Editing Impressionism (section)

== Beginnings ==
{{French art history}}
In the middle of the 19th century—a time of rapid industrialization and unsettling social change in France, as Emperor [[Napoleon III]] [[Haussmann's renovation of Paris|rebuilt Paris]] and waged war—the {{Lang|fr|[[Académie des Beaux-Arts]]|italic=no}} dominated French art.{{sfnp|Huyghe|1973|pp=13, 16–18}} The Académie was the preserver of traditional French painting standards of content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued; landscape and still life were not. The Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked realistic when examined closely. Paintings in this style were made up of precise brush strokes carefully blended to hide the artist's hand in the work.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Nathalia |last1=Brodskaya |title=Impressionism |publisher=Parkstone International |year=2014 |pages=13–14}}</ref> Colour was restrained and often toned down further by the application of a thick golden [[varnish]].<ref name="The Met">{{Cite web |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm |last1=Samu |first1=Margaret |title=Impressionism: Art and Modernity |website=Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History |location=New York |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=October 2004 |access-date=29 June 2014 |archive-date=4 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200204131331/https://www.metmuseum.org/TOAH/HD/imml/hd_imml.htm |url-status=live |quote=Many of the independent artists chose not to apply the thick golden varnish that painters customarily used to tone down their works.}}</ref>

The Académie had an annual, juried art show, the [[Salon de Paris]], and artists whose work was displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries represented the values of the Académie, represented by the works of such artists as [[Jean-Léon Gérôme]] and [[Alexandre Cabanel]]. Using an eclectic mix of techniques and formulas established in Western painting since the [[Renaissance]]—such as [[linear perspective]] and figure types derived from [[Ancient Greek art#Classical|Classical Greek art]]—these artists produced escapist visions of a reassuringly ordered world.{{sfnp|Huyghe|1973|pp=11, 16–17}} By the 1850s, some artists, notably the [[Realism (art movement)|Realist]] painter [[Gustave Courbet]], had gained public attention and critical censure by depicting contemporary realities without the idealization demanded by the Académie.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Masanès |first1=Fabrice |year=2006 |title=Courbet |publisher=Taschen |pages=31–33 |isbn=978-3-8228-5683-3 }}.</ref>

In the early 1860s, four young painters—[[Claude Monet]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], [[Alfred Sisley]], and [[Frédéric Bazille]]—met while studying under the academic artist [[Marc-Charles-Gabriel Gleyre|Charles Gleyre]]. They discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes. Following a practice—pioneered by artists such as the Englishman [[John Constable]]—<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=Impressionism |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/impressionism |access-date=2022-09-30 |website=Tate |language=en-GB |archive-date=30 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220930190904/https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/i/impressionism |url-status=live }}</ref> that had become increasingly popular by mid-century, they often ventured into the countryside together to paint in the open air.<ref>{{cite book |last1=White |first1=Harrison C. |first2=Cynthia A. |last2=White |year=1993 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2D_ehhO_14QC&pg=PA116 |title=Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221112131900/https://books.google.com/books?id=2D_ehhO_14QC&pg=PA116 |archive-date=12 November 2022 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |page=116 |isbn=0-226-89487-8 }}.</ref> Their purpose was not to make sketches to be developed into carefully finished works in the studio, as was the usual custom, but to complete their paintings out-of-doors.{{sfnp|Bomford|Kirby|Leighton|Roy|1990|pp=21–27}}

By painting in sunlight directly from nature, and making bold use of the vivid synthetic pigments that had become available since the beginning of the century, they began to develop a lighter and brighter manner of painting that extended further the [[Realism (art movement)|Realism]] of Courbet and the [[Barbizon school]]. A favourite meeting place for the artists was the [[Café Guerbois]] on Avenue de Clichy in Paris, where the discussions were often led by [[Édouard Manet]], whom the younger artists greatly admired. They were soon joined by [[Camille Pissarro]], [[Paul Cézanne]], and [[Armand Guillaumin]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Greenspan |first1=Taube G |chapter=Armand Guillaumin |title=Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online |publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref>

