150 years ago at this time, the first impressionist exhibition, ‘Avid for Independence’, opened in Paris, in which 31 ‘rebel’ and little-known artists decided to break the rules and exhibit their works outside official channels. In the historical … The poster of the exhibition included Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley, but also Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne.
The Orsay Museum in Paris celebrates this anniversary with a magnificent exhibition titled ‘Paris 1874. Inventing Impressionism’, which will close its doors on July 14, to then travel to the United States, to the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
For the first time, the Parisian art gallery brings together 130 works under the same roof: a selection from that first impressionist exhibition of 1874 that confronts paintings and sculptures that were exhibited at the Paris Salon, the great annual exhibition that until then dominated Parisian artistic life. .
But in 1874, this exhibition was not the one that ultimately passed into the future. Although from an economic point of view the Impressionist exhibition was a disaster, since the artists did not achieve many sales and had many costs, over time it has become a legendary exhibition. It was the first of the eight impressionist exhibitions that were organized between 1874 and 1886 and marked the starting point of the avant-garde.
The first impressionist exhibition organized by the ‘Cooperative Joint Stock Company of Artists Painters, Sculptors and Engravers’ took place in Paris at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, in the former workshops of the photographer Nadar. The objective of the group of artists who created this cooperative was to exhibit their works to make themselves known and sell them.
‘The dancer’, by A. Renoir (1874).
d’orsay museum
‘Paris 1874. Inventing Impressionism’ reviews the origins of an artistic movement that emerged in a world in full transformation, after two conflicts: the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and a violent civil war. Impressionist artists were then looking for new forms of expression in the art world. As one observer of the time rightly points out, “what they seem to look for above all else is the impression.”
Without hiding their brushstrokes, this group of rebellious artists capture everyday scenes of modern life and paint sketches of landscapes outdoors at different times of the day. With their brushes they capture a precise moment shaped by variations in light and color. Its radical modernity contrasted with the themes and more classic style of the works exhibited in the official Hall.
“Good luck!” a well-known critic encouraged them then, “something always comes of innovations.” Of the 31 artists in the first Impressionist exhibition, only seven of them enjoy universal fame today.
The work that gave him his name
The Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris, which houses the largest collection of works by Claude Monet (1840-1926), has loaned ‘Print, Rising Sun’ to the Musée d’Orsay for the exhibition.
It was precisely this painting that is at the origin of the term impressionist. The French art critic Louis Leroy, in 1874, mockingly used the word ‘impressionist’ to describe the unfinished-looking paintings and rapid brush strokes of these independent artists. This critic thus coined the term and unintentionally named this artistic movement.
Posterity
Of the 31 artists in the first exhibition, only seven enjoy universal fame today
From the dancers of Edgar Degas (1834-1917) to the intimate scenes of the French painters Berthe Morisot (1841-1895) and Eva Gonzalès (1849-1883), passing through the loggias of the Parisian theaters painted by August Renoir (1841- 1919), the exhibition reflects the great variety of themes that the Impressionists covered in their works.
Among the works on display, Renoir’s ‘Dance at the Moulin de la Galette’ stands out, one of the most emblematic paintings of the Orsay Museum. Renoir masterfully reflected the happy atmosphere of this popular picnic area in the Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre where people dance while watching and having fun.
This Renoir canvas, which was presented at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877, is considered Renoir’s most important work and one of the masterpieces of early Impressionism.
