Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 14e Chapter 28 Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Symbolism: Europe and America, 1870 to 1900

Figure 28-37 ANTONIO GAUDI, Casa Milá, Barcelona, 1907.

Spanish Art Nouveau architect Gaudi conceived this apartment house as if it were a gigantic sculpture to be molded from clay. Twisting chimney cap the undulating roof and walls.

Figure 28-30 GERTRUDE KASEBIER, Blessed Art Thou among Women, 1899. Platinum print on Japanese tissue, 9 3/8" X 5 ½". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Mrs. Hermine M. Turner).

Symbolist Kasebier injected a sense of the spiritual and the divine into scenes from everyday life. The deliberately soft focus of this photograph invests the scene with an aura of otherworldly peace.

Japonisme and Later Impressionism

* Examine issues of other Impressionist, such as the influence of the Japanese print and concerns with formal elements.

Sculpture: Realist and Expressive

* Examine issues of realism, expression and subject matter in sculpture of the later 19th century.

28.5 Decorative Art: Arts and Crafts Movement and Art Nouveau

* Examine the ideas of Ruskin and Morris in shaping the Arts and Crafts Movement. * Understand the interest in aesthetic functional objects in the Arts and Crafts Movement. * Examine the preference for high-quality artisanship and honest labor. * Examine the organic forms of Art Nouveau in art and architecture.

28.4 Sculpture in the Later 19th Century

* Examine the issues of realism and expression related to sculpture in the later 19th century. * Understand the selection of contemporary subject matter by sculptors. * Recognize representative sculptors and works of the later 19th century.

Discussion Questions

* In what ways did the Modernist art of the later 19th century break from the past? * How did Modernist artists call attention to the 'facts' of art making? * Why did the public find the subjects, forms, and techniques of the Impressionists shocking? * What are some key elements of the Post-Impressionist painters? How did their work inspire other artists? * What would you consider the most important breakthrough in architecture?

The Architecture of Louis Sullivan

* Understand the issues of space and decoration in the remarkable work and theories of Louis Sullivan.

28.6 Architecture in the Later 19th Century

* Understand the new technology and changing needs of urban society and their effects on architecture. * Examine new materials use in architecture and the forms made possible as a result. * Understand how architects were able to think differently about space as a result of new technology and materials. * Examine the remarkable work and theories of Louis Sullivan.

28.2 Post-Impressionism

*Understand the differences in emotional expression and subject choices between the Impressionists and the Post-Impressionists. * Understand the Post-Impressionist experimentation with form and color. *Recognize the individuality of the Post-Impressionist artists and the styles each one developed.

Figure 28-2 CLAUDE MONET, Impression: Sunrise, 1872. Oil on canvas, 1' 7 1/2" x 2' 1 1/2". Musée Marmottan, Paris.

A hostile critic applied the derogatory term "Impressionism" to this painting because of its sketchy quality and undisguised brushstrokes. Monet and his circle embraced the lable for their movement.

Industrialization of Europe and U.S. about 1850

A significant consequence of industrialization was urbanization. The number and size of Western cities grew dramatically during the latter part of the 19th century, largely due to migration from teh countryside. Farmers in large numbers relocated to urban centers because expanded agricultural enterprises squeezed out smaller property owners from their land.

28-7A BERTHE MORISOT, Summer's Day, 1879. Oil on canvas, 1' 5 3/4" X 2' 5 3/8". National Gallery, London (Lane Bequest, 1917).

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28-15A HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, Jane Avril, 1893. Color lithograph, 4' 2 1/2" X 3' 1". San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego (gift of the Baldwin M. Baldwin Foundation).

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28-16B VINCENT VAN GOGH, Japonaiserie: Flowering Plum Tree, 1887. Oil on canvas, 1' 9 1/2" X 1' 6". Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam.

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28-22A PAUL CÉZANNE, The Large Bathers, 1906. Oil on canvas, 6' 10 7/8" X 8' 2 3/4". Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (W.P. Wilstach Collection).

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Figure 28-24A GUSTAVE MOREAU, Jupiter and Semele, ca. 1875. Oil on canvas, 7' x 3' 4". Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris.

