Impressionism at the National Gallery of Ireland

Transcription

National Gallery of Ireland / Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann
Impressionism
at the National
Gallery of Ireland
a
Impressionism
at the National
Gallery of Ireland
National Gallery of Ireland / Gailearaí Náisiúnta na hÉireann
Impressionism
at the National
Gallery of Ireland
marie bourke
Contents
8Foreword, Sean Rainbird, Director, The National Gallery of Ireland
9Preface, Gilles de Decker de Brandeken, Country Head, BNP Paribas Group in Ireland
10Introduction
General Introduction to the Resource for Teachers and Students
15
The Story of Impressionism
15
The Birth of Impressionism
15
Impressionist Exhibitions 1874–1886
16Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
16
The Training of Artists and The Salon
17
Why Did the Impressionists Form a Group?
17
What Art Influenced the Impressionists, Neo-Impressionists and Post-Impressionists?
18Other Developments (Technology, Photography, Japanese Art)
18
20
Key Dates in the Development of Impressionism
The Wider Impact of Impressionism
23
The 15 Works Listed by Discussion Points, Painting, Artist, Cross-Curriculum
Links and Suggested Projects:
24
26Eugène-Louis Boudin (1824–1898), The Meuse at Dordrecht, 1882
28
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Banks of a Canal, near Naples, 1872
30
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Chrysanthemums in a Chinese Vase, 1873
32Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), Young Woman in White Reading, 1873
34
36Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883), Children Playing on Sand Dunes, Grandcamp, 1877–1878
38
40Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917), Two Ballet Dancers in a Dressing Room, c.1880
42Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917), Two Harlequins, c.1885
44
46Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), Boy Eating Cherries, 1895
48Paul Victor Jules Signac (1863–1935), Lady on the Terrace, 1898
50
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875), Willows, c.1860
Claude-Oscar Monet (1840–1926), Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, 1874
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), Le Corsage Noir, 1878
Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), The Banks of the Canal du Loing at Saint-Mammès, 1888
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890), Rooftops in Paris, 1886
52Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), La Montagne Sainte-Victoire from Les Lauves,
near Aix-en-Provence, 1902–1904
54
Art Terms and Visual Literacy Projects
55
Reference Books
56Acknowledgements
Foreword
Preface
Sean Rainbird, Director, The National Gallery of Ireland
Gilles de Decker de Brandeken, Country Head,
BNP Paribas Group in Ireland
Each painting in this publication tells its own story and if
you look closely and respond to the works, read the discussions surrounding the artist, and the various points of
view, the curricular links and the many suggested projects,
then the paintings will become part of your experience of
the work of art.
The National Gallery of Ireland is fortunate in having a
small but fine collection of Impressionist paintings. This
collection contains works by core members of the group,
including Camille Pissarro’s Chrysanthemums in a Chinese
Vase, 1873; Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Young Woman in White
Reading, 1873; Claude-Oscar Monet’s Argenteuil Basin with
a Single Sailboat, 1874; Eva Gonzalès’s Children Playing on
Sand Dunes, Grandcamp, 1877–1878; Berthe Morisot’s Le
Corsage Noir, 1878; Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas’s Two
Ballet Dancers in a Dressing Room, c.1880 and Two Harlequins c.1885; and Alfred Sisley’s The Banks of the Canal du
Loing at Saint-Mammès, 1888. As you gaze at these works,
allow yourself to ask some questions. Why did the artist
paint the subject? What was his/her source of inspiration?
When and where were the works created? What did the
critics think of the Impressionist style at that time? Did the
artists gain any measure of success or recognition during
their lifetime? These are some of the questions that cross
our minds each time we look at Impressionist works of art.
This publication tells some of the many fascinating stories
that lie hidden behind the paintings. It presents fifteen
works from the Gallery’s collection, all of which cross and
intersect at some point or in some fashion.
8
This project came about when BNP Paribas Foundation
and BNP Paribas Ireland approached the National Gallery
of Ireland to find an appropriate way to mark the
French bank’s 40th anniversary in Ireland. The Gallery
responded with an Impressionist Resource, devised and
written by Marie Bourke, Keeper and Head of Education,
based on the Impressionist, Neo-Impressionist and PostImpressionist works in the National Gallery of Ireland’s
collection aimed at teachers, students and everyone interested in Impressionism. Our thanks go to the BNP Paribas
Foundation and BNP Paribas Ireland for inviting the Gallery to mark its 40th anniversary in Ireland.
It is our hope that this publication and associated online
website links will serve to encourage our visitors to look
at, respond to and enjoy the experience of Impressionist
paintings at the National Gallery of Ireland.
To celebrate the 40th year of BNP Paribas in Ireland,
The BNP Paribas Foundation and BNP Paribas Group
in Ireland are pleased to support the National Gallery of
Ireland Impressionist Resource.
The National Gallery of Ireland, supported by the French
bank, BNP Paribas, has created an Impressionist Resource
for teachers, students and the public. This fruitful partnership is the outcome of an approach to the Gallery by
BNP Paribas to mark its 40th anniversary in Ireland. The
National Gallery of Ireland responded by devising an
educational resource for teachers and students based on
Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Due to the French connection with BNP Paribas, it
is appropriate that the Resource places the spotlight firmly
on key French artists such as Corot, Boudin, Caillebotte,
Pissarro, Renoir, Monet, Gonzalès, Morisot, Degas, Sisley,
Bonnard, Signac and Cézanne.
