has dictated many times before, when people get scared or uncomfortable they also become hateful. George Inness labeled people like Monet and Pissarro as “shams” and their works “the original pancake of visual imbecility”. (Neff, 13).

This did not stop the Impressionists. Every year, they held yet another exhibit.

What IS Impressionism?

Impressionism is a broad technique. It can be broken down into four categories. The first is that it is a social group in which a person belongs. For example, Cézanne Degas is an impressionist by association. Second, it is based on the artists’ subject matter. However, this varies with the artist. Third is style or technique. It is basically characterized with visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light and its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter and unusual visual angles. Lastly is the artists’ goal or purpose. For most artists, the technique itself is the focus and the major stylistic feature of impressionism is the juxtapositions of unconventionally bright colors plein-air. (Burton, 67).

Impressionists essentially broke down the barriers of the outline of objects and painted it how they perceived it with their own eyes. Although they were criticized for not having formal geometric shapes in their artwork, its amazing how with almost scientific precision they managed to break down forms and capture the light passing over identical forms.

Impressionist Music and Literature

Although Impressionistic artwork is more well-known, there was a movement within music and literature as well. Musical impressionism focused more on suggestion and atmosphere than did the classical music of the day. They tended to make more use of dissonance as well as more uncommon scales such as the whole tone scale. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel were the two most well known “impressionist” musicians from France.

Symbolism was the chief component in “impressionist” literature. The story is usually centered on the characters “mental life”. Virginia Wolf and Joseph Conrad were the leaders in this media. Books like Mrs. Dalloway and Heart of Darkness really captured the idea of impressionism in the verbal form.

Bibliography

Adams, Steven. The Barbizon School & The Origins of Impressionism. Phaidon Press Limited: London.

1994.

Burton, Richard. The New Painting: Impressionism (1874 – 1886). The Fine Arts Museum of San

Francisco and National Gallery of Art: Washington. 1986.

Kleiner, Fred and Richard G. Tansey. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages II: Renaissance and Modern Art.

Harcourt Brace College Publishers: Fort Worth, Texas. 1996.

Neff, Emily Ballew and George T.M Shackelford. American Painters in the Age of Impressionism.

The Museum of Fine Arts: Houston. 1994.

Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. The Museum of Modern Art: New York. 1973, revised.

Sabbeth, Carol. Monet and the Impressionists for Kids. Chicago Review Press. 2002.