Paintings That Evoked A Social Turning Point In the 1800’s

by Bailey Dolenc

 The Grande Odalisque by Ingres and Olympia by Manet, are of the same subject, a nude woman. The paintings are modeled after Titian’s Venus of Urbino (1538).
Although the subjects are similar, they depart from the painting Madame Récamier (1800) created by Jacques-Louis David that followed Neoclassicism and social etiquette.

The Grande Odalisque and Olympia were created 49 years apart and express different attitudes.

Ingres’s The Grande Odalisque created in 1814 is a painting which portrays a young prostitute laying nude on a bed with ruffled sheets and wearing only a head wrap and gold bracelets. The feather duster in her right hand adds a sense of softness and compliments her calm countenance. The body proportions are ambiguous; she has too many vertebrae, her legs have different lengths, and her bones and muscles are seemingly rubbery. She looks towards the viewer with a soft gaze and expresses sensuous and alluring body language.

 In 1863, Manet created his female nude Olympia as a harshly painted stiff figure with a callous gaze towards the viewer. As opposed to Ingres’s painting, Manet placed Olympia in a quite unwelcoming pose, with her genitals covered, legs tightly crossed, and an unashamed body language.

 The uses of color in each painting evoke contrasting moods. Olympia’s flesh tone is a stark white that blinds the eye, whereas the Odalisque’s flesh is of a much warmer tone and thus creates a more inviting environment. The backgrounds, sheets, pillows, and jewelry either invite the viewer into the painting with warm colors and soft, silky fabrics such as in The Grande Odalisque, or dismiss the viewer with flat surfaces and harsh bright colors as in Olympia.

Both Manet and Ingres used techniques that outraged scholars and audiences of their time because of their deviation from the norm, breaking away from Neoclassicism and indicating a shift towards exotic Romanticism. Manet’s painting style was realistic and natural in terms of physical form and environment. In the same way, Ingres was diverging from his contemporaries by over-idealizing his female nude instead of using the revered classical forms learned from antiquity.

The paintings were considered as shocking statements towards their society whether it was through idealized beauty, or to educate viewers on the insensitive world of prostitution. They show how artists’ portrayals of prostitutes were drastically changing throughout the nineteenth century.

Sources
National Archives and Records Administration: Public Domain.

by Bailey Dolenc
Ansel Adams is one of the most influential and innovative early photographers of the United States. His black-and-white photographs of the great American West have inspired many. Even more inspirational to many photographers today is Adams’ Zone System, which helps the photographer find the best gradient for a picture and is an essential tool when creating black-and-white prints.

Adams photographed many American West landscapes, including Yosemite National Park, conveniently packed with an endless number of interesting natural subjects. Trees and mountains prove to be Adams’ forte. Because of this, Adams lugged his cumbersome, large-format camera up mountains and through forests in order to capture the grandeur of the scene with the highest resolution and the greatest clarity. Besides the use of his zone system and large-format camera, Adams also utilized the art of burning and dodging to create a more dramatic atmosphere. For example, in Adams’ picture of the Snake River and the Grand Titans in the background, he used the technique of burning to highlight the mountains, sky, and perhaps the river as well. Dodging was probably applied to the forests surrounding the Snake River. In another of his many techniques, Adams used bleach to dramatize the picture even further; however, he used it brilliantly and sparingly. This small application of bleach does wonders for the trees in the foreground and makes an otherwise uninteresting photograph timeless and mysterious.

Sources
National Archives and Records Administration: Public Domain.

by Bailey Dolenc

The names Degas, Monet, and Renoir spring to mind when considering celebrated Impressionist painters of the late nineteenth-century. Ordinarily when most think of Impressionists, male artists are usually the first or only names posed.

Mary Cassatt self portrait-1880

But what about the ladies? Fascinating women artists such as Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Marie Bracquemond, Eva Gonzales, and Suzanne Valadon were praised by Impressionists based on their talents which led to exhibiting their artworks alongside those of male artists. Unlike society, Impressionism was not monopolized by men, but remarkably influenced by women.