In supporting the publication of this Impressionist
Resource, BNP Paribas reaffirms its commitment to the
Irish economy and education. It is our pleasure to support
learning and creativity in young people in preparing for
their adult life.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all
our clients in Ireland who are at the heart of our business and enable BNP Paribas to invest in such worthwhile
initiatives.
9
Impressionism at the
National Gallery of Ireland
Introduction
For most people the appeal of Impressionism is direct, with
many of the pictures reflecting a happy lifestyle of sunlit
days, boating on the river, walks in the meadow, excursions on steam trains and visits to the ballet, successfully
conveying a sense of enjoyment of life. For contemporary
nineteenth-century audiences the paintings represented a
challenge in the way they presented images of modern life
in a new way. These and many more points are explored in
this Resource, which has been designed to make Impressionism accessible to everyone, particularly teachers and
students. Information is provided on the Impressionist,
Neo-Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works in the
National Gallery of Ireland’s collection by artists including Claude-Oscar Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille
Pissarro, Eva Gonzalès, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Germain
Hilaire Degas and Alfred Sisley. Bit by bit, the story behind
this series of movements – Impressionism, Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism – that helped to shape
the direction of modern art, is explained.
This Resource contains the following information:
• Background information on Impressionism,
Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism –
Basic information about the period, who the artists
were influenced by and who they inspired.
• Key dates in the development of Impressionism –
A simple chronology.
• The image and the artist’s life – Information on each
picture and the artist.
• Discussion points – Questions to help form ideas and
opinions about art.
• Cross-curricular links – Ideas for extending the
looking, responding and discussion experience
beyond the images into areas of the curriculum.
• Suggested projects – Ways of supporting and
encouraging creativity.
• Art terms and visual literacy projects – Words and
associated projects.
• Useful references – Books to encourage further
research.
Use www.nationalgallery.ie/learning, to interact with
Impressionism
10
General Introduction to the Resource for
Teachers and Students
These guidelines should help you to use the Impressionist Resource. Since publication of The Arts in Education
Charter (2012), by the Departments of Arts, Heritage and
the Gaeltacht and Education and Skills, it is hoped that
every class will visit the National Gallery of Ireland on a
pre-booked guided tour of the collection once during the
school year.
The Primary School Visual Arts Curriculum draws relationships between making, looking at and responding to
art, suggesting six strands by which children can interpret
the world: drawing, paint and colour, print, clay, construction, fabric and fibre. Teachers have the opportunity to
make cross-curricular links and to adapt the paintings in
the Resource in a variety of ways, e.g. discussion points
can be developed to encourage further interaction, and the
projects can be modified for a particular age group.
Primary School: While teachers are aware that the Primary
School Visual Arts curriculum encourages the use of appropriate visual vocabulary, this is best achieved by looking
and reacting to works of art. The activities in this Resource
tie in with the Primary School strand unit ‘Looking and
Responding’; looking at works of art encourages students
of all levels of ability because they don’t need to be able
to read words to understand paintings, just as responding
to images provides an opportunity to develop language
skills. Ask your students to describe what they see and help
them with suitable vocabulary (see ‘art terms’), encourage
them to name colours (blue, red, yellow), describe them
(dark, pale, bright), identify where objects are situated in
the picture (the boy at the front on the left), gradually introducing concepts such as perspective, light and shadow.
The Resource should help students to make connections
between their imagination and the world, enabling them
to express ideas and feelings in drawing, painting, constructing and inventing, helping them to assimilate and
respond to experience and to make sense of it. Use the
images to talk about the scale, technique and paint texture
of works of art. Explain that an original painting is unique
and precious. Visit the National Gallery of Ireland on a
pre-booked Discovery Tour.
11
The Teacher’s Guidelines provides advice on to how to use
pictures and paintings in the teaching of History:
Integrate Geography and Visual Arts by drawing on mapping skills using these points:
• Note the year of the creation of one of the paintings.
Plot the date on a timeline.
• Find the country and/or region in the painting on a
map.
• Discuss key events in national, European or
international history around the date of the painting.
Make links between these events and the theme of
the painting.
• Discuss the relative locations of two places and the
distances between them, e.g. Ireland / Italy; Ireland /
France; Ireland / The Netherlands.
• Note the type and nature of the work/activity
depicted in the painting.
• Discuss the clothing and if and why it has changed
over time?
• What are the main modes of transport in one of the
pictures?
• Make deductions regarding people and their lifestyles
and the society in which they lived. Ask questions –
why, what if, and how do we know?
• Make a close-up drawing of one or two elements in
the picture.
• Discuss the buildings, their features and how they
might have changed?
• Paint/draw a scene from Irish history during the
nineteenth century around the time of one painting.
• Write a letter to a figure in the painting from the
perspective of a character in nineteenth century
Ireland, telling them about your life. Interview a
figure in the painting, asking them to tell you about
life in their country at that time.
12
• Use political maps to name the regional and national
centres in the country.
• Use physical maps to note, locate and name the main
geographical features.
• Discuss bordering countries and the influences they
have on a country.
The integration between Music, Drama and Visual Arts is
very desirable.
• In Drama, consider activities that involve basing a
role-play or improvisation on a scene, or between two
characters in a painting.
• Ask the students to explore a scene in a painting, and
use it as a pre-text. Encourage them to dramatise the
imagined previous or next scene. Drama techniques
such as still-life, thought-tracking and freeze-framing
could be drawn into this work.