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28-31A JEAN-BAPTISTE CARPEAUX, The Dance, from the Opéra, Paris, France, 1867-1869. Limestone, 13' 9 3/8" high. Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

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Figure 28-33A AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS, Adams Memorial, Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, 1891. Bronze, 5' 10" high. Smithsonian American Art Museum,Washington, D.C.

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Figure 28-36 VICTOR HORTA, staircase in the Van Eetvelde House, Brussels, 1895.

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Figure 28-38 ALEXANDRE-GUSTAVE EIFFEL, Eiffel Tower, Paris, France, 1889.

830 New materials and technologies and the modernist aesthetic fueled radically new architectural designs in the late 19th century. Eiffel jolted the world with the exposed iron skeleton of his tower.

Figure 28-5 GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE, Paris: A Rainy Day, 1877. Oil on canvas, 6' 9" x 9' 9". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, (Worcester Fund).

Although Cillebotte did not use Impressionistic broken brushstrokes, the seemingly random placed figures and the arbitrary cropping of the vista suggest the transitory nature of modern life. 804

Figure 28-28 EDVARD MUNCH, The Scream, 1893. Tempura and pastels on cardboard, 2' 11 3/4" x 2' 5". National Gallery, Oslo.

Although grounded in the real world, The Scream departs significantly from visual reality. Munch used color, line, and figural distortion to evoke a strong emotional response from the viewer.

Figure 28-31 JEAN-BAPTISTE CARPEAUX, Ugolino and His Children, 1865-1867. Marble, 6' 5" high. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Josephine Bay Paul and C. Michael Paul Foundation, Inc. and the Charles Ulrich and Josephine Bay Foundation, Inc., gifts, 1967).

As in Dante's Inferno, Carpeaux represented Ugolino biting his hands in despair as he and his sons await death by starvation. The twisted forms suggest the self-devouring torment of frustration.

Figure 28-13 MARY CASSATT, The Bath, ca. 1892. Oil on canvas, 3' 3" x 2' 2". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Robert A. Walker Fund).

Cassatt's compositions owe much to Degas and Japanese prints, but her subjects differe from those of most Impressionist painters, in part because, as a woman, she could not frequent cafes. 809

Figure 28-22 PAUL CÉZANNE, Basket of Apples, ca. 1895. Oil on canvas, 2' 3/8" x 2' 7". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).

Cezanne's still lifes reveal his analytical approach to painting. He captured the solidity of bottles and fruit by juxtaposing color patches, but the resulting abstract shapes are not optically realistic.

Figure 28-15 HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892-1895. Oil on canvas, 4' x 4' 7". Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection).

Degas, Japanese prints, and photography influenced this painting's oblique composition, but the glaring lighting, masklike faces, and dissonant colors are distinctly Toulouse-Lautrec's. Post Impressionism. 811

28-27 JAMES ENSOR, Christ's Entry into Brussels in 1889, 1888. Oil on canvas, 8' 3 1/2" X 14' 1 1/2". J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Ensor's gigantic canvas is an indictment of corrput modern values. Christ enters Brussels on a donkey in 1889, ignored by the dense crowd of soldiers and citizens wearing grotesque, grimacing masks.

Post-Impressionist Form

Examine the extraordinary art of Cezanne and his interest in form, paving the way for Cubism.

Art Nouveau Art and Architecture

Examine the organic natural forms in Art Nouveau art and architecture.

28.3 Symbolism

Figure 28-22 PAUL CÉZANNE, Basket of Apples, ca. 1895. Oil on canvas, 2' 3/8" x 2' 7". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).

Figure 28-19 PAUL GAUGUIN, Vision after the Sermon or Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1888. Oil on canvas, 2' 4 3/4" x 3' 1/2". National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh.

Gauguin admired Japanese prints, stained glass, and cloisonne enamels. Their influences are evident in this painting of Breton women, in which firm outlines enclose large areas of unmodulated color.

Figure 28-27A Aubrey Beardsley, The Peacock Skirt, 1894. Pen-and-ink illustration for Oscar Wilde's Salome', 9" X 6 5/8". Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge (bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop).

He felt that humans were powerless before the great natural forces of death and love. The emotions associated with them - jealousy, lonliness, fear, desire, despair - became the theme of most of his art.

