impressionism

-20x20 ft -Main display at "Pavilion of Realism" -A retrospective within a retrospective -Showed Courbet's journey through different styles, literally what the title is. -Example of Landscape, portraiture, self portrait and female nude all combined into one painting. -Wrote a letter and divided the painting into two parts: -Right: Shareholders, his own world -Left: world of commonplace life -Center: Courbet himself. In a gesture of independence/defiance, he has his back partially turned to viewers. Shows him painting a work in progress inside a finished painting. -Closely associates himself with the female nude and landscape painting. He brings the left and right sides together. -Title: long and complex "A real allegory" - identifies himself with allegorical painting and school. -7 years: directly connects the start of his career to the Revolution of 1848 -Rebellious to identify the start of his career with this date -Done during time of Universal Exhibition -Courbet's event did not have a good turnout -Landscape painting increases → collectors start buying this

-Painter's Studio: A Real Allegory Summing up Seven Years of my Artistic Life Courbet

-First submission to the salon, but rejected -Somber, bohemian figure leaning against the wall -Loose thread in urban society -Similar to painting 200 years earlier: single figure that takes up most of the frame, centered, both outsider types (beggar, vagrant, drinker), both posed against plain dark background. Shows how explicit manet was in his engagement with the past

-The Absinthe Drinker Manet

-Last major work that Manet produced -Exhibited in salon of 1882 -Puzzled critics -Called a "mirage" -Resisted open declarations of meaning -We see place where people listen to music, drink, socialize, entertainment. Space for potentially illicit interactions (prostitution) -We see a bar maid standing behind a bar, goods arranged in front of her. -Much of what is behind is actually a mirror -We can see the crowd in reflection -Also see reflection of the barmaid and a top hatted man -Mirror reflection doesn't show reality. its a different angle and where the man is doesnt make sense. -Why: this is a painting, just a representation. A painted commentary on that world, not a reproduction. -Immediate foreground: still life, line of commodities. May notice that all the bottles are sealed. Clue that this is a commentary -Background: sketchy manor. Different styles of painting seen within. Tighter application in the foreground. -Bar maid appears thinner than in reflection -Many disparities -Last commentary of Parisian women, fashion, last still life on a large scale, last painted ode to modern paris

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère Manet

-Period in which Manet is closest with impressionist style -Industrialist activity in background -Sketchy brushwork -Larger picture than typical for salon/impressionist -Manet was very studio based -Figures very posed -Human figure was Manet's focus and this continues to be the case here (not a landscape)

Argenteuil Manet

-Tremendous economic growth and development at time. -Weekend homes in vacation suburbs -The Increase of wealth and population in Paris led to train travel increases and more people retreating to the suburbs/country side for leisure.

Basin of Argenteuil Monet

-with key patron/buyer and servant meeting on road -support of buyer gave courbet enough money to support his own practice and produce whatever he wanted -gave him artistic security and independence -did not have to conform to the salon or schools -artists began to forge their own paths with support from private patrons -Didnt need $ from the state and were less concerned with being accepted into the salons -Independence from the state --> independent retrospective

Bonjour Monsieur Courbet

-1850 -funeral of Courbet's great uncle with family members recognizable -realism in the sense that its particular to him -shows moments prior to start of ceremony -HUGE 20 ft long painting, elevating the significance of the everyday -Deliberately made figures ugly to depict true country life and against Parisian standards/expectations (refusal to conform) -Treatment of funeral itself is a lack of conformity. Shows brute physical reality of hole in ground at bottom center. No focus on the spiritual side to the ceremony which made many people mad. It focuses on the fact that a dead body is going into a whole in the ground. -Church officials in red who lack any spirituality -faces are distracted, not focused on each other, lack of emotion, moral or spiritual unity -meaningless and de-spiritualized funeral -randomly cut off on either side -cold image of nothingness -thick smears of black paint (painting itself was an act of labor)

Burial at Ornans Courbet

-Venus: mythological: separates her from real world and gives explanation of nudity. -passive, damsel in distress, totally horizontal, hand over her head which exposes her body more and creates long curves, not a powerful gaze, might not even be looking, gives viewer the lack of self consciousness for looking. -Olympia: half upright creates stiffness, confrontational gaze, assertiveness. Direct gaze, 'matter of factness' of her expression, creates self conscious feeling in viewer for looking at this nude body. -Indoor vs outdoor setting: Venus meant to be nude, timeless state, born in the water, very natural. Olympia contrastingly still has shoes on and wears jewelry, not in eternal state of nudity, has undressed and deliberately chosen - makes her relatable but also scandalous. -Venus looks idealized and smooth. Roundness, voluptuousness. Olympia is more angular and flatter.

Cabanel Birth of Venus vs Manet Olympia

-Not just images of what the scene is, but aim to convey what it feels like to be there -Interest in class distinctions and gender distinctions -shows Haussmanization -Did not conform to typical impressionist way of abandoning distinction between prep for work and final work. Brushstrokes are nearly invisible. -Critics said different things. Some praised his work as being the best of all impressionist work because of tighter finish. But others criticized his lack of artisticness

Caillebotte Paris Street

-The Balcony is a looser style. Shows man looking/observing figures below with city in the background. Emphasized the act of looking within the city and the city as being something to be looked at. Sketchier brushstrokes. Shows scene constantly shifting. One doesn't see detail but broad masses

Caillebotte The Balcony

-Woman at a Window: A woman at the window with depiction of middle class interior. She is ensconced within the interior and her husband Just a peek of the exterior, more middle class. Shows difference between men and women and upper and middle class.

Caillebotte Woman at a Window

-Young man at his window: Interest in class distinctions and gender distinctions. Man confidently standing at open window, surveying. Even have one of the subjects of his gaze, a woman, in view.

Caillebotte Young Man at his Window

-Viewing from the back. Sense of modesty and limitation to what we see. Eliminates the erotic side where were presented with her body front on where we can see her breasts and pubic area. -Degas is much more muddled colors. -Cassatt's is very clean -Cassatts gives a greater sense of composure in the subject. Were looking up at her. She's not strained. She is upright -Degas is more animalistic and ungraceful and awkward. Joint against joint. Unconventional depiction of the body.

Cassat's The Bath vs Degas Woman in the Bathtub

-One of 2 most prominent female artists of impressionist movement (Morrisot and Cassatt) -Both had close friendships with male colleagues -Degas and cassatt were close -Both very committed to the task of painting and how they find modernity in their work -Important to not think of their work as a series of prescriptions → each very original and individual -Cassatt was american but built her whole artistic career in paris and lived there for her adult life -Devoted to receiving an extensive academic training -Exhibited in the salon on and off in the 1860s onward -Salon of 1874 - her works caught Degas' attention -Her work had a clear focus on modern subjects. Not a landscape painter. Interested in depicting subjects of her family and own social world -Compositionally tends to position her figures in the immediate foreground and the spaces seem to be quite compressed -interested in Japanese prints

Cassatt

-We see cassatt twisting the typical female nude deptiction -Baby's naked body is object of interest -Explores play of light across the body which is often explored by artists depicting nude figures -Even though we see them from close up, there's no sense of voyeurism. -In Degas "woman in the tub" its the case that were spying in a sense Similarities: body contortions, body to body contact, angles of body, not beautiful/objectified/idealized.