• In Music, consider composing activities that could be
based on, for example, the painting by Gonzalès or
pastels by Degas. Students can use a range of sound
sources to invent and perform pieces inspired by
these works.
Junior and Senior Cycle: Junior and Senior Cycle
level students can use the images in this Resource in support studies for the painting section, drawing on the information selectively to explain or expand on particular
aspects of their work. When studying Art it is essential that
Junior and Senior Cycle students visit the National Gallery
of Ireland on a pre-booked Structured Tour. Bring drawing
materials to sketch from the paintings. On arrival at the
Gallery ask the guide to encourage discussion and interaction with the images so that the students understand that
paintings involve a world of people and places, history, real
and imagined events, nature and still-life. Draw comparisons with other works of art, including those from earlier
and more modern periods, which might involve telling the
story of an artist’s life or form part of their research. Sketch
from the paintings and use the drawings to form part of
support studies or projects, cartoons and storyboards.
The Junior Certificate: The Framework for Junior Cycle, launched by Minister Ruairí Quinn in 2012, includes
‘creativity and innovation’ amongst its eight principles, together with eight key skills. To complement the principles
and skills, the learning that students experience in Junior
Cycle is described through 24 statements of learning,
which include the need for students to ‘create, appreciate
and critically interpret a wide range of texts’ and ‘to create
and present artistic work and appreciate the process and
skills involved’. The new curriculum specifications for Art,
Craft and Design should be introduced in Autumn 2016.
Short Courses: These relate to creating, appreciating and
interpreting a range of texts, and to making and presenting
artistic work, while understanding the processes involved.
While the Junior Certificate European Art History course
omits much of the nineteenth century and starts the twentieth century at 1919, the new Framework may offer the
possibility of school-developed art history short courses for
which this Resource is tailor-made. Impressionism might
form a course compared with other aspects of nineteenthcentury art, including themes illustrating transport, lifestyles, fashion in art, drawing cross-curricular links with
music, literature, design, film, photography and the social
and cultural history of the period.
Learning Aim and Outcomes: The Resource will help students to become familiar with the Gallery’s Impressionist
works and place them in a wider art historical context by
describing the social context and comparing and contrasting them according to their subject matter and formal
qualities. The discussion points and projects address some
of the learning outcomes:
• Explain the term Impressionism and identify an
impressionistic painting.
• Describe some of the painting techniques used by the
Impressionists.
• Name a number of artists involved in Impressionism
and its development.
• Discuss the influences on Impressionism.
• Name and describe a number of paintings by the
Impressionists.
• Describe the social context from which
Impressionism emerged.
• Define key terms: Impressionism, NeoImpressionism, Post-Impressionism, divisionism,
pointillism, and plein air (often referred to as openair painting).
• Discuss the wider impact of Impressionism on art.
• Use a variety of art elements in the creation of an art
work that is inspired by an Impressionist painting.
• Compose a landscape using the art elements: texture,
tone, shape, form, scale, and colour.
• Demonstrate an understanding of perspective (onepoint perspective, overlapping, scale, and colour).
13
The Story of Impressionism
Transition Year: Students enjoy looking at images and
have their own likes and dislikes, so encourage them to
articulate their views about a picture. A student’s critical
sense can be developed by asking them to discuss what
they see in an image, avoiding details about the artist’s
life as they have little to do with looking. Introduce them
when they are exploring why the painting was made, the
source of inspiration and how the artist achieved certain
effects.
This Resource could form a module on Impressionism for
students who may not have studied art. Themes that can be
explored include: the role of women in art, the portrayal of
nature and the built environment, the changing nature of
painting, the move from people to nature, from the studio
to painting out of doors, from Realism to Impressionism
and beyond. Discussion points and selected projects can
be tailored to their level. The Gallery’s collection can be
used to trace the changing nature of France by drawing
on rural scenes by Corot and urban scenes by Caillebotte,
Sisley and Van Gogh and by linking them to French or
Geography. Transition Year is an ideal opportunity to bring
students on a tour of the National Gallery of Ireland to
explore some of the works in the Resource and take part
in a workshop.
Leaving Certificate: Impressionism and its links to
Irish art is central to the Leaving Certificate Art History
syllabus. The techniques involved, the everyday subject
matter, the movement away from painting in an academic
style to painting directly from nature in the open air, are
important to art and relevant to Senior Cycle art education.
The Resource’s introduction to Impressionism is structured
so that the chronology can be combined with details of
the work of art, the artist’s life and the wider development
of Impressionism. Students can draw upon exhibition
notes and other Leaving Certificate Art information on
the Gallery website; however, it cannot be stressed enough
that a visit to the National Gallery of Ireland is critical in
enabling students to see original works of art, many of
which are also accessible under ‘collections’ on the Gallery
website at www.nationalgallery.ie.
14
The Birth of Impressionism
Impressionism was a relatively short-lived movement originating in France in the 1860s and 1870s and lasting a little
over three decades. The artists, who are justly celebrated
today, found contemporary audiences perplexed and confused by their challenging images of modern life. Between
1874 and 1886, the dates of the first and last Impressionist
exhibitions in Paris, Impressionism changed considerably.