[[File:Edouard Manet - Luncheon on the Grass - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|left|[[Édouard Manet]], ''[[Le déjeuner sur l'herbe|The Luncheon on the Grass]]'' ({{Lang|fr|Le déjeuner sur l'herbe}}), 1863]]

During the 1860s, the Salon jury routinely rejected about half of the works submitted by Monet and his friends in favour of works by artists faithful to the approved style.<ref name="Seiberling">{{cite book |last1=Seiberling |first1=Grace |chapter=Impressionism |title=Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online |publisher=Oxford University Press }}</ref> In 1863, the Salon jury rejected Manet's ''The Luncheon on the Grass'' ({{Lang|fr|[[Le déjeuner sur l'herbe]]}}) primarily because it depicted a nude woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While the Salon jury routinely accepted nudes in historical and allegorical paintings, they condemned Manet for placing a realistic nude in a contemporary setting.{{sfnp|Denvir|1990|p=133}} The jury's severely worded rejection of Manet's painting appalled his admirers, and the unusually large number of rejected works that year perturbed many French artists.

After Emperor Napoleon III saw the rejected works of 1863, he decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves, and the [[Salon des Refusés]] (Salon of the Refused) was organized. While many viewers came only to laugh, the Salon des Refusés drew attention to the existence of a new tendency in art and attracted more visitors than the regular Salon.{{sfnp|Denvir|1990|p=194}}

[[File:Alfred Sisley 001.jpg|thumb|left|[[Alfred Sisley]], ''[[View of the Canal Saint-Martin]]'', 1870, [[Musée d'Orsay]]]]

Artists' petitions requesting a new Salon des Refusés in 1867, and again in 1872, were denied. In December 1873, [[Claude Monet|Monet]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir|Renoir]], [[Camille Pissarro|Pissarro]], [[Alfred Sisley|Sisley]], [[Paul Cézanne|Cézanne]], [[Berthe Morisot]], [[Edgar Degas]] and several other artists founded the {{lang|fr|[[Batignolles group#Society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors and Etchers|Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc.]]}}{{efn|name="societe-anonyme"|English: "Anonymous Society of painters, sculptors, engravers, etc."}} to exhibit their artworks independently.{{sfnp|Bomford|Kirby|Leighton|Roy|1990|p=209}}{{sfnp|Moffett|1986|page=18}} Members of the association were expected to forswear participation in the Salon.{{sfnp|Jensen|1994|p=90}} The organizers invited a number of other progressive artists to join them in their inaugural exhibition, including the older [[Eugène Boudin]], whose example had first persuaded Monet to adopt ''plein air'' painting years before.{{sfnp|Denvir|1990|p=32}} Another painter who greatly influenced Monet and his friends, [[Johan Jongkind]], declined to participate, as did Édouard Manet. In total, thirty artists participated in their first exhibition, held in April 1874 at the studio of the photographer [[Nadar (photographer)|Nadar]].

[[File:Claude Monet - Graystaks I.JPG|thumb|right|[[Claude Monet]], ''[[Haystacks (Monet)|Haystacks, (sunset)]]'', 1890–1891, [[Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]]]]

The critical response was mixed. Monet and Cézanne received the harshest attacks. Critic and humorist [[Louis Leroy]] wrote a scathing review in the newspaper ''Le Charivari'' in which, making wordplay with the title of Claude Monet's ''[[Impression, Sunrise]]'' ''(Impression, soleil levant)'', he gave the artists the name by which they became known. Derisively titling his article "[[s:Exhibition of the Impressionists|The Exhibition of the Impressionists]]", Leroy declared that Monet's painting was at most, a sketch, and could hardly be termed a finished work.