Cassatt First Caress

-Like many others she depicted the opera -Focusing solely on those sitting in audience. Expensive/exclusive seats -The way it directly addresses the different experiences that men and woman might have -Middle and upper class women could go to certain social places (opera yes, beerhalls/cafe maybe, etc). Opera house is one place that middle class women could go to (could go alone during the day). -Fashion: she is wearing a high collared afternoon dress so we can infer that she is alone -We see a woman looking at the performance through binoculars. Looking intently. She is the possessor of the gaze. Dressed modestly. Issue of women navigating public spaces -We see in background a man leaning over looking through his binoculars at perhaps her. -Makes this image interesting -Are we as viewers meant to identify with the male spectator because we are looking at the woman or do we identify with the female as we are both objects of the male gaze. -Issue of maintaining respectability in public space

Cassatt In the Loge

-Became most well known for her images of children -We see her from quite close up. Forces us with a sort of conversation with her -Trying to give us a sense of what it is like to be that little girl. What the space is like and how it is experienced by her -Low point of view -Pose is not typical of how a girl would be seen in a painting. Squirmyness. Not the pose little children would be expected to be in in the presence of adults -Not the "mini adult" that children were portrayed in -Slightly surly expression on her face -Sprawled out on chair

Cassatt Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

-Sewing and crocheting in a garden - typical feminine activities -Subjects very focused. Sense of their mental presence

Cassatt Lydia Crocheting in the Garden / Young Woman Sewing

-Viewing her from such close range gives sense of familiarity and involvement and identification -Never a sense of voyeurism

Cassatt Lydia at the Tapestry Frame

Planned to be an allegory of modern women -Set up in 3 parts -Main panel: women of varying ages and dress working to harvest fruit. -See them plucking fruit and other women holding baskets of picked fruit -Fruit of knowledge -Clear reference to Eve and the Garden of Eden and the expulsion of adam and eve from eating from the tree of knowledge and falling into sin -She has taken that ideology into an image of women seeking their own knowledge, their own advancement -No male figures to represent Adam "Men I have no doubt are painted in all their vigor on walls of other buildings" -Commenting on how few representations there are of women showing their achievements and ambitions -On the right represents art and music

Cassatt Modern Woman Mural

-Modern middle class mothers with their children -Well received -Updating the long standing art historical tradition of madonna and child -Combines with her own particular style. -Sense of spacial compression and familiarity -Incorporates the sense of touch. The physical contact takes center stage -Hand of mother wrapped around body with child's arm on top, Elbow pushing in. One leg slipping between the knees and the other pushing against her. -Bodily contact emphasized. Relationship of looking and touching -Physical intimacy shown in contrast to play of light and color and space done in other impressionist pieces

Cassatt Mother about to wash her sleepy child

-Sister and mother -Women were the prime audiences for novels. Reading was a common subject for painters -Middle class women not associated with reading newspapers (especially Le Figaro) -By showing figure/mother as doing a masculine activity it presents her as a powerful/intellectual subject -Her mother was exceptionally intelligent -Cassatt also an advisor to important art collector, Louisine

Cassatt Reading "Le Figaro"/Lydia Reading the Morning Paper

-In both the act of reading seems important -Both figures seem absorbed in the act of reading -Not portraits strictly speaking -Act of productivity rather than passive act of sitting -Composition - tends to position her figures in the immediate foreground and the spaces seem to be quite compressed -Wall narrowly crops the figure and space -Compression brings us into their space and creates a sense of intimacy. -A sense of identification with the sitters. Also closeness/domesticity of the home.

Cassatt The Reader/Young Woman Reading

-Her sister attending the opera in the evening -Dress is more formal, low neck -No eye contact with the viewer -Dressed in a more refined way than Renoir's loge woman -Clearly middle class -She's in an enclosed loge and theres a mirror behind her which gives a sense of privacy -Loge often was decorated with mirror background. -We don't see other audience closely enough for them to create intrusion

Cassatt Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge

-Most show women in private settings -In the bath and the coiffure, she's taking up a subject she never had before - the nude/partially nude female figure -We see figures from behind. Very little detail of actual body -Not objectifying because we aren't being made to look directly at body, thats not the focus. Its more a representation of female actions

Cassatt etching series (young woman trying on dress, the letter, childs bath ....)

-Renoir depicts female as solely of the gaze -Cassatt doesn't depict woman as specifically appealing, she's wearing a modest outfit. -Renior's female is glamorized -Much less visual access to Cassatt's which gives a sense of modesty and privacy -Renoir's figure is in an ambiguous relationship to the male figure present -Cassat's figure is clearly middle class, she is also a possessor of the gaze herself

Cassatt vs Renoir (The Loge)

-Realism -Socialist themes -Departure from the manor of painting at the time -Private patronage: how does one support ones self in the artist world -Private exhibition: How does one display art without a state run exhibition/commision -One man exhibition (modern for the time) -Born in Orno to middle class landowners. Specificity of place and familiarity of subjects was a major theme for his work. -Moves to paris in 1840 and in 1848 transitions away from painting self portraits --> depictions of large scale ordinary portraits/figures/traditional customs -Why his work was so unconventional: figures represented on a massive scale making his work appear more significant. Paintings of that size at the time were for paintings of important people/religion. -Roughly painted (metaphor for the materiality of his subjects) -Figures disconnected from each other, back towards us, distracted expressions, not focused on each other -Non idealized figures that dont conform to parisian stereotypes or expectations -He was painting his own form of realism in correspondance with his own middle class world (very controversial to the salon) -had some works accepted and some rejected from fine arts exposition within the worlds fair -In an act of audacity/opposition to the jury, he set up his own exhibition space just outside the fairgrounds "Pavilion of Realism" with 40 paintings. -Openly declared his side step of government control as well as his pride/ambition and challenge he was presenting to the key institutions of the time. Main display was Real Allegory painting

Courbet

-Emphasized artificial lighting and illumination -Women clearly readable as working class women, likely prostitutes. -Artificial light -pop culture -Degas had a good experience getting his works accepted into the salon -Some sense participated in impressionist exhibition not because he needed to but to declare himself as an independent in the art world -Typical aspects : unconventional angle, figures cut off by frame, sense of deep space, looks off kilter/askew → gives us the sense of a glimpse -Painted the Ballet a LOT. -CRITICS -He didnt like impressionist label because of association with landscape and the spontaneous. he preferred an independent label. -He was not a plein air painter and he was disdainful of the idea of spontaneous working. -With pissarro - one of few concerned with work rather than leisure -Worked often from memories and with models who would come and pose -Didnt think of it as spontaneous but requiring work and practice and repetition, much like the ballet dancers he painted. -Critical response: often reflected the distance he himself sometimes took from the group "In charge of himself" distanced himself from other impressionists. Singled out skills of being a draftsman. Complained about unattractiveness of subjects.