The pictures achieved a high degree of naturalism, focusing on scenes of everyday life using subjects that were
frequently based on contemporary urban life, notably
of Paris, its environment and the River Seine. The artists
usually painted outdoors rather than in the studio, facilitated by the new folding-box easel and oil paint in tubes,
although many were completed later in the studio. They
applied paint both thinly (often sketch-like) and thickly,
using a variety of brushes and brushstrokes. Dark shades
were made by mixing one colour with its complementary
colour rather than by adding black. They demonstrated
that shadows outdoors were composed of colours from the
sky reflecting on the surface. Paint was applied rapidly (instead of waiting for it to dry), superimposing wet paint on
top of wet paint to create softer edges and a better mixing
of colours. Some of the effects of Impressionism can be
described as * capturing the fleeting moment * the transient
effect of light on an object * the way in which colours reflect
from object to object * creating a sense of freshness through
painting directly from nature. The artists wanted to * capture
the changing effects of light and atmosphere * depict ordinary
subjects directly from nature * capture the essence and not
the detail of a subject * liberate painting from the restrictions
dominating the art world and paint with a new freshness,
immediacy and truthfulness.
Impressionist Exhibitions 1874–1886
The group held their first show on 15 April 1874, at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris in the studio of Nadar, the
photographer. On viewing the exhibition, many visitors
were puzzled by the absence of drawing and of the familiar
skills of creating the illusion of three-dimensional spaces
and shapes. One critic, Louis Leroy, said, ‘They are nothing but a bunch of Impressionists’. The term ‘impression’
was used to describe the sketchiness of many of the works
and this epithet stuck following the critic Théodore Duret’s 1878 discussion of Monet’s Impression: Sunrise 1872/73,
(Musée Marmottan, Paris). While many people were sympathetic to their aims, the number of sales at the exhibitions was small. The artists had no binding charter and
over the years were dogged by disputes over who should
be included in their exhibitions, despite which eight group
shows took place. Most of the artists involved in Impressionism knew each other, being largely based in Paris, each
one the product of a unique cultural environment that
moulded them as much as they influenced it. By the mid
1880s the movement had dispersed with the emerging new
styles called Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.
15
Neo-Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Neo-Impressionism (Georges-Pierre Seurat and Paul Victor Jules Signac) and Post-Impressionism (Paul Cézanne,
Eugene Henri Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh) describe the work of these artists painting in new styles from
the 1880s to the end of the century. Even as Impressionism
developed, some of these artists in the 1890s were already
reacting and moving beyond it, aware of each other’s work,
often sharing ideas and sometimes working together. Unlike the Impressionists, these artists developed distinctive
styles; they did not work as a group and as a result their
work achieved greater diversity.
The Neo-Impressionists, led by Georges-Pierre Seurat (between 1886 and 1891), liked to use a careful painting technique grounded in science, particularly the study of optics
and contemporary writings on colour theory (e.g. the
treatises of Charles Henry, Eugène Chevreul and Ogden
Rood). They believed that individual touches of interwoven colour pigment placed directly onto the canvas, rather
than the usual method of mixing pigments on the palette,
increased the luminosity and vibrancy of colour. Paul Signac felt that ‘the separated elements will be reconstituted
into brilliantly coloured lights.’ This separation of colour
through individual strokes of pigment became known as
Divisionism, just as applying precise dots of paint came to
be called Pointillism.
The Post-Impressionist artists like Paul Cézanne, Eugene
Henri Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh developed
distinctive personal styles that addressed the emotional,
structural, symbolic and spiritual elements they thought
were missing from Impressionism. Their name derived
from the title of an exhibition, ‘Manet and the Post-Impressionists’, organised in London in the winter of 1910–1911
by the English artist and critic Roger Fry. Cézanne wanted
to reduce objects to their basic shapes, using the bright
fresh colours of Impressionism, and in so doing, restore
structure and solidity to painting. He influenced Cubism
and abstract art. Van Gogh used colour and vibrant swirling brushstrokes to convey his feelings and state of mind.
Gauguin applied colour in broad flat areas outlined in dark
16
paint, emphasising emotional and symbolic qualities. Van
Gogh and Gauguin influenced Fauvism and Expressionism. Their combined contributions formed some of the
artistic roots of modern art.
The Training of Artists and The Salon
By the end of the nineteenth century there were a number
of ways to become an artist in Paris, due to its many art
schools (in 1872 there were already 20 for women). The
studio/atelier system involved students drawing and painting from life (a male/female model), in addition to copying
drawings, engravings and paintings by the Old Masters,
either directly in the Louvre or from reproductions. The
studio of Charles Gleyre (1806–1874) was one of many run
by well-known painters, and his studio had about 30 students (the fee was 10 francs a month), including Frédéric
Bazille (1841–1870), Monet, Renoir and Sisley. The Académie Suisse had no teaching but provided accommodation
and life models, and this was attended by Paul Cézanne,
Camille Pissarro and, for a time, Claude-Oscar Monet.
Since the reign of Louis XIV there existed an elaborate state
system for the control of art, key features of which were:
• The official Académie des Beaux-Arts (the powerful
state institution that governed French art).
• The official École des Beaux-Arts (the State-sponsored
school, its curriculum supervised by the Academy).
• The Salon (the annual public exhibition organised by
the Academy on behalf of the state).
The Salon was the most significant event in the French art
calendar, where works could be sold and artists’ reputations could be made. In 1863 the Salon jury refused so
many offerings that the emperor agreed to show them in a
separate space – the Salon des Refusés. The Impressionists
banded together because they objected to the fact that in
the Paris of the 1860s the Salon was the only outlet for
little-known artists, with virtually no other opportunity
for artists to exhibit their work in public without having
to submit to a jury.