Mary Cassatt fits into the present world without seeming out of date. There is an inner conviction about her work which asserts itself over and above any specific limitations of time and place… She is by all odds the best woman painter America has ever produced. -Frederick Sweet, Curator of American Painting and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1954

Neither a Parisian nor a man, the odds that Mary Cassatt would participate in the Impressionist movement were low. Cassatt, born in 1844 into a wealthy family in Pittsburgh, was unlikely to become an expatriate living abroad painting among men. But instead of complying with society by marrying, she followed her passion and enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, one of the first art institutions in America to accept young women. After formal training, Cassatt traveled throughout Italy, Spain, and France, giving her a chance to study the Old Masters while creating her distinct style. Her paintings became a synthesis of traditional techniques and modern narratives, focusing on the mysterious lives of women.

This integration is apparent in a series of paintings that depict women in theater settings. Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge (c. 1879), presents a young woman in a theater balcony donning a feminine, coquettish dress, seemingly to attract attention. First introduced to Europe in the seventeenth century, the folding hand-held fan from East Asia was popular among ladies through the 1950s. Here the young woman holds a fan in her gloved hand, perhaps signaling her modesty and wealth. In the Loge (c. 1880) portrays a lady peering through opera glasses from the balcony, supposedly observing other theater-goers. Her attire speaks volumes; wearing a high collared, long-sleeved black frock, it seems that she is a woman who would rather see than be seen. Cassatt portrays timid young girls in a third theater portrait, La Loge (c. 1882). The girls are a combination of the previous two; they appear demure yet dressed for display. Adorned in elegant gowns, long gloves, and holding a fan and bouquet, the young ladies are there to present themselves, however, the figures press close together, further illustrating their age and social inexperience. Upon spotting a Degas painting in Paris that portrayed ballet dancers, Mary Cassatt stated, “I saw art as I wanted to see it… I began to live.” Cassatt had discovered a passion for painting women, depicting the subtleties of their private and public lives. Degas, with whom she had a forty-year friendship, urged Cassatt to join the Impressionists after viewing her entry in a Paris salon exhibit. Although she was an expatriate woman artist living in Paris, throughout her life she encouraged the interest of art and helped develop art schools in America. As the only American and one of only three women to exhibit with the Impressionists, Mary Cassatt made her mark in the world of Art and Men.

Berthe Morisot self portrait-1872

Equally intriguing and as improbable to become a painter, Berthe Morisot nevertheless showed her paintings in seven of the eight Impressionist exhibits and perhaps inspired a fellow artist to compose a famous series of paintings. Morisot’s beginnings were by no means modest; the French bourgeois family she was born into in 1841 lived on an annual income of eight thousand Francs while a typical worker only earned three Francs a day. Her interest in the arts was supported by her mother Cornelie early on, studying piano with Stamaty, drawing lessons with Guichard, and later painting en plein aire with Corot. Edma, Morisot’s sister, shared her artistic talents and participated in lessons until Cornelie urged her to marry, a notion that was expected of both girls. Academic painter Joseph Guichard realized the Morisot sisters’ capabilities and wrote to their mother, “They will become painters. Are you fully aware of what that means? It will be revolutionary–I would almost say catastrophic–in your bourgeois society.” Thus, Edma was married and Berthe closely was chaperoned throughout her career as a painter.

Considering the Louvre did not exhibit paintings by women in the 1850s, Morisot studied classics by men and made friends with young male artists, learning their techniques. As a young French woman she was denied any formal training; however, at age nineteen Morisot was one of few artists transporting new portable paints and a smaller canvas to the outdoors with Camille Corot. Painting en plein aire with her sister and Corot lead to possibly her most innovative and inspiring series of paintings: haystacks.

The Small Haystack 1882

haystacks a bougival 1883

Haystack, c. 1883

Unbeknownst to many, Morisot seems to be the pioneer of the popular haystack series many associate with Claude Monet. She captured light which illuminated the haystacks at different times in the day only a few years before Monet began to paint them.

Out of all of the influences in Morisot’s life, Edouard Manet was the most enduring. Introduced to the decade older artist in 1868, Morisot soon became a regular model for Manet’s paintings despite her social standing. Posing for eleven different portraits, her chaperone and mother Cornelie became anxious for her daughter’s appropriate role as a wife. Manet eventually proposed that she marry his younger brother Eugene, a trained lawyer with sufficient wealth to support Morisot’s painting career and independence. More importantly, marrying Eugene protected her reputation and the Morisot name. Remaining true to her calling, she continued to paint and encouraged the gathering of Impressionist painters at weekly dinner parties which she hosted.