Degas

-Series of 4 images -Focus on gestures and bodily positions -Slight tilt of head when looking in mirror -Hands moving -Act of making the hats and trying them on -Beauty and accoutrement -Details on clothing

Degas At the Milliners

-Unusual points of view -Contrast between rehearsed and unrehearsed -Gestures projected into and out of the body -Scratching back, adjusting slipper, adjusting necklace -Vs figures practicing dance -Shows all of the work and rehearsal that goes into the ballet

Degas Ballet Rehearsal on Stage

-As if seated right next to a female audience member -Reminds us that this is a performance, a spectacle but also to bring us into the scene

Degas Ballet seen from the opera box

-Depicts social cafe Scenes of nighttime life Artificial life Depicting women in entertainment world Clearly see cosmetisized face and costumes Also see audience, Degas often does this → not just performance but the experience of the performance -Emphasis on spectatorship/looking by showing us the audience who is there to take in the performance -Sociability of the scene -heads turned towards each other, taking in scene around them -Ambiguity of working class women → prostitution -Sexual undertones, erotic charge -Emphasis on posture and body language as it performs certain jobs

Degas Cafe Concert des Ambassadeurs

-Upper class men could request to view rehearsals or watch performance from backstages -Privileged vantage point/elite -Men with top hats show this -Also a secretive/almost illicit -Objectivity of the women/dancers -Men in control

Degas Curtain

-Interest in artiface, entertainment -All of his interests exemplified in the ballet -Interest in ballet dancers spread for decades more often than any other -The ballet at the time: Associated with opera/opera house, performed as part of the opera at the -Part of nightlife culture -A social occasion -An experience to be observed by the crowd

Degas Dancer with Bouquet

-2 images -Did very few Landscape -Ink print and pastel on top -Not based on direct observation -Offer bare minimum to show they're landscape -No figures or sense of sociability

Degas Landscape

-Images of working class women at work -Laundress and ironers -Interested in the bodily gestures required of this work -Un-idealized depiction

Degas Laundress, Woman Ironing/Laundresses

-Claim of ugliness from critics from this sculpture of 14 year old dancer -He produced many sculptures, mostly in later years -This was the only one he ever exhibited -⅔ life size -Sculpture in wax but dressed with read hair coated in wax, cotton and linen tutu and bodess with fabric slippers and silk ribbon -At the time it was an unidealized body - tense, bony shoulders, and young looking. -Critics saw he was emphasizing her awkwardness that she was far from illusion of beauty of stage dancers. Realistic but unidealized. -Saw her as worn down by hard work -Saw degas as cruel for depicting her this way, ugliness of pose -Shows how standards of beauty has changed

Degas Little Fourteen Year old dancer

-Painting of Cassatt by Degas -testament to their friendship. Degas painted many portraits of her -He encouraged her to exhibit in the impressionist exhibitions

Degas Mary Cassatt Seated, Holding Cards

-Exotic subject - ballet of persian princess -She is pooling feet as a performer performs -Showing the rehearsal → a break in the rehearsal -Not wearing slippers -In this early image even he is interested in that repetitive activity of practicing and rehearsing -an illusion is created in the performances

Degas Mlle Fiocre in the Ballet "La Source"

-Shifts vantage points -Shows musicians in the pit -Illusion of performance is in a sense undermined by showing people in the wings and the musicians -Glimpse of partial scenes, as if stolen or secretive -Ballet dancers who are the focal point now in the background

Degas Orchestra of the Opera/The Ballet of "Robert le Diable"

-Public square in paris -Several figures -Man in gray coat is Degas friend and girls are his two children -Makes family look dis-unified -Degas seems a stranger depicting anonymous figures in paris -Typical aspects : unconventional angle, figures cut off by frame, sense of deep space, looks off kilter/askew → gives us the sense of a glimpse -Emphasizing the act of looking -Atypical because though interested in modernity, he did few examples of street life

Degas Place de la Concorde

-Similar reaction by critics as 14 year old statue -Pastel nudes series (9 or 10 of them) -Series shows us images of women in various stages of bathing, drying themselves, combing hair. -Often see them from the back and from over head -Meant to be clearly modern, late 19th c Parisian women -Shows how they hold their bodies in private, their gestures and movements in private. -Semi-conscious gestures to your own body -Removed from the social world of cafes and the opera -Convey what its like to push and press and stretch the body -Not idealized bodies at all, awkwardness and pressure: Reaching behind yourself. Body on body contact -Almost as if viewed in secret or through a key hole -Created a lot of controversy -Departure from modern life was disconcerting -Didnt offer clues of identity of women, their social class -Interpreted as low class women, would never show a middle class woman bathing -But he departs from descriptions of modern life -Lack of idealization and crudeness of their gestures -Criticized for debasing these women -Praise from some for Rejecting sentimental and conventional -But many saw it as honest day to day experience of women themselves -Sense that he's departing from conventional representation of nude as for solely male pleasure/the male gaze -Backs turned to us -Bone and elbow, not soft/curvy idealized flesh -Not depicted as objects of the male gaze -Some critics saw these as misogynistic -Critic says if you dont show women as idealized then this reflects a disdain for women, that its unflattering -Claiming that these women are unattractive and unidealized and this means you cant like them. Very sexist. Implies women must be an object of sexual desire. -Other critic calls it a distressing poem of the flesh but celebrates his ability to show a real representation of the female body -shift from presentation of human subjects from the theatrical to the absorbed -Theatrical: subject aware of the painter's (and by extension the spectator's) presence and therefore look and act a certain way because they are conscious they are being looked at -Absorptive: figures are unaware of the observer, absorbed as they are in their private thoughts and actions. -Degas ballerinas for example show theatricality but Degas bathers show absorption. The viewer feels like a voyeur catching a forbidden glimpse through a keyhole

Degas Series of Female Nudes Bathing, Washing, Drying Themselves

-A bodiness -Songs referencing popular culture -Not places of high culture -Women defined by the gestures of their professions -Artificial light was a tremendous interest

Degas Singer with the Glove/Song of the Dog

-the spacing here is important

Degas The Bellini Family

-Repetitive sort of series -shows ballet lessons -1870s Starts to focus more on practicing dancers, exercising -Takes place in the rehearsal rooms -Constitutes a majority of his ballet paintings -Depicts them in unidealized ways → awkward poses, strained postures. -Unconscious movement vs conscious movement -Unconscious: inward turned gestures, scratching, stretching, adjusting, leaning down, tying show (not practice or effortful, acts that one performs without thinking) -Compares them to figures in background who are doing conscious gestures, outward movements, and performance movements. -Interesting structure of space, looking around corners. Interest in spatial depth -Degas emphasized his studio based practices -Working from memory, models, sketches -For Monet it was not just subjects that seemed spontaneous but that he presented his images as though they themselves were an act of spontaneity (Degas was the opposite)

Degas The Dance Rehearsal

-Shifts focus to depicting modern subject matter -Relationship between two figures is very unclear -Suggestion of a narrative that is about to take place or has just taken place, but unclear and inaccessible. -Fraught atmosphere -Sharp divide between male and female -She is the object of his gaze as well as ours -Displaced the narrative -He is defined as the one looking at her and she is defined as the one being looked at by him