He wrote, in the form of a dialogue between viewers,

{{Blockquote
|text="Impression—I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it ... and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape."{{sfnp|Rewald|1973|p=323}}
}}

[[File:Claude Monet - Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Claude Monet]], ''[[Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son]]'' (Camille and Jean Monet), 1875, [[National Gallery of Art]], Washington, D.C.]]

The term ''Impressionist'' quickly gained favour with the public. It was also accepted by the artists themselves, even though they were a diverse group in style and temperament, unified primarily by their spirit of independence and rebellion. They exhibited together—albeit with shifting membership—eight times between 1874 and 1886. The Impressionists' style, with its loose, spontaneous brushstrokes, would soon become synonymous with modern life.<ref name="The Met" />

Monet, Sisley, Morisot, and Pissarro may be considered the "purest" Impressionists, in their consistent pursuit of an art of spontaneity, sunlight, and colour. Degas rejected much of this, as he believed in the primacy of drawing over colour and belittled the practice of painting outdoors.{{sfnp|Gordon|Forge|1988|pp=11–12}} Renoir turned away from Impressionism for a time during the 1880s, and never entirely regained his commitment to its ideas. Édouard Manet, although regarded by the Impressionists as their leader,{{sfnp|Distel|Hoog|Moffett|1974|p=127}} never abandoned his liberal use of black as a colour (while Impressionists avoided its use and preferred to obtain darker colours by mixing), and never participated in the Impressionist exhibitions. He continued to submit his works to the Salon, where his painting ''Spanish Singer'' had won a 2nd class medal in 1861, and he urged the others to do likewise, arguing that "the Salon is the real field of battle" where a reputation could be made.{{sfnp|Richardson|1976|p=3}}

[[File:Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Montmartre - Eremitage.jpg|thumb|left|[[Camille Pissarro]], ''Boulevard Montmartre'', 1897, the [[Hermitage Museum|Hermitage]], [[Saint Petersburg]]]]

Among the artists of the core group (minus Bazille, who had died in the [[Franco-Prussian War]] in 1870), defections occurred as Cézanne, followed later by Renoir, Sisley, and Monet, abstained from the group exhibitions so they could submit their works to the Salon. Disagreements arose from issues such as Guillaumin's membership in the group, championed by Pissarro and Cézanne against opposition from Monet and Degas, who thought him unworthy.{{sfn|Denvir|1990|p=105}} Degas invited [[Mary Cassatt]] to display her work in the 1879 exhibition, but also insisted on the inclusion of [[Jean-François Raffaëlli]], [[Ludovic-Napoléon Lepic|Ludovic Lepic]], and other realists who did not represent Impressionist practices, causing Monet in 1880 to accuse the Impressionists of "opening doors to first-come daubers".{{sfnp|Rewald|1973|p=603}}

In this regard, the seventh Paris Impressionist exhibition in 1882 was the most selective of all including the works of only nine "true" impressionists, namely [[Gustave Caillebotte]], [[Paul Gauguin]], [[Armand Guillaumin]], [[Claude Monet]], [[Berthe Morisot]], [[Camille Pissarro]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], [[Alfred Sisley]], and [[Victor Vignon]]. The group then divided again over the invitations to [[Paul Signac]] and [[Georges Seurat]] to exhibit with them at the 8th Impressionist exhibition in 1886. Pissarro was the only artist to show at all eight Paris Impressionist exhibitions.

The individual artists achieved few financial rewards from the Impressionist exhibitions, but their art gradually won a degree of public acceptance and support. Their dealer, [[Paul Durand-Ruel|Durand-Ruel]], played a major role in this as he kept their work before the public and arranged shows for them in London and New York. Although Sisley died in poverty in 1899, Renoir had a great Salon success in 1879.{{sfnp|Distel|Hoog|Moffett|1974|p=190}} Monet became secure financially during the early 1880s and so did Pissarro by the early 1890s. By this time the methods of Impressionist painting, in a diluted form, had become commonplace in Salon art.{{sfnp|Rewald|1973|p=475–476}}