There are dates that changed the history of art. He April 15, 1874 was one of them. At number 35 Boulevard des Capucines, in the then nascent neighborhood of the Opera Garnier – it had not yet been inaugurated – in Paris, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas or Berthe Morisot They showed their art for the first time in a joint exhibition. They had not yet been baptized as impressionists, but all of them shared his free and independent spirit. They wanted to emancipate themselves from the shadow of the canonical Hall. Although that exhibition in photographer Nadar’s workshop was a business failuremarked the birth of one of the best-known currents of artistic modernity.
The Parisian Museum d’Orsay—one of the most prestigious museums of nineteenth-century art in the world—commemorates this 150th anniversary of impressionism. On the one hand, he has given some of his best paintings to other artistic centers (in Tourcoing, the island of Réunion or the Villa Medicis in Rome). On the other hand, he dedicates the exhibition “Paris 1874. Inventer l’impressionnisme”, inaugurated this week, to this first exhibition that he represented a turning point in art history. It can also be viewed with a virtual reality headset on an immersive walk through the halls of the D’Orsay.
The premise of this exhibition is not original. But it is effective when it comes to proposing another look at impressionism. What distinguished the impressionists? Was his art groundbreaking with respect to what was accepted by critics at the Salon—the great artistic event at that time in the French capital—? How were you organized to promote that first independent exhibition?
“The central role of the artist”
“The most significant thing in that initiative in 1874 was the affirmation of independence and the central role of the artist regarding art institutions,” explains Sylvie Patry, one of the curators, to EL PERIÓDICO. According to this art historian, this initiative of the Monets, Cézanne or Sisley cannot be understood without the historical context: the nascent Third Republic proclaimed after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian conflict. “The Impressionists met during the 1860s and from then on they considered the possibility of organizing their own exhibition, but That idea did not come to fruition until after the war.”, says Patry, who remembers the importance that the commune —a failed, and harshly repressed, revolution in 1871— in the lives of those artists.
In the middle of a Paris where the ruins caused by the war coexisted with the works of Haussmannian expansion—a historical context remembered by the curators—the impressionists proposed a happy, instant, subversive art and mirror of modern life. This is confirmed in ‘The Repetition’ by Degas, the original portrait of a ballet rehearsal that he proposed for the exhibition. But also with ‘A Modern Olympia’ by Cézanne, the provocative parody that the artist made of Manet’s Olympia and it was one of the paintings that made the critics of the time more upset.
As it could not be otherwise, in the artistic baptism of the impressionists landscapes abounded. Monet exhibited ‘The Tuileries‘, Pissarro showed ‘The Chestnut Trees at Orny’ or Berthe Morisot – one of the few women present at that exhibition – presented ‘The Reading’. With the personal nuances of each one of them, they all stood out for their free and fast brush strokes. to show a more dynamic and less bucolic nature than realist landscapers.
Porosity with conventional art
Curiously, however, what characterized them was not the style. Several of the 31 painters or sculptors did not use an impressionist technique, but rather a much more conventional one. If they wanted to exhibit at number 35 Capucines Boulevard, they only had to meet one requirement: pay a fee of 60 francs which allowed them to exhibit two works. In reality, that 1874 exhibition was a business project created by artists and for artists. As if it were some kind of cooperative.
This allowed them to show works whose exhibition in a conventional room seemed sacrilege at the end of the 19th century. For example, the fascinating essays of atmospheric landscapes of Eugène Boudin, one of Monet’s teachers. “They were aware of the novelty they brought, but even then there was a porosity between the impressionists and the art applauded by critics,” says Patry.
One of the interesting aspects of the D’Orsay exhibition is the comparison between the early works of the Impressionists and those on display. at the Salon of 1874. Unlike the cliché of a criticism disconnected from the avant-garde and that prioritized historical and religious paintings, art mainstream From then on he was already interested in modern themes and painters. It was the case of Edouard Manet. Despite being one of the precursors of pictorial modernity, the author of ‘Lunch on the Grass’ looked with certain disdain to the impressionists. And he preferred to exhibit ‘The Railway’ at the Salon, a painting that could perfectly have been in the alternative exhibition due to its style.
Although modern painters such as Manet were already enjoying some commercial success in 1874, the first exhibition of the Impressionists was a failure. Of the 200 works on display, only three managed to sell. His exhibition welcomed some 3,500 visitors, while 300,000 went to the Salon, held a few weeks later. And critics treated her harshly.
In fact, the name “impressionism” arose from a mockery of the journalist Louis Leroy In the diary Le Chavari. She said it to satirically describe Monet’s ‘Impression, Rising Sun’. This magnificent portrait of the port of Le Havre, along with the other 130 works, can be seen at the D’Orsay until July 14. They will then cross the Atlantic and be exhibited in Washington. 150 years later, no one laughs at the Impressionists.