Degas The Interior

-One actual performance -When he shows the performance he also tends to show part of the wings -Clandestine to secretive pleasures -Upperclass men often had relationships with dancers -Male figure peeping out from the wings -Interest in secrete vantage points, suggesting the elite and looking in secret

Degas The Star

-Emphasized artificial lighting and illumination -Tended to work in pastel over a print he produced/monotype -Women clearly readable as working class women, likely prostitutes. -Gestures and in ambiguous space → prostitute -Distinction between boulevard/cafe, outside/inside, public/private becomes blurred -Artiface = All elements are embodied in his the ballet (his favorite subject)

Degas Woman in front of a Cafe

-History painting - more of a narrative painting though -Depicts a scene from the classical world -Exhibited it at the salon and in the impressionist exhibition -Composition structured around the human figure -Atypical: unlike traditional history painting which focuses on recognizable figures and events, this scene does not depict an important event/figures -They are ancient greek figures taking up every day activities

Degas Young Spartans Exercising

-First painting that develops his status as a controversial but famous artist -Submitted to salon but rejected -Jury was severe that year and didn't accept art that provoked outrage -Napoleon said there would be a Salon of refused works that ran simultaneously. Manet resubmitted and this was shown -Large, 6ft high by 7.5 ft long -Another museum paintings that references/quotes works from the past like (9) italian renaissance work. Both are group of figures in outdoor setting. Mix of clothed and unclothed. Transforms it into puzzling mix of clothes and unclothed contemporary figures. Brings them up to date. -Also compared to (10) with similar poses. Saying you cant copy works, you must speak to your own kind - Why so controversial? Confused by inexplicable combo of clothed and unclothed persons. No rational explanation. Also the depiction of the nude. No historical or mythological context. Scandalous for a nude woman to be sitting among clothed men. Absence of chiaroscuro - shadowless figure. Skin pale and flat. Play of light across her skin. Crispness and outline.

Luncheon on the Grass Manet

Manet's roots were very urban, upper middle class -Well dressed, loved refined Parisian society -Had academic training, studied art, traveled extensively -Very interested in the past and putting his spin on history (referencing but also updating) -Towards end of 1860s → shift to purely modern subjects (Not known why exactly. Perhaps his retrospective didn't gain him the audience he wanted. Never exhibited with impressionist artists -- not an impressionist) Continues to submit works to the salon -Manet was very important for the young group of painters (renoir, bazziele, monet, etc). He was the head of a new school of painting

Manet

-Manet and Morisot met in 1868 through a fellow painter -Shortly after she posed for this painting -In few years following they had an interesting dialogue, competition -Quite eager to separate herself from the reputation this painting spurred. -Shown in salon of 1869 -Occupying boundary between indoor/outdoor, private/public -Links space of the salon to the space of the street (the viewer at the salon is also viewing her in private setting), portrays salon painter as a subject as well -No clear narrative to the painting, no explanation of relationship between the figures. Very ambiguous -Shown very visibly from the street with an unidentified man behind her -Morisot was upset by the image when she saw and how she would be perceived when it was shown at the salon -Didnt want to be portrayed in a way that suggests an improper relationship with the man, in public on the balcony -She was uncomfortable -Starts an interesting dialogue where they respond to each others works -She corrects/tames the impropriety of the image, to make sensible, by producing several response pieces. -Confined space, by shutters

Manet The Balcony

-Impressionist Landscape Painting -Born in Paris, grew up in Normandy -Moves back to paris, 1860s becomes friends with other impressionist paintings -Almost immediately started off painting landscape but did have some figure paintings -Often painted outside of Paris. Suburbs of Paris, leisure. -Painted on Studio Boat for closer access. -Desire to eliminate/minimize the gap between looking at a scene and painting a scene -In 1880 he decides to submit paintings to the Salon, but not the impressionist exhibition. One admitted one rejected. -1881 he again submits to the salon. A few years after, he exhibits a group of works at a commercial gallery and not to the salon or at the last impressionist exhibition. -Moved again several years later and would go to the coast to produce series of landscape paintings -Never depicts them as sites of leisure anymore, stops his focus on images of suburban and coastal leisure -Instead seeks out more dramatic sites which seem more isolated -Not paintings of bourgoise Parisians taking leisure → Changes in subject matter and mode. -Begins producing series of paintings -All of these changes in location and types of locals and where he's exhibiting Why? -Maybe spurred bc he has not yet achieved financial success -Also a period when impressionist group starts to splinter (in part because he withdraws) -May have caused him to reevaluate -Maybe threatened by the rise of the neo-impressionist movement. Worked on a modest scale

Monet

-See industry in background -Emphasis on wide path, a place to take in the scenery -Sense of ease and leisure -Notion that impressionist paintings were created quickly and spontaneously and on the spot → a fiction but a mindset

Monet Argenteuil

-shows his wife -Landscape is transformed as reflection blends with reality -Female is no way privileged over landscape, but rendered as same as her landscape as patches of color

Monet Bank of the Seine

Blvd where first impressionist exhibition was held. Implies that artists needed to develop a new style of painting that could render new urban experience. Match between subject matter and style. Subject matter of changing city demanded a new style of painting. Depicted quickly, seen quickly and painting relatively quickly (not as quickly as one might think). Sketchiness for some critics was the problem → unfinished, not enough work. Effect that Monet wanted to convey is what made his work problematic for some critics. Other critics said work lacked a sense of completion and structure. Also complained that the artists lacked conventional skills, coherent form etc BUT many critics supported the impressionists (still some refrain on sketchiness) -Painted relatively few paintings of the city/Paris. By 1878 Monet painted his last pictures of Paris -Seems to create the impression that he's using hasty brushwork to suggest a parallel between his style of painting and what he's depicting. Showing modern crowd -Ephemeral scene

Monet Boulevard des Capucines

-Earlier images in series sometimes there might be figures to show scale -Focus on huge french gothic architecture -A single object seen from almost identical point of view -No sense of depth almost -Unlike his other series, the cathedral is a man made object -This excludes all natural transformations -Subject itself never changes and so the emphasis is on the atmosphere and time of day/light

Monet Cathedral series

-No show of any population or town -He chooses to show these as isolated landscape -Water beating against -Much wilder, less tame and cultivated -Moving around and variable of image -Main variable in the series starts to be color -More and more constants and fewer variables

Monet Cliffs at Etretat Series

-Truly modern and urban subjects -Man made sites in the city -Painted a group of paintings of this train station -One of the busiest train stations -Exhibited them as a group in the 3rd impressionist exhibitions -How steam/smoke/light mingle -Fleeting optical effects -Phenomenon experienced visually -Not something you hold in your hand -Representations of the same or very similar motifs -Changes due to time of day, lighting, atmosphere, viewpoint -Very busy train station, 13 mil ppl a year -Depicts the arrivals and departures, smoke, steam -Focus on the modern city, speed, transit, mobility, industrialism