Why Did the Impressionists Form a Group?
Before the Franco-Prussian war of 1870–71, discussion had
taken place about setting up an exhibiting group, which
came to nothing. In December 1873 a group of artists, including the future Impressionists, met in Renoir’s studio to
ratify the constitution of the Société Anonyme des artistes,
peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, etc. (Anonymous Society of
artists, painters, sculptors, engravers, etc), a co-operative
society set up to promote sales through group exhibitions
that would be free from selection by a jury. The core included Monet, Morisot, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, Cézanne,
Guillaumin and Sisley, and in 1874 they held their first
group show, displaying 165 works and becoming known
as the Impressionists. The majority of the other exhibitors
had been recruited by some of the sixteen founding members of the Society and most of these other participants
were regular exhibitors at the Salon. Other artists such as
Bazille, Gonzalès and Cassatt became associated with the
group.
What Art Influenced the Impressionists,
Neo-Impressionists and Post-Impressionists?
In the nineteenth century, landscape painting became a
popular genre, with the emergence of open-air painting affording closer observation and greater immediacy through
the aid of technological innovation, including folding-box
easels and portable paint tubes. Change and development
was gradual, an example of which was the work of Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), who established himself as the
leading proponent of Realism by challenging the primacy
of history painting, which was favoured by the official Salons and the École des Beaux-Arts. Courbet believed that
ordinary subject matter of contemporary life was suitable
for painting, and the Realism that he stood for created a
storm.
(1817–1878), Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) and PierreEtienne-Theodore Rousseau (1812–1867). They painted in
front of the subject, out of doors (at least for sketches),
and their attempts at capturing the changing effects of
light and atmosphere greatly affected the younger painters
Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley. Marine artist Eugène
Boudin introduced the young Monet to open-air painting
at Le Havre.
Édouard Manet (1832–1883), who was just a few years older
than most Impressionists, was a significant figure as his
paintings of modern life rocked the Paris art world and
had a huge effect on younger painters depicting contemporary life. Manet was an assiduous visitor to the Louvre and
the paintings he studied by Delacroix, Titian, Tintoretto
and Spanish painters such as Velázquez and Goya were
also copied by the Impressionists. The Old Masters were
a constant source of inspiration, as in the case of Degas,
who copied in the Louvre works by Giorgione, Holbein,
Mantegna, Poussin and del Piombo, a pattern emulated
by Cézanne.
The initial inspiration for Monet and Renoir in the 1860s
came from several sources. The artists known as the Barbizon School (named after the village of Barbizon, outside Paris, where they painted in and around the forest of
Fontainebleau) were influential, particularly Jean-BaptisteCamille Corot (1796–1875), Charles-François Daubigny
17
Other Developments (Technology,
Photography, Japanese Art)
Technology helped the Impressionist artists in a number
of ways:
• The invention of portable malleable-lead paint tubes
in 1841 made open-air painting practical. Previously,
artists ground their own pigments. As Renoir noted:
‘Without tubes of paint there would have been no
Impressionism.’
• The discovery of a new range of dyes extended the
artists’ colour ranges.
• The folding-box easel invented in the 1870s helped to
make open-air painting more flexible and practical.
• The research of chemists such as Michel-Eugène
Chevreul, whose ‘colour wheel’ (1839) helped to
illustrate the concept of complementary colours (e.g.
orange and blue when placed together enhance the
intensity and hue of each colour). This gave rise to
theories about the optical combination of colours
that was important for Impressionist techniques and
especially for Neo-Impressionist painters.
Photography had an influence on both structure and
composition as an increasing number of artists realised
that the naturalistic realism to which they had become
accustomed was not the only acceptable vision. By the
1870s the camera was producing instant images, enabling
artists to observe new contrasts of light and shadow, unusual perspectives, cut-off images and views taken from
a height, enhancing the impression of immediacy. Some
of the Impressionists interested in photography included
Caillebotte, Monet and Bonnard, who studied the images
it produced, which influenced their work. Degas, who
was aware of Eadweard Muybridge’s pioneering work, was
fascinated by the English photographer’s ability to capture
motion arrested in images of animal locomotion taken in
1877–78. These images encouraged Degas to show the correct position of running horses in his paintings.
18
Japanese Art, Japonisme, became popular in European
and American art in the latter half of the nineteenth century due to the reopening of Japan’s commercial ports, leading to objects such as fans, lacquered goods, kimonos and
prints flooding these markets. Japan’s participation in the
Universal Exhibition of 1867 interested the Impressionists,
who were fascinated by what they observed in Japanese
prints: * simplified forms * clearly defined outlines * flat areas
of colour * unusual perspectives. The prints of Katsushika
Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige and Utamaro Kitagawa had
an impact on Manet, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Van
Gogh and Cézanne, and several of the artists, including
Monet, owned collections of Japanese prints. Younger artists were aware of Japanese art through the exhibitions held
in Paris in the 1880s and 1890s.
The Wider Impact of Impressionism
The key art dealer in the history of Impressionism was
Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922), who spent the greater part
of his life fostering the Impressionists. He used the group
identity as a way of promoting the artists he showed, and
it was through the exhibitions he held both in Europe and
in the United States, and the influx of American buyers
into France, that Impressionist art entered the museums
and private collections.
Impressionism was not a formal, absolute artistic movement. Ideas about it changed then and have changed since.