Berthe Morisot and Her Daughter, Julie Manet, c. 1894

Morisot’s subject matter shifted when her daughter Julie was born. Suddenly, her paintings more often surrounded that of women, children, and the relationship shared between them. However, it appears that her favorite muse was her daughter, for she painted her incessantly. Eugene Manet and His Daughter at Bougival, Julie Manet et son Levrier Laerte, and Julie Reveuse portray her daughter at various ages.

Eugene Manet and His Daughter at Bougival, c. 1881

Julie Manet et son Levrier Laerte, c. 1893

Julie Reveuse, c. 1894

Around 1880 the original group of Impressionist painters began to split and the growing fame of post-Impressionist painters like Cezanne, Gauguin, and Van Gogh ultimately overshadowed that of their predecessors. The accomplishments of both Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot opened the doors for the next generation of women artists. Because of these remarkable female painters, male artists now believe in a woman’s artistic capacities, and in Monet’s case, learn from them.

Sources
Brown, Katie, “Rebel with a Cause,” Louisville Magazine 56.7 (2005): 15.
Fayard, Judy, “Making the Right Impression,” Time Europe 159.20 (2002): 56.
Harmon, Melissa Burdick, “Monet, Renoir, Degas… Morisot:
The Forgotten Genius of Impressionism,” Biography 5.6 (2001): 98.
May, Stephen, “Mary Cassatt, Genteel Powerhouse,” World & I 14.3 (1999): 96.
Parney, Lisa Leigh, “Impressionist and Modern Woman,”
Christian Science Monitor 91.68 (1999): 19.

by Bailey DolencMont Sainte-Victoire seen from Les Lauves, c. 1904-06)

“Painting must give us the flavor of nature’s eternity.” – Paul Cezanne

Springtime conjures in us thoughts of rebirth with the beauty of sprouting grass, blooming flowers, and green trees. Spring reminds us that all on Earth is applied to a set of rules, but is never static. As French painter Paul Cezanne put it, “Nature is always the same, and yet its appearance is ever changing.” Similarly, fundamental painting techniques existed yet Cezanne discovered a way to deviate from his predecessors, forever altering his contemporaries’ perceptions and use of their medium. But before creative genius blooms, it must be planted.

Cezanne’s painting revolution seems to have begun around the year 1873 when long-time friend and colleague Camille Pissarro invited Cezanne to Pontoise. Here, the two artists painted en plein air, often together on the same subject. Cezanne learned Impressionist color theory and painting techniques which taught him that painting is based on visual perception of nature that can be translated by use of painterly means. With the tools acquired from Pissarro and the Impressionists, a springboard for his own creative techniques was built.

His understanding of the inner workings of nature reflects the time he spent living and painting in his native rural Provence. Left with a substantial fortune after his father’s passing in 1886, Cezanne was able to concentrate on his work without the everyday pressure of selling paintings to make a living. Most importantly, working far from the hustle and bustle of Paris enabled him to create a distinctive art form all his own. Deviating from Impressionist principles, Cezanne abandoned the single vanishing point and established depth with overlapping, interlocking layers. This technique ultimately gave density to his objects in a somewhat cubic structure, giving way to a simultaneous feeling of tension and balance.

Cezanne has managed to strip pictorial art of all the mold accrued in the course of time . . . If — as I dare hope it will — a tradition is born of our times it will be born of Cezanne. -Paul Serusier, Mercure de France, 1905

In November of 1895, one hundred and fifty of Cezanne’s paintings were exhibited at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris. After viewing Cezanne’s works, the Nabis, a group of artists who believed that art reflects an artist’s synthesis of nature and who had a major influence on art produced in France at the time, proclaimed themselves Cezanne’s disciples.  Their praise of Cezanne’s work is represented quite literally in Maurice Denis’s Homage a Cezanne (c. 1900). From left to right, Vuillard, Denis, Serusier, Ranson, Roussel and Bonnard discuss a still-life by Cezanne.