Monet Gare Saint Lazare

We see numerous constants. He moves around a little bit Main variable is color -evolves from pictorial objectivity toward subjectivity -had always been interested in portraying scene as how he saw it, here that increases. Shows his personal vision of reality, presumably to suggest that there was no knowable reality and that the appearance of reality depended both on exterior circumstances (light and atmosphere) and on the viewers perception -shows his series at varying times of day, in different seasons and in diverse weather conditions -series of 30, no longer functioned as individual pieces that each required attention but instead a sort of decoration, enhancing the wall with varying colors and textures. -increased interest/importance of form and substance at the expense of content and meaning represented redirection of pictoral art paving the way for 20th century nonobjective painting. -intensified sensations

Monet Haystack series

individual /private gallery exhibitions Series meant to be presented as a series and wasnt space for that in many galleries or at the salon

Monet Poplars Series

-Most suburbs reached by train -New railway bridge of Argenteuil -Painting what makes the development and travel possible and accessible -Country and city are not opposing terms, not opposites but rather they join -Nature as an accessible and picturesque extension of middle class city life -The bridge is not an intrusion -Nature and industry coexist

Monet Railroad Bridge at Argenteuil

-Suburbs of paris, vacation for bourgois -Choses both elements of the scene and brush style -Shows the transformation of one to the other -Art perception of the transient elements shown by brushstrokes -Centrality of artists perception at the time -Emphasis on reflection and surface of the water -World transformed into purely optical representations -Emphasis on color and relationships between colors -In some ways the color is important than the subjects -Color developing its own importance -New emphasis on materials and mechanics -No longer a window into the world but a series of paint marks on a flat canvas

Monet Regatta at Argenteuil

-Associating himself with Manet but also trying to surpass him -it was meant to be a painted sketch/preparatory work. This is 6ft wide but he never finished the final work which was supposed to be 20 feet wide. -Trying to combine figure and landscape in large scale effort that would win him critical claim when he submitted it to the salon -In comparison to Manet's luncheon on the grass: Monet updates Manet's work by making the figures modern and contemporary. -Contrast: issue of narrative. Was some unintelligibility to Manet's subjects. Monet makes sure his is easy to understand. Shows middle class sociability. Monet resolves the puzzle that so defined Manet's painting - Manets inexplicably nude figure which was shocking. No such scandal or figures in Monet's painting. We see fashionable young ladies not nude women. -Figure and landscape are not convincingly integrated in Manet's, but they are here. -Monet tames Manet's luncheon

Monet Study for Luncheon on the Grass

-Depiction of leisure in landscapes -See his father sitting and his cousin -Father looking at the landscape just as the viewers of the painting are. -Aligning activity in painting with the act of looking at painting -Modern economy is present with boats but at a distance -Signs of the industrial revolution

Monet Terrace at St Adrese

-Also painted 4 views of the Tuileries garden -Center of Paris -Chooses not to focus on city scape but on parks -Landscape still takes center stage even when depicting parts of the city -In the distance we see elements of the city/urban landscape

Monet Tuileries

Most extensive series Started end of 19th century and extended until he died in 1926

Monet Water Lillies series

-after abandoning Luncheon on the Grass -Already starting to develop working directly in front of the subject -Strong sunlight -Careful attention to female fashion -Depicting the here and now, totally contemporary -Starts to become convinced that he needs to find new venues to show his work. -Devotes himself to other subjects other than these figure based subjects which hadn't gotten him much critical attention

Monet Women in the Garden

-Set up easles side by side -Painting en plein air directly in front of the motif theyre depicting -Monets is slightly more structured -Renoirs is more focused on the interactions between figures and the sociability/costumes -Main difference - water. Renoirs is fluffier, monets is crisper -Leisure landscape not labor landscape -Figures appear from elsewhere -Depiction of a transient place -Spontaneous place → meaningful to the location

Monet vs Renoir Grenouillere

-Also paints the private Argenteuil -Ideal subject for Monet -A garden is a series of brightly colored forms -Easily translated into monet style with patches of contrasting colors

Monet's Garden/House at Argenteuil

Important female member of impressionist group. -Born into middle upper class family. They encouraged her interest in painting from a young age -Studied formally in Paris. Didn't attend the school because no women were admitted until end of 19th c. -Focused on women and often people she knew -Interiors and exteriors. Regardless of where she depicted them the propriety of them was never in question -Often described as a feminine painter because of the style (cassatt was not described this way). Light touch, feathery quality, insubstantiality of figures -Exhibited at the Salon, but also exhibited with the impressionist exhibitions -Manet and her's dialogue is very interesting -He discouraged her from exhibit with the new impressionist group -But she exhibited in all but one. -Was the first woman to exhibit in the first impressionist exhibitions -Critics criticized for many of the same reasons that others were criticized for (sketchy, incomplete) -Manet and her learned and inspired each other, sense of competition. Often responded to one another's paintings with their own. -He was a friend, colleague, rival -She married his brother in 74

Morisot

-Another revision of Manet's balcony painting -We see her sister dressed very similarly to what morisot is wearing in the balcony painting. Holding a fan -She is near the balcony, we see the balcony beyond her. But she is placed safely in the interior. -She is alone in the room rather than with the ambiguous company -Shown from her profile which puts less emphasis on her face -Less vulnerable this way

Morisot Artist's sister at the window

-Shows how influence went both ways. -Manet also influenced by her -In works like manet's painting/his paintings in the 70s, we see broken brushworks, we could argue that it really is morisot's influence. She brings him closest to the impressionist fold -amazing foliage and color and light

Morisot Catching Butterflies vs Manet Game of Croquet

-One of few men to make an appearance in her paintings was her husband, manet's brother -Shows interesting reversal of more typical representation of a woman -Looking out window into garden in a nicely decorated interior -Instead shows her husband -Shows husband and daughter -Seeing paintings of men and children was very unusual. -To see just the father and child (more often in family portrait) really turns the tables here -She is the artist, an observer from the distance, her husband and daughter play together from a distance -Typical female activity transposed onto her husband as she stands back and observes and paints the scene

Morisot Eugene Manet on the isle of white / and his daughter at Bougival

-Husband wearing an artist smock, subtly alluding to his own artistry -Shows him with the child, physically proximate to each other, in their own world of play

Morisot Eugene and his daughter in the garden

-Pure landscape -Shown in last impressionist exhibition 1886 -Not very well received -Break up of form in her work with blocks of color -Almost to the point of illegibility -We can see it's some kind of architectural structure and foliage, but other than those few identifiable parts, we are removed from the ability to recognize objects

Morisot Garden at Bougival

-Organizes landscapes around ordinary activities of middle class women (on a walk, reading, playing with child) -Again non anonymous figures, members of her own family/her own social milieu

Morisot Hide and Seek

-Fashionable seaside resort -Fashionable dress -Mother looks down at child, child looks out to sea -Comfortable leisurelyness -The focus isnt on the leisure activities but on the general space of leisure -With mother and child in the foreground

Morisot In a Villa at the Seaside

-Different than ones weve seen -Working class women putting up laundry -Things associated with the domestic sphere