Once seen as a challenging, controversial style, the approach and techniques of Impressionism became absorbed
into the mainstream of conventional French painting, and
while the sequential development of the style was not necessarily inevitable, it was in time overtaken by Cubism,
Expressionism and other movements. For young artists at
the turn of the century the path from Impressionism to
Modernism was far less obvious than it has been made to
seem in the twenty-first century. Examples of its impact
are listed below.
The influences of Impressionism spread further to European and North American painting of the late nineteenth
and twentieth centuries and became absorbed in different
ways. Late nineteenth-century American painters demonstrated awareness of French styles as students in Paris
or after they returned home, and several of them were
exposed to the French Impressionists’ portrayal of modern life. Some American artists imitated the new French
painting superficially just as others grasped its essence – a
pattern replicated in many other countries. American artists influenced by Impressionism include: Mary Cassatt,
William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Edmund Charles
Tarbell, John Singer Sargent, Frank Weston Benson and
Winslow Homer. It was not unusual for British and Irish
artists to study in Paris in the second half of the nineteenth
century, when Julien Bastien-Lepage was a major influence on artists in the realistic way he painted people and
places directly from nature, described as rustic naturalism.
French Impressionism impacted on British and Irish painters, who espoused the Impressionist manner in a variety
of different ways, including Stanhope Alexander Forbes,
Philip Wilson Steer, Walter Richard Sickert, Henry Scott
Tuke, Charles Isaac Ginner, Harold John Wilde Gilman in
England; James Dickson Innes in Wales; Francis Campbell
Boileau Cadell and John Duncan Fergusson in Scotland,
just as Irish artists, John Lavery, Aloysius O’Kelly, Roderic
O’Conor and William Leech were aware of new developments in painting in France. Its impact was felt by Danish artists, who began to study in Paris in the late 1870s,
including Peder Severin Krøyer (Norwegian-Danish),
Joakim Frederik Skovgaard, Laurits Tusem and Theodor
Philipsen. By the end of the 1880s the early effects of the
French Impressionists began to be felt in Scandinavia
(Anders Leonard Zorn in Sweden) as the first exhibition
of Impressionist works was seen in Copenhagen by artists
painting in their different ways. The inspiration of Impressionist paintings continued in the work of Marc Zaharovich Chagall’s Vitebsk landscapes, Canada’s Group of
Seven and American pop-artist Roy Lichtenstein, who in
the 1960s created a series of prints based on Monet’s Rouen
Cathedral and Haystacks series, and in the 1990s created
variations on the Nymphéas cycle.
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Key dates in the development
of Impressionism
1860Renoir creates copies, in the days set aside for
copying, at the Louvre.
1875 Hôtel Drouot auction of Impressionist pictures by
Monet, Morisot, Renoir, Sisley.
1861 Cézanne meets Pissarro at the Académie Suisse.
1876 Second Impressionist Exhibition at 11 Rue Le
Peletier (Durand-Ruel Gallery) in April. Louis
Edmond Duranty publishes La Nouvelle Peinture.
1862 Renoir enters Gleyre’s studio followed by Monet,
Sisley and Bazille. Édouard Manet meets Degas.
1863Salon des Refusés is dominated by Manet’s
Dejéuner Sur l’Herbe, also work by Pissarro,
Whistler, Cézanne and Sisley.
1865 Manet’s Olympia is criticised at the Salon but
defended by Émile Édouard Charles Antoine
Zola, who published an article on the future
Impressionists in L’Événement (1866).
1866 Monet shows Camille at the Salon. Manet
rejected by the Salon.
1867Monet, Bazille, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne
rejected by the Salon. Independent group
exhibition plans are under discussion. Zola
publishes a pamphlet on Manet.
1869 Group centred around Manet, Monet, Pissarro,
Renoir, Sisley, Bazille and Cézanne begin meeting
at the Café Guerbois. Monet and Renoir work at
the waterside café La Grenouillère.
1870 Franco-Prussian War. Bazille is killed in action.
Pissarro and Monet flee to London where they
meet the French art dealer Durand-Ruel.
1872 Durand-Ruel buys from Manet, Monet,
Pissarro and Sisley, beginning his commercial
championing of future Impressionists.
1874 Establishment of the ‘Society of Painters,
Sculptors, Engravers’ and First Impressionist
Exhibition at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, the
studio of Nadar, the photographer (15 April–15
May), including Boudin, Cézanne, Degas, Monet,
Morisot, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley.
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1877 Third Impressionist Exhibition at 6 Rue Le
Peletier in April. A four-part journal entitled
L’Impressionniste is published, edited by Georges
Rivière.
1878 Théodore Duret publishes Les Peintres
Impressionnistes, singling out Monet,
Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir and Morisot as core
Impressionists.
1879 Fourth Impressionist Exhibition at 28 Avenue de
l’Opéra, (10 April–11 May). First issue of La Vie
Moderne is published.
1880 Fifth Impressionist Exhibition at 10 Rue des
Pyramides (1–30 April). The disunity of the group
provokes criticism. Gauguin shows eight works.
1881Sixth Impressionist Exhibition at 35 Boulevard des
Capucines (2 April–1 May). State control of the
Salon abandoned.
1882Seventh Impressionist Exhibition at 251 Rue
Saint-Honoré in March organised by DurandRuel. Manet awarded Légion d’Honneur.