Impressionism

Impressionism was a movement interested in depicting the world with precision. This new style was dubbed "Impressionism" at an exhibition in Paris in 1874, but it was initially a pejorative statement coined by a derisive critic looking at a work by Monet. The first Impressionist artists had seen Manet's Déjeuner sur 1'herbe at the Salon des Refusés a decade earlier in 1863 and had been fascinated with the problem of showing figures outdoors in natural light. They met together with Manet at the Café Guerbois to discuss the problem. Monet had also been attempting to solve the problem of figures in natural light. The breakthrough came in 1869 when Monet and Renoir began painting together at Argenteuil, a small town along the Seine River. Monet illustrated his complete confidence in nature as perceived by the eye and with his remarkable grasp of tone, while Renoir contributed his brilliant handling of color with a rainbow palette. The subject that united them was the sparkle and reflection of light on water. In Renoir's Le Moulin de la Galette, light dissolves the entire scene into bro¬ken touches of pure color. The dappled outdoor light falls on the dancers, blending all together in a symphony of color. Another artist who addressed the issue of light and tone and the immediacy of the impression is Gustave Caillebotte. In his Paris: A Rainy Day, the artist has given us a moment in the city's life on a dreary day; the use of black, white, and gray tones and the asymmetrical setting all contribute to the momentary impression of water and light.

Figure 28-4 CLAUDE MONET, Saint-Lazare Train Station, 1877. Oil on canvas, 2' 5 3/4" x 3' 5". Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Impressionist paintings are unintelligible at close range, but the eye fuses the brushstrokes at a distance. The agitated applicaiton of paint contributes to the senes of energy in this urban scene.

Figure 28-17 VINCENT VAN GOGH, Night Café, 1888. Oil on canvas, 2' 4 1/2" x 3'. Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (bequest of Stephen Carlton Clark).

In Night Cafe, van Gogh explored ways colors and distorted forms can express emotions. The thickness, shape, and direction of the brushstrokes create a tactile counterpart to the intense colors. 814

Figure 28-25 ODILON REDON, The Cyclops, 1898. Oil on canvas, 2' 1" x 1' 8". Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo.

In The Cyclops, the Symbolists painter Odilon Redon projected a figment of the imagination as if it were visible, coloring it whimsically with a rich profusion of hues adapted from the Impressionist palette.

Figure 28-21 PAUL CÉZANNE, Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1902-1904. Oil on canvas, 2' 3 1/2" x 2' 11 1/4". Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia (The George W. Elkins Collection

In his landscapes, Cezanne replaced the transitory visual effects of changing atmospheric conditions - the Impressionists' focus - with careful analysis of the lines, planes, and colors of nature. 817

Figure 28-20 PAUL GAUGUIN, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? 1897. Oil on canvas, 4' 6 3/4" x 12' 3". Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Tompkins Collection).

In search of a place far removed from European materialism, Gauguin moved to Tahiti, where he used native women and tropical colors to present a pessimistic view of the inevitability of the life cycle.

28-7 BERTHE MORISOT, Villa at the Seaside, 1874. Oil on canvas, 1' 7 3/4" x 2' 1/8". Norton Simon Art Foundation, Los Angeles.

In this informal view of a woman and child enjoying their leisure time at a fashionable seashore reseort, Morisot used swift, sketchy strokes of light colors to convey a feeling of airiness.

Figure 28-18 VINCENT VAN GOGH, Starry Night, 1889. Oil on canvas, 2' 5" x 3' 1/4". Museum of Modern Art, New York (acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest).

In this late work, van Gogh painted the vast night sky filled with whirling and exploding stars, the earth huddled beneath it. The painting is an amost abstract pattern of expressive line, shape and color. 815

Figure 28-14 JAMES ABBOTT MCNEILL WHISTLER, Nocturne in Black and Gold (The Falling Rocket), ca. 1875. Oil on panel, 1' 11 5/8" x 1' 6 1/2". Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit (gift of Dexter M. Ferry Jr.).

In this painting Whistler displayed an Impressionists interest in conveying the atmostpheric effects of fireworks at night, but he also emphasized the abstract arrangement of shapes and colors.

Figure 28-9 ÉDOUARD MANET, Bar at the Folies-Bergère, 1882. Oil on canvas, 3' 1" x 4' 3". Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, London.