The influence of Cezanne’s innovative paintings then seems to have spread like wildfire across the minds of his fellow painters in order to give birth to regenerated art forms. Inspired by Cezanne’s Post-Impressionist paintings, Paul Gauguin began to paint in parallel brushstrokes, condense lines into force fields, outline objects, and give more volume to his figures. Fuller forms in Gauguin’s Tahitian paintings are reminiscent of Cezanne’s Trois Baigneuses (c. 1879-82), which was purchased by Henri Matisse from Vollard in 1899.

In 1936, Matisse donated Trois Baigneuses to the Petit Palais and wrote to the museum director of the painting’s importance throughout his career: “In the thirty-seven years I have owned this canvas, I have come to know it quite well, I hope, though not entirely; it has sustained me morally in the critical moments of my venture as an artist; I have drawn from it my faith and perseverance.”

Many other artists seem to have been similarly moved by Cezanne’s work. After viewing a major Cezanne exhibition in 1907, George Braque and Pablo Picasso were inspired to create paintings of a cubic nature.
Picasso’s Tables and Loaves and Bowl of Fruit (c. 1909) can be perceived as a salute to Cezanne due to the fragmented table edges, voluminous forms, soft tones, and aerial viewpoint. It is believed that Cubism was born of Cezanne’s influence; in the first stage of Cubism, Braque and Picasso embraced Cezanne’s formative method, however, eschewed his color palette. Instead, darker, earthier tones are used in paintings such as The Poet (Picasso, c. 1911) and Violon et Cruche (Braque, c. 1910).

Even the Fauvists were swept away by the wave Cezanne had created; the vivacious coloring once present in their paintings began to diminish. Cezanne’s impression on Fauvist painters can be found in a quote from Fauvist Othon Friesz: “We returned to laws of composition, and of volume — Fauvism was sacrificed . . . there was no other way to get out of the trough of Impressionism.” When comparing Friesz’s La Ciotat (c. 1907) with his later Travail a L’Automn (c. 1908), Cezanne’s influence is apparent; the strange yet lively colors transform into more natural hues, as vibrant pops of color are later outlined with dark tones.
The myriad Cezanne followers grew immeasurably since exhibiting his paintings at Vollard’s Paris gallery in 1895. Cezanne was able to express in his art a personal deviation from his Impressionist beginnings, attracting painters of all disciplines. As his colleagues learned and departed from his techniques, new art forms were born, providing an exciting exploration of the art of painting. Whether it be street art or paint on canvas, Cezanne’s legacy can still be observed in today’s art world.

Paul Cezanne

Pablo Picasso

Georges Braque

Sources
Bocola, Sandro. The Art of Modernism: Art, Culture, and Society from Goya to the Present Day. Translated by Catherine Schelbert and Nicholas Levis. Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1999.

Parsons, Thomas and Iain Gale. Post-Impressionism: The Rise of Modern Art 1880-1920. London: Studio Editions Ltd, 1992.

by Bailey Dolenc

International Exhibition
March 24-April 16, 1913
Chicago, Illinois

With the International Exhibition of Modern Art over one hundred years behind us, now is the perfect time to recollect the controversy and chaos that surrounded the modernist artworks. The rejection of Chicago news reporters and faculty of the Art Institute of Chicago resulted in a general apprehension by American art museums of modern art, restricting most of the country from viewing the exciting progression of art making for at least a decade. Modern artworks, such as Pablo Picasso’s Woman with Mustard Pot (1910) and Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), have greatly influenced artists and graphic designers for over one hundred years; why did these artists receive such strong opposition at the time of the International Exhibition in Chicago? It is important to consider the multiple sides of this exhibition and from which it spawned.

The Association of American Painters and Sculptors came up with the idea to host an exhibition of international artists in an American city. Surprisingly, the bulk of the show was made up of the most eccentric European Modernists. This fact alone could have been the reason for the exhibit beginning its tour in New York. Originally, the Art Institute of Chicago had been asked to host the exhibit, but their proposal was denied. The Institute, clinging to the conventions of academic art, taught their students the importance of preserving “Truth” and “Beauty,” a far cry from the standards of the Modernists.