1883Manet dies. Huysmans publishes L’Art
Moderne. Durand-Ruel organises one-
man shows for Monet, Boudin, Renoir, Pissarro
and Sisley, sending pictures to Boston, Berlin and
Rotterdam. Monet settles in Giverny.
1886Eighth (final) Impressionist Exhibition is held at
1 Rue Lafitte (15 May–15 June). Monet, Renoir,
Sisley exhibit with Les Vingt in Brussels. DurandRuel mounts Impressionist exhibition in New
York (opens a gallery there in 1888).
1889 Monet and Rodin exhibit together in Paris.
1890 Monet formally offers Manet’s Olympia to the
French state. Van Gogh dies.
1893 Degas’s Absinthe Drinker causes furore when
exhibited at Grafton Galleries, London, and is
defended by Irish writer George Moore (1852–
1933).
1894 Caillebotte dies, leaving his Impressionist
paintings to the French state. They now form part
of the Musée d’Orsay collection.
1898 Degas, Manet, Renoir, Monet, Sisley included
in International Society of Artists Exhibition
in London. Durand-Ruel shows Impressionist
paintings in Munich and Berlin.
1900Recognition of Impressionist artists improves as
they are included in art histories and monographs,
in museums and in official exhibitions, e.g.
‘A Centenary Exhibition of French Art’ at the
Universal Exhibition in Paris.
Impressionism
1884 Société des Artistes Indépendants founded. Manet
retrospective exhibition.
21
The 15 works listed by
discussion points, painting,
artist, cross-curriculum
links and suggested projects
1. Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875), Willows,
c.1860
2.Eugène-Louis Boudin (1824–1898), The Meuse at
Dordrecht, 1882
3. Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894), Banks of a Canal
near Naples, c.1872
4. Camille Pissarro (1830–1903), Chrysanthemums in a
Chinese Vase, 1873
5.Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), Young Woman in
White Reading, 1873
6. Claude-Oscar Monet (1840–1926), Argenteuil Basin
with a Single Sailboat, 1874
7.Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883), Children Playing on Sand
Dunes, Grandcamp, 1877–78
8. Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), Le Corsage Noir, 1878
9.Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917), Two Ballet
Dancers in a Dressing Room, c.1880
10.Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917), Two
Harlequins c.1885
11. Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), The Banks of the Canal du
Loing at Saint-Mammès, 1888
12. Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), Boy Eating Cherries,
1895
13. Paul Victor Jules Signac (1863–1935), Lady on the
Terrace, 1898
14. Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890), Rooftops in Paris,
1886
15. Paul Cézanne (1839–1906), La Montagne SainteVictoire from Les Lauves, near Aix-en-Provence,
1902–1904
Impressionism
22
23
1. Willows, c.1860
Artist: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875)
Medium, support and size: oil on panel, 11 x 23 cm
Presented by Edward Martyn in 1924. NGI 4218
Picture Discussion Points
Which colours has the artist used and what atmosphere
do they create?
Compare and contrast biblical and mythological subjects
with studies from nature.
How has the artist structured the painting and created the
illusion of space?
The Painting: Willows, c.1860
Corot was a landscape painter who influenced French
nineteenth-century painting and young artists linked with
Impressionism. This small panel is a work of Corot’s late
career, when he created a series of studies that evoked the
landscape of Fontainebleau and the Roman Campagna.
Earlier, during the 1840s, Corot, Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) and Pierre-Etienne-Theodore Rousseau
(1812–1867) had worked in Barbizon near the forest of
Fontainebleau, painting outdoors, directly from nature,
and providing a new approach to landscape painting for
younger artists. In this work the artist uses the river to
give a strong horizontal structure to the composition, with
some buildings, perhaps a town, in the distance. The focus
of the tranquil scene is a number of overhanging willow
trees on the right side of the landscape, with smaller trees
counterbalancing it on the left. Soft feathery brushstrokes
have been used for the clouds and they also give movement
to the water, trees and sky. A subtle colourist, he used a
palette of yellows, greens and golden browns to create the
effects of light, rendered with freshness and delicacy. Corot
was sympathetic to the Impressionists, influencing them
as a teacher and whose work they admired as an example.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875)
Corot came from a comfortable Parisian background,
enabling him to pursue an artistic career. His early teachers, Achille-Etna Michallon (1796–1822) and Jean-Victor
Bertin (1767–1842), taught him to paint in the classical
tradition. The sight of works by John Constable (1776–
1837) at the 1824 Salon may have encouraged his fresh and
direct approach, augmented by a visit to Rome in 1825.
24
Corot travelled through France, in addition to Italy in 1834
and 1843, the Low Countries in 1854 and Britain in 1862.
After years of submitting biblical or classical mythological narratives to the Salon, around 1850 his subject matter
began to expand, developing a looser, more atmospheric
approach. His work included: figure paintings; landscapes
painted outdoors in France, Italy and elsewhere; imaginative compositions; ‘souvenirs’ with a misty charm; and
religious, mythological and literary Salon works. Summers
were spent at Barbizon, winters in the studio in Paris and at
his family home at Ville-d’Avray. Corot acted as a teacher
to Berthe Morisot and was linked to Boudin, Pissarro and
Sisley. His work formed a preface to the Impressionists,
whose first group exhibition was held the year before he
died in 1875.
Cross-curricular Links
Art
Discuss Corot’s colour palette (green, brown, burnt umber,
ochre, yellow, white) and his treatment of light. Identify
the light sources and the shadows in the classroom at different times of the day.