Morisot Laundress Hanging out her wash

-A response to Monet's balcony painting. -Shows mother and sister in an interior -If we look close we can see how it is a response -Situated clearly inside rather than the ambiguous space of the balcony which is neither in nor outside -Sister shown with mother - chaperone figure -Ambiguities of Manet's painting is very much resolved in this painting in favor of certainties and clarity of family relationships

Morisot Mother and Sister of the Artist

-Another response to the balcony -Sister's class is clearly fixed - middle class -Propriety is secured -Rendering of fashionable black day dress -No particular spacial organization, juxtaposition of two spaces -Domestic with much bigger public space -Divided into space on balcony and the space beyond it -We are situated on the same side as the railing, so we see things from the same point of view and occupy the same space -Unlike Manet's balcony picture where we are on the other side, looking at them, they are the object of our gaze (Objectification)

Morisot On the Balcony

-Another clear conversation between the two artists -Morisot painted in response but she also reshapes his works and makes them into reflections of a middle class world, rather than the urban strangers that manet shows -Turns that modern parisian woman of manet into a specific person. -Young relative of morisot

Morisot Portrait of Mademoiselle M.T. or Young Girl with Parrot vs Manet Young Woman in 1866

-Fashion was a shared interest between morisot and manet -Almost identical subjects -Morisot's is part of a group of works depicting women in front of the mirror -Similarities between the two works also highlight the difference -Morisot's woman is clearly respectable. -Proprietary of middle class women was very important at the time. More possibilities for that perception to be breached. -Nice interior -Not much skin showing -She is far back from viewer, kept at a discrete distance. -We see her full figure but not really much of it -Get a sense of the lightness of morisot's touch -Manet's is different: Seen as a prostitute, We see more of her body from close up, Voluptuous body. Because of his previous works we can infer this.

Morisot Psyche vs Manet Before the Mirror

-Not woman as nature but rather the outdoors providing a place of solitude -Very attentive to the dress and hat and fan etc -Rendering of female fashion was important/interesting to her -Outdoor space/public space is not a place of anonymity, still a quiet space. -Not necessarily a modern leisure landscape that others depict it as -Demarcating spaces within the larger space -Exhibited in the first impressionist exhibition -Critic: implicitly makes distinction between what she chooses to depict from her fellow impressionists. Notes it's far from backstage scenes. Not a follower of sexually charged images. -Women and paintings that are very far from the socially marginal subjects that her male counterparts tend to depict. -Her interest in mother and children - one more way that she secures the respectability of her figures.

Morisot Reading

-Outdoors but with a border that separates (the fence) -Two respectable and well dressed ladies with a child -Organized composition around family and familial group -Primarily a landscape/cityscape but organized around middle class women and mother child relationship

Morisot View of Paris from the Trocedero

-Depicting the wet nurse who is nursing her own child -Working class version of depictions of cafe's and bar maids -Hired to nurse children to take care of them -Working class woman not involved in leisure and entertainment of paris but in her own world, morisot's own domestic sphere. -These women were poor and would leave their own children to work -They dont work for the pleasure of men -Distinction between foreground and background, air and solid almost illegible -Cant make out anything more specific -Very rough brushstrokes

Morisot Wet Nurse

-Again almost identical subject matter (women in front of mirror applying makeup) -Despite similarities, morisot's woman has none of the licentiousness that manet's does -Social marginality of Nana. Very clearly a prostitute -Morisot's seen as a woman of morisot's own social class -Painted at the same time -Morisot gives her work associations

Morisot Young Lady Powdering her face vs Manet Nana

-Like cassatt, also took up painting images of mother and child -Often of her sister and child -Had been a staple of artists for a long time -Has an almost referential quality. She gazes down lovingly at baby

Morisot the cradle

-Tactility - both loving but expressed differently. Cassatt's has real physicality, pushing against one another -Space - much more compressed in cassatt's, can see setting in morisot's -Brushstrokes - more weightiness of cassatts, you can feel the pressure of the child. -Textures and fabrics - morisot's interest in fashion and the rendering of fabric, her skill too. Delicacy of portrayal of lace/fabric

Morisot vs Cassatt Mother with Child

-Earliest of Manet's purely modern pictures -Depicts his own social and intellectual world in Paris -Afternoon concert at the garden of the Tuileries gardens -Very fashionable crowd -Image of modern outdoor leisure -Painted in sketchy manor to match the movement of the crowd, scene in motion, transience of light -Important precedent for the style impressionists have in their work -Rarely painted self portraits/appear in paintings. He is Far left figure, almost cut off -Compared to Courbet's Real Allegory → Manet places himself at the edge as an observer, Courbet depicts himself in the center as the focal, absorbed into himself. Courbet is rustic, Manet is modern. Courbet identifies with nature, Manet with the city and fashion

Music in the Tuileries Manet

-Returning to the theme of the female prostitute -Shows how much his work has changed in depicting the female figure -She was very much meant to be a prostitute → shown in underwear and with male visitor -Object of visual and sexual desire -No references to art of the past. She is purely modern/parisian with contemporary garments and setting -Rejected from salon

Nana Manet

-manet's first attempt at large scale, multi figure composition -Ragged children and men grouped around elderly man. -Disconnected frieze. Emotionless, not related by gesture or glance -Don't belong to one another -Explicit in importance of Velazquez's the drinkers -Also quoting himself by including his own earlier figures -Collection of urban marginal types -Combo of mid 19th century Paris filtered through the work of Velazquez but also updating Velazquez -Key: referencing and quoting the past but also updating

Old Musician Manet

-1865 at the salon, 2 years after painted -Years later after painting, critics still referred to Manet as the painter of Olympia -Caused huge scandal - never lived it down. -Stood as a sign of avant gard defiance -Compared: sharp contrast between light and dark. flat, starkly painted pale bodies -Heightens lack of visual appeal -Challenging the convention -Female figures as passive objects Compared to Titian Venus of Urbino -Scandal: Many critiques thought she was a common prostitute (word olympia was common pseudonym). No woman of decent reputation would ever let herself be shown this way -Critics responded to unconventional use of light and shadow - she was unclean and dirty looking. -From somewhat unreadable, large areas of paint on body with no detailing or anatomical differentiation -Body is quite pale, but outlined seemingly in dark paint → creates a flatness. Gives her an angular appearance, instead of Titian's Venus softness. Angular figure of elbows and knees. -Reactions negative to the challenge of her gaze. Exchange between the viewer and olympia is sexual. Frankness of the gaze. Hand is situation in place that demands to be looked at → to look at what she is selling -Flowers suggest recent encounter w male -Critics complained about unfinished quality -Hand is a gesture -Nominally sketched -Critics felt only parts were sufficiently painted -Central criticism of impressionist art in general is the unfinished quality

Olympia Manet

Nana depicted voluptuously, pilowyness to body and surrounded by pillows, soft -Passive expression, looking back at viewer, flirty -Nana has idealized skin, much less skin, tight seductive undergarment -Both have figure in background whom they are not paying attention to.