In this painting set in a Parisian cafe, Manet called attention to the canvas surface by creating spatial inconsistencies, such as the relationship between teh barmaid and her apparent reflection in a mirror. 807

Figure 28-32 AUGUSTE RODIN, Walking Man, 1905. Bronze, 6' 11 ¾" high. Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

In this study for a statue of Saint John the Baptist, Rodin depicted a headless and armless figure in midstride. Walking Man demonstrates Rodin's mastery of anatomy and ability to capture transitory motion.

Figure 28-3 CLAUDE MONET, Rouen Cathedral: The Portal (in Sun), 1894. Oil on canvas, 3' 3 1/4" x 2' 1 7/8". Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Theodore M. Davis Collection, bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915).

Monet painted a series of views of Rouen Cathedral at different times of the day and under various climatic conditions. The real subject of this painting is not the building but the sunlight shining on it.

Marxism & Darwinism

Karl Marx, together with Friedrich Engels, wrote the communist manifesto which called for the working class to overthrow the capitalist system. Marx believed scientific, rational law governed nature and, indeed, all of human history. Marx coined a term where - those who controlled the means of production conflicted with those whose labor they exploited for their own enrichment, which he called "Dialectical materialism". Darwin introduced natural selection- only the fittest survived. He wrote - On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, which contradicted the biblical narrative of creation. By challenging traditional religious beliefs, Darwinism contributed to growing secularism.

28-24 GUSTAVE MOREAU, The Apparition, 1874-1876. Watercolor on paper, 3' 5 3/4" X 2' 4 3/8". Louvre, Paris.

Moreau's painting of Salome, a biblical femme fatale, combines hallicunatory imagery, eroticism, precise drawing, rich color, and an opulent setting - hallmarks of Symbolist style.

28-2A CLAUDE MONET, On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868. Oil on canvas, 2' 8" X 3' 3 5/8". Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Potter Palmer Collection).

Monet carride the systematic investigation of light and color further than any other impressionist, but all of them recognized the importance of carefully observing and understanding how light and color operate.

Figure 28-8 PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 5' 8". Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Renior's painting of this popular Parisian dance hall is dappled by sunlight and shade, artfully blurred inot the figures to produce the effect of floating and fleeting light the Impressionist cultivated.

Figure 28-39 HENRY HOBSON RICHARDSON, Marshall Field wholesale store, Chicago, 1885-1887 (demolished 1930).

Richardson was a pioneer in designing commercial structures using a cast-iron skeleton encased in fire-resistant masonry. This construction technique enabled the insertion of large windows in the walls.

28-33 AUGUSTE RODIN, The Gates of Hell, 1880-1900. Posthumous bronze cast, 20' 10" X 13' 1". Musée Rodin, Paris

Rodin's most ambitious work, inspired by Dante's Inferno and Ghiberti's Gates of Paradise, presents nearly 200 tormented sinners in relief below The Three Shades and The Thinker.

Figure 28-16 GEORGES SEURAT, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886. Oil on canvas, 6' 9" x 10'. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, 1926).

Seurat's color system - pointillism- involved dividing colors into their conponent parts and applying those colors to the canvas in tiny dots. The forms become comprehensible only from a distance. 812-813

Figure 28-35 CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH and MARGARET MACDONALD MACKINTOSH, reconstruction (1992-1995) of Ladies' Luncheon Room, Ingram Street Tea Room, Glasgow, Scotland, 1900-1912. Glasgow Museum, Glasgow

The Mackintoshes' Ladies' Luncheon Room in Glasgow features functional and edquisitely designeed Arts and Crafts decor, including stained glass windows and pristinely geometric furnishings

Figure 28-23 PIERRE PUVIS DE CHAVANNES, Sacred Grove, 1884. Oil on canvas, 2' 11 1/2" x 6' 10". The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago (Potter Palmer Collection).

The Symbolists revered Puvis de Chavannes for his rejection of Realism. His statuesque figures in timeless poses inhabit a tranquil landscape, their guestures suggesting a symbolic ritual significance. 819

Figure 28-12 TORII KIYONAGA, detail of Two Women at the Bath, ca. 1780. Color woodblock, full print 10 ½" X 7 ½", detail 3 ¾" X 3 ½". Musee Guimet, Paris.