Soon after the Armory Show opened in New York, trustees and patrons of the Art Institute of Chicago schemed about bringing the artworks to Chicago. Arthur Aldis, a governing member of the Institute, was one of them. Aldis had spent time in Europe and was accustomed to modern European artworks. Due to his high esteem towards modern art, Aldis knew the show must come to Chicago. Without consulting his fellow trustees, and most importantly William M. R. French, the Institute’s director, Aldis closed the deal while living in Paris, persuading French much later.

Hostility grew with reports from Chicago journalists covering the show in New York. Dramatic headlines and false facts caused the exhibit to appear grotesque in the eyes of Chicago citizens whom were anticipating its arrival. Harriet Monroe, the art critic for the Chicago Daily Tribune, came up with headlines like “Art Show Open to Freaks” and “American Exhibition in New York Teems with the Bizarre.” Coverage such as this created an atmosphere of unease prior to the opening at the Institute in Chicago.

On March 24, opening day of the exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago, attendance was in the thousands despite bad reviews of the New York show. Perhaps to attract attention and gain readers, reporters continued to give false information on specific pieces, frequently adding a cynical spin. Undeniably, reporters solidified a negative attitude towards modern art. In addition to the opinions of reporters, the people of Chicago found modern artworks difficult to grasp and questioned their morality.

Grade school teachers and Institute professors actively dissuaded their students from viewing the exhibit based on beliefs of morality; a high school teacher went as far as to petition the Board of Education to ban school children from visiting. By closing day, April 16, some students had adopted the contemptuous attitude that had been fed to them in newspapers and class rooms during the span of the show. Two hundred Art Institute students were so offended by the artworks that on closing day were screaming curses while others even acted out in violence.

Today when we view artworks from the International Exhibition of Modern Art we can understand how the foundations of morality and realism in American art were disrupted, and in which ways artists have since deviated from traditional art making. Works by Cezanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Duchamp, Picasso, Manet and many others have given way to new art forms and styles, forever altering the way Americans think and see art.

Henri Matisse

Van Gogh

Paul Gauguin

Sources
Martinez, Andrew. “A Mixed Reception for Modernism: The 1913 Armory Show at the Art Institute of Chicago.” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1, One Hundred Years at the Art Institute: A Centennial Celebration (1993), pp. 30-57+102-105.

A True Short Story

The ever-mystifying painting entitled Night Watch was completed in 1642 by the prolific Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It was commisioned by the Amsterdam militia to be hung along with seven other group portraits in Kloveniersdoelen, the headquarters of various musketeer companies. Its open composition is a united conglomeration of seventeenth-century watchmen whom are standing in no particular order, suggesting a realistic and believable scene. The figures themselves, thirty-four of them, are life-size. Rembrandt earned 1600 guilders to paint the prominent life-size men, and was offered even more contribution from certain men depending on their prominence in the composition.

Fooled by layers of varnish that had covered and disguised the painting over time, nineteenth-century art historians gave Rembrandt’s painting the title Night Watch. The painting’s original seventeenth-century title, The Militia Company of Captain Frans Banning Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, identifies the two men in the foreground. A contemporary inscription states that Cocq is ordering lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch, in white, to lead the company out; it is believed by many historians that the watchmen are preparing for an excursion, perhaps for the visit to the city of the French Queen Mother Marie de Medicis in 1638.

Through centuries of wear-and-tear, including moves to different locales, the painting lost certain areas of the original composition. In 1715, a large section of about 60cm/2ft sq was cut off from the left side when it was moved to Amsterdam’s Town Hall. Almost a century later in 1808, the painting was moved to its current location in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The right hand side and bottom of the painting have been cut out as well; fortunately, painter Gerrit Lundens created a smaller copy of the complete original, now hanging in the London National Gallery. This recreation reveals the beginnings of a bridge which would have been in the foreground.

After several cleanings, Night Watch has been restored to Day Watch. The original composition is known and Rembrandt’s vision is more clearly identified. The purpose of the figures is revealed, entirely altering the initial nineteenth-century perception of Rembrandt’s Night Watch.

By Bailey Dolenc