Olympia vs Nana

-Participated in all 8 exhibitions -Unlike monet/renoir he very much tended to portray industrial landscape. Depicting working class and peasants instead of the middle class leisure (wash house)

Pissarro

-transitions from impressionism to neo impressionism -people couldnt tell differences between neo impressionist artists -distancing from impressionism -NON spontaneousness -each person performs a necessary task -figures set against the vast expanse of a field with bright colors giving it an almost festive feel -labor here is not a chore but a form of joyful social cooperation

Pissarro Apple Picking

Compared to Monet: Depicting a garden where food is grown. People not enjoying the visual delights of the flowers, they are working. More focused on labor and less on leisure. Less intense color palette.

Pissarro Garden at Pontoise

-beautiful light -Winter landscape -Man carrying a bundle of sticks on his shoulder (one human effort) -Another human effort is the furrows on the ground suggesting someone came and tended to the field -More interested in the social realities of the landscape -More in tune to the industrial and less pretty -Agricultural labor

Pissarro Hoar Frost

-1867-1877 Only decade considered impressionist -Primarily a figure painter -80s turning point -Renoir tend to focus on middle/working class sociability, respectable sociability -Representation of middle class family values and interactions -Traditional view of order and gender (kind of regressive) -Leisure entertainment - eating, dancing, drinking -A traditionalist in comparison to his colleagues -Impressionism to the demands of large scale figure painting

Renoir

-Dancehall as center for parisian social life -Figures dancing, drinking, socializing -We see working class and middle class -Large scale, approaching scale that would show religious/mythological subjects Mostly done in studio -Trying to extend reach of impressionist to large scale -We see again expression of deep interest for sociability -Social order of men and women is main social unit -The dance does this. Social unit of female male couple -Also the main compositional unit - ties background and foreground -Aiming to convey fluid social interactions -The dance physically is fluid - a metaphor for renoir, his notion for painting and the ease of it Image of the easyness with incorporating the impressionist aspects of life -Fleeting representation of light coming through the trees on the bodies - impressionist -Also fleeting movement of the people dancing. Ciritc - here and now of the painting. Good cus Rejecting notion of art being the need for depicting the past -Figures are spotted with the light coming through the shade of the trees. -Fleeting light and motion of the dancing bodies -Renoir's investment in impressions of modern leisure -Semi spontaneous forms of leisure -Male female couple as a social unit -Uses social unit as a compositional unit -Individually articulated -Interested in motion and the crowd doesn't compromise his interest in attending to the human figure -Emphasis on different outfits/fashion. Flux of fashions, up to date -Idealized environment. No sign of underside/dark side of modern life or the struggles of most people. -Puts viewer at ease. Focus on the ease of the situation. No undertones of negativity.

Renoir Ball at the Moulin de la Galette

-Social mingling with artistic practice -Family very happy with the outcome and would invite him to come stay with them -He produced portraits of all their children and then their friends would commission him too -made successful business

Renoir Berard

-The female bather becomes one of main subjects -One of various ways hes come to distance himself from impressionist -Simpler palette. Loose background - gives decorative effect -Carefully delineated -Clear articulation of form here -As in Nude in Sunlight → suggests nude state is natural as they are in nature -No interiority to the subjects, they are purely objects to be viewed pleasurably (object of male gaze) -Nothing modern about landscape or references to put them in time or place

Renoir Blonde bather/Seated Bather

-Bourgoise values -Conservatism to how he's depicting the works -Clear firm contours -Much more simplified palette, less of an interest of effects of light -Travels abroad to Italy algeria -"I have suddenly become a traveler" -Increasing interest in the art of the past/museums

Renoir Dance in the city/country

-Also exhibited this at same Salon -Jeanne was a well known actress at the time, a celebrity -Trying to link himself to this famous figure -She did not buy the portrait -Makes clear the importance of having acquaintances like the charpentiers who would introduce him to other clients like this -absorbed in high status life

Renoir Jeanne Samary

-Leisure establishment, similar subject matter to Moulin de la Gallete -painting of Renoir's friends -More detailed and close up -Clear faces, much more individualized than Moulin (in clothes and faces) -More spacial distinction -Not as chaotic

Renoir Luncheon on the Boating Party

-Meant to be purely motherly, not sexual. healthy and stocky -Image of maternal caretaker -Develops clear female prototypes -We see attractive bather in Blonde Bather vs we see completely dressed image of pure motherhood

Renoir Mother Nursing Her Child

-Wealthy family renior was friends with/patrons of Renoir -She wanted a portrait of herself with her children -Unusually large for a portrait -Depicting family in luxurious but tasteful interior -Refined lifestyle -Japanese objects → shows their interest in japanese culture which was popular -Clothing is elegant. They are well dressed -Unmistakable material opulence, but tasteful -Structured composition but and air of informality and ease -Shows Renoir as sympathetic to his patrons -Very received at the Salon -Would come to develop a lucrative portrait business -Audience he wanted to gather was reflected in this return to the salon

Renoir Mrs Charpentier and her Children

-One of his most odd paintings/highly criticized. -We see him struggle with how to integrate the impressionist interest in rendering light (breaking up solid forms by light/colors/shadows). -So we see female body turned into some kind of landscape → results in unnerving paintings -Critic: The coloring of her skin is unnatural. Solid forms of head/torso broken up by light in a sense that doesn't come together (purple green spots on decomposing flesh) -Unspecified natural setting. Implying there is a naturalness to female beauty. That being nude is natural for women (long tradition of women with nature and men with culture) -Natural for us to want to look at her naked body -Can be seen as objectification though, there is no context as to why she's naked in this nature scene, other than to guess its purely for male viewer to look at.

Renoir Nude in Sunlight

Renoir's: sexualized, inviting us to watch her, she doesn't have personality, unnatural colors, idealization of figure. No setting fixed in time and Classical/mythological combo of body and background. Degas: unappealing, unsexualized, cooler tones, voyeurism, act of work, context of a setting

Renoir Nude in Sunlight vs Degas Woman in the Bath

Nude in Sunlight: Interest in marrying impressionism to female nude - struggling with nude in sunlight. Wanting to treat her like a landscape. Brushier and sketchier landscape than figure. Seated Bather: smooth effects of dropping interest in impressionist depiction. Impressionism like background but not at all on figure and not to the extent of nude in the sunlight. Not interior life, not depiction of modernity except bracelet. Timeless scenery. Vague dreamy expressions.