The Tub reveals the influence of Japanese prints, especially the sharp angels that artists such as Kiyonaga used in representing figures.

Figure 28-11 EDGAR DEGAS, The Tub, 1886. Pastel, 1' 11 ½" X 2' 8 3/8". Musee d'Orsay, Paris.

The Tub reveals the influence of Japanese prints, especially the sharp angels that artists such as Kiyonaga used in representing figures. Degas translates his Japanese model into the Impressionist mode.

Figure 28-10 EDGAR DEGAS, Ballet Rehearsal, 1874. Oil on canvas, 1' 11" x 2' 9". Glasgow Art Galleries and Museum, Glasgow (Burrell Collection).

The arbitrarily cut-off figures of dancers, the patterns of light splotches, and the blurry images revfeal Degas's interest in reproducing fleeting moments, as well as his fascination with photography.

France around 1870

The momentous developments of the early 19th-century in Europe - industrialization, urbanization, and increased economic and political interaction worldwide- matured furing the latter half of the century. The Industrial Revolution born in England spread so rapidly to the Continent and the United States that historians often refer to the third quarter of the 19th century as the "second Industrial Revolution." Whereas the first industrial revolution centered on textiles, steam, and iron, the second forcused on steel, electricity, chemicals, and oil.

Figure 28-26 HENRI ROUSSEAU, Sleeping Gypsy, 1897. Oil on canvas, 4' 3" x 6' 7". Museum of Modern Art, New York (gift of Mrs. Simon Guggenheim).

The painting suggests the vulnerable subconscious during sleep.

Figure 28-6 CAMILLE PISSARRO, La Place du Théâtre Français, 1898. Oil on canvas, 2' 4 1/2" x 3' 1/2". Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (the Mr. and Mrs. George Gard De Sylva Collection).

This Impressionist vies of a busy Paris square seen from several stories above street level has much in common with photographs, especially the flattening spatial effect of the high viewpoint.

New Technology and Materials

Understand new technology, changing needs of urban society, and new materials in architecture.

Objects and Décor of the Arts & Crafts

Understand the interest in aesthetic functional objects and the preference for high-quality artisanship and honest labor.

Figure 28-34 WILLIAM MORRIS, Green Dining Room, South Kensington Museum (now Victoria & Albert Museum), London, England, 1867.

William Morris was a founder of the Arts and Crafts movement. His Green Dining Room exemplifies the group's dedication to creating intricately patterned yet unified and functional environments.

Local color

an objects color in white light - becomes modified by the quality of the light shining on it, by reflections from other objects, and by the effects juxtaposed colors produce. Shadows have colors. 801

One factor that separates work of Monet and Renoir in the late 1870s from painting done in the early 1870s is the

brilliance and luminosity of the tonal level. To achieve this they had put into practice a concept that was known but rejected by Leonardo: the fact that there is color in shadow. Shadows are not just gray, but contain colors of their own. The Impressionists gave visual form to the concept that whatever is seen is seen by virtue of light and that the object's appearance is conditioned by that light. Objects are colored shapes, but one perceives the shapes only because they are colored. In works like the series of images he painted of the façade of Rouen Cathedral, Monet concen¬trated on the surface of reality, on the artist's visual impressions of it. As Cézanne was to say later, "Monet is just an eye, but Lord, what an eye." Even Eduoard Manet contributed to the study of Impressionistic light on water in his Claude Monet in His Studio Boat of 1874. Manet joined Monet at Argenteuil and painted side-by-side with the younger artist and also with Auguste Renoir. In capturing both the leisure activities of the bourgeoisie and the industrialization along the Seine in the 1870s in the same canvas, Manet, like Monet, was fulfilling Baudelaire's definition of the Impressionist as "the painter of modern life."

Scientific studies of light and the invention of

chemically synthesized pigments increased artists' sensitivity to the multiplicity of colors in nature and gave them new colors for their work.

28-16A VINCENT VAN GOGH, The Potato Eaters, 1885. Oil on canvas, 2' 8 1/4" X 3' 8 7/8". Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam.

van Gogh's first painting completed when he was 32 years old.