Renoir Nude in Sunlight vs Renoir Seated Bather

-Bridge over the Seine River, cuts through the middle -Epitomizes the flux of movement -Contemporary fashions -Specifics of the figures themselves and their dress vs Monet's of city where they're just black smudges -We see what they wear and their social class -This is a picturesque city -Enough specificity to say its grounded in direct observation but also idealized -Hard to find images in his work that speak to social tensions and unease -Shows paris and idealic, soft paint application, sketchy -Not as controversial as other impressionists -He's trying to balance between by not drawing as much controversy but still using some impressionist techniques

Renoir Pont-Neuf

-Lying in studio with eyes closed -Thin blouse → provocative but a quite modest form of disarray -Unthinking/unconscious state. Robs her of interiority -She is like the cat, not much of an individual, no psychological state -Loose brushwork, lack of detail -Incorporating in way that would be appealing to large salon audience -Lack of interiority

Renoir Sleeping Girl/Girl with Cat

-Outdoor restaurant and bathing establishment -Spent summer nearby living w parents -Sometimes would paint side by side with monet -Subject is representation of up to date fashionable place -Both renoir and monet wanted to paint large paintings of this particular setting but neither actually did -Painted at least in part in plein air -Subject and style converge with the leisurely style, natural, effortless, semi-spontaneous activities -Set outdoors/landscape components but is of the people -His interest is focused on the social elements of this scene -Subtle flirtations, interactions between men and women -Middle/upper class "couple" was a fundamental unit

Renoir The Grenouillere

-Large scale ambitious multi figural painting -Direct opposition to impressionism -Carefully rendered parts of the body with almost invisible brushwork -Made many prep studies -Large undertaking -See each nude in foreground from different points of view → nothing accidental there. It Maximizes our visual access/pleasure in looking at them because we see them from every point of view. -Timeless setting, nothing that identifies them with the modern world -His version of the 3 graces -Critic says their poses are obsolete, their outdated flesh is like porcelain (talking about pinkness and smoothness) -Very objectifying

Renoir The Large Bathers

-Ballet/opera goers in semi enclosed seating area -Vs work by Degas: Both were figure painters (often female), but with similar subjects the women depicted differently. -In Degas dancer painting, there is an interest in oblique angles, off kilter perspective, our gaze grazes the side of female figure. We look at her but then beyond to the stage. A scene glimpsed or caught -In Renoir's we see the figure head on like a portrait. She is facing us in a frontal presentation. -She is meant to be looked at. Positioned as such -Male spectator is looking up, alluding he's not looking at the stage - looking at other members of the audience, presumably female -Being observed and observing is central to opera -Grazes issue of spectatorship, which is what were doing while looking at painting -In Degas, we barely see the woman, not much visual access of her. Set next to her than opposite

Renoir The Loge

-Shows young man helping a young woman through the landscape, through the undergrowth -Good example of his interest of fashionable middle class couples -We see the ways he has used sketchy mode of paint application -Using that mode to depict substantial human figures -Speckled with light, falling on the pants of the man -Efforts to integrate figure in landscape -Depicting fleeting effects in the landscape -Romantic, sentimental that conveys pleasure, ease and romance -Analogy between style and subject matter -Ease of brushwork to application of paint, suggest it was done somewhat rapidly without effort - meant to match the easy social relations between these two social figures

Renoir The Promenade

-Looking for intersection between female figure/bourgois couple/etc and impressionist painting -Transient light effects, experimenting with light effects, loose brushwork -Essentially a painting of light social interaction

Renoir the swing

-leader of anti/neo-impressionism -used science as part of the arts -within but also against impressionists -continuation of impressionist way of rendering a visual experience but was a reaction to the haste of impressionist work, to the criticisms of it not being composed enough -Studio based production. Subject matter of going out into nature and observing, but scale, pointillism and brushwork are anti-impressionist and made obvious that the work was not en plein air. -Not interested in capturing a fleeting glimpse of contemporary reality but wanted to create paintings that were idealized monuments to modernity. -Instilled form within meaning (his colors, brushstrokes, and lines were as significant as the content of the painting)

Seurat

-Manifesto painting of neo impresisonism -very talked about painting -Shown in last impressionist exhibition (1886) -depicts leisure activities which is similar to impressionism -HUGE painting (7x10 ft) -much larger scale vs impressionism -rejection of small portable canvases (clearly made in studio) -Shows multiple social classes (wouldn't be seen in impressionist painting) -We see a worker on bottom left seated next to a middle class family, a child with nanny near a elegant couple. -elaborate compositional painting with over 30 figures (impressionists were said to have lacked composition) -Seemingly frozen/aloof/simplified figures are far from the animated and loose figures in impressionism -very detailed and careful attention -spacial organization -nothing spontaenous -Pointillism: uniform dots of paint. This was a big aspect of neo impressionism. -colors mix in the eye of the viewer and the eye blends the color. Research into optics and color -rejection of impressionist spontaneity and immediate effects -reaction against the sketch like impressions (everything is calculated)

Seurat A sunday on the grande jatte

-Similar to Degas Cafe-Concert in composition -Instill form with meaning -The viewer seated behind the bass player, almost in the band yourself -On right see spectator watching the women's underwear -Dance was a display of legs and petticoats --> vulgar form of entertainment -Composition seems strict to geometry, symmetry and repetition (exact repetition of dancer's skirt folds, identical feet) -emphasis of diagonals and use of yellow, orange and brown offset by blue -interested in the psychology of color and ideas of how certain colors and patterns of movement evoke pleasure and expand human consciousness -Form and subject work together to suggest that in the dreary existence of modern man, spectacles such as the chahut, filled with light/music/erotica, provide brief interludes of pleasure and oblivion -turns it into a modern ritual -lift viewers above the humdrum of everyday life

Seurat Chahut

Lots of french port town paintings

Seurat Entry to the Port of Honfleur

-records his meanderings at the sight of the series. -Many viewpoints

Seurat Lighthouse and Mariners Home of Honfleur

-overlapping points from different points of view -close attention to details

Seurat Mouth of the Seine, Evening

-painting not produced fast, in haste, spontaneous. -much planning

Seurat Studies of Grande Jatte

many landscapes -series paintings

Seurat Tip of the Jetty Honfleur

#2 in command of neo impressionism -illusion to degas work

Signac The Milliners

-supported by left wingers/rejected by right wingers -represents the lowest socioeconomic class -Brought real/ordinary life into the studio which wasn't done before -Not adhering to traditional training or conventions -Shows poverty and hardship and physical labor -Shows brute physicality of work through their bodies/the strain, not through their facial expressions, as well as thick brushstrokes and rough foreboding landscape. -Minimal sky and enclosed/unpleasant scenery of his home terrain -HUGE painting which increases their significance -backs turned to us creates illusion that Courbet stumbled upon the scene

Stonebreakers Courbet

-Painted the grounds -Completely modern subject -Focus on contemporary Paris -Figures identified by class and profession -All are looking at modern city -Only gardener doing an activity -No real center to composition (like 6) -Eyes move from one part of the composition to the next -Imitating the kind of lookin that he thinks modern parisians take on the new city -Sketchy brushwork. Matches the style to the subject matter. Fleeting impressions.

View of the Universal Exposition Manet

Zola writes an essay to complement 1867 exhibition Celebration of Manet's work Offers it as introduction to catalogue of show → Manet rejects this essay In essay Zola says spanish art and historical art wasn't important to Manet Did not conform to how Manet saw his own work Portrait of Zola gives interesting glimpse into how Manet saw his own work and how he saw Zola's writings Acknowledges Zola's essay. Right above is a group of 3 images Photograph of olympia Interested in different ways of reproducing images, mechanical reproduction Above, is a Goya print of Velazquez's Drinkers A print by a 19th c spanish artist of a 17th c spanish artist Contradicting Zola's rejection of the influence of spanish art Japan art. Japan opened to west in mid 19th c. Suddenly access to japanese prints. Also japanese scroll on far left Testament to their friendship but also many ways in which Manet seems to be contradicting Zola

Zola's critique on Manet