Geography/Science
Explain the different components of the tree and discuss
its life cycle. Discuss the importance of trees to the environment.
English
Ask the students to keep a dictionary of new terms and
introduce them to words such as photosynthesis, deciduous, conifer etc.
Suggested Projects
• Discuss the rules of perspective by creating an
imaginary landscape using cut paper. Explain scale
and overlapping, and how to use these to create a
sense of depth.
• Document the light in the classroom through drawing
or photography. Use charcoal or chalk to create an
atmospheric drawing, recording the play of light.
25
2. The Meuse at Dordrecht, 1882
Artist: Eugène-Louis Boudin (1824–1898)
Medium, support and size: oil on canvas, 117 x 159 cm
Gift of Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, 1950. NGI 4212
Is Dordrecht a busy port and what is the exact nature of
the activity?
Compare and contrast an Irish port with a Dutch port?
How has the artist drawn our attention to the yacht in the
foreground?
The Painting: The Meuse at Dordrecht, 1882
Boudin was an early practitioner of open-air painting and a
precursor of Impressionism. Growing up around Le Havre
made him receptive to painting seascapes. He worked extensively in Belgium, Holland, Bordeaux, Venice, the Côte
d’Azur and around the mouth of the Seine. He first travelled to Holland in 1876, returning several times to enjoy
its busy ports. This is one of his largest views of Dordrecht,
which he visited in 1882 to paint the River Meuse. It is full
of the movement of large sailing ships, smaller yachts and
fishing craft setting out sailing and returning. His dedication to painting the sea and its coastline, beaches and ports,
gave him freedom to study the ever-changing character of
seaside light and atmosphere and to develop painterly ways
to illustrate these effects. The invention of the portable
paint tube in 1841 made his open air painting more practical. Two thirds of this painting is given over to the sky as
the artist observes the changing effects of light and atmosphere, using broad, vigorous brushstrokes to convey the
rapid movement of the grey clouds. Corot called him ‘the
king of the skies’ and Boudin returned the compliment by
dedicating a pastel study of the sky to Corot.
Eugène-Louis Boudin (1824–1898)
Born in Honfleur and brought up in Le Havre, Boudin
worked at a printer’s shop where he was encouraged by
members of the Barbizon school of painters. Between 1851
and 1853 he studied in Paris before returning to paint in the
open air the sea and countryside of Normandy, modelling
his style on the French landscape painter Corot. In 1858
Boudin encouraged the young Monet to paint landscapes,
working out of doors to observe the effects of natural
light on water. The freshness and realism of his painting
26
of the landscape and skies is the link between Corot and
the younger Impressionists, notably Monet. In 1862 when
Boudin and Monet met the Dutch marine painter Johan
Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891) at Le Havre, they were
impressed by the sensitive touches of colour in his watercolours and oils. Achieving success by degrees, Boudin
showed at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, at the
Salon, and at a one-man show organised by Durand-Ruel
in 1883, obtaining the gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1889. His most characteristic works produced
in Normandy and on the Seine influenced the younger
Impressionist artists in their freshness of atmosphere and
directness of execution.
Art
Turn the image upside down and examine the relationship
between the sea and the sky. Observe the solid objects and
the empty spaces. Identify the shapes created by the negative space. Carry this out with all the pictures.
Geography
Identify Holland/The Netherlands on a map. Explain how
and why Holland’s links with other countries built on trading and seafaring skills grew from the seventeenth century
on.
Science
Discuss the weather, cloud formation and water evaporation. Analyse water, testing it for hardness levels. Explore
the dispersion of light in water drops which gives a rainbow effect.
History
Explain the history of seventeenth-century Holland and
how it became known as the Dutch Golden Age, including the artists Vermeer, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Steen, Van
Goyen etc.
Suggested Projects
• Work outdoors like the Impressionists, making large
drawings of the clouds using chalk pastels (white,
yellow, red, pink, blue, green) on blue or grey sugar
paper.
• Observe and record the appearance of water, noting
the difference between still and moving water,
splashes and drops. When it is raining, document
the water running down the classroom windows. Go
outside and photograph reflections in the puddles.
Experiment with a variety of materials to replicate the
effects of water. Use recycled materials such as plastic
bottles and aluminium foil.
27
3. Banks of a Canal, near Naples, c.1872
Artist: Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894)
Medium, support and size: oil on canvas, 39.7 x 59.7 cm
Acquired in 2008. NGI 2008.90
Describe the time of day. How would the view change at
different times?
Has the artist used realistic colours in this painting?
Does the artist lead your eye into the background? What
do you see there?
The Painting: Banks of a Canal, near Naples,
c.1872
The subject of this painting is a landscape created in the
open air in keeping with Impressionist interest in modern life scenes. It is thought that Caillebotte painted it on
a trip he made to Italy with his father in 1872. Its most
striking feature is the dramatic perspective which creates
a distinctive long view of the canal as it recedes deep into
the composition. The stone posts in the foreground anchor
the view and bring a hint of human presence as a place for
fishing or as a mooring for boats. Two-thirds of the canvas is taken up by the canal, canal bank and road, which
lead to the distant horizon, composed of trees, houses
and the flat Italian landscape. His use of a fresh palette of
greens, browns and blues to paint the landscape directly
from nature illustrates the skill he developed in synthesizing academic and Impressionist influences in a realist
style. Caillebotte met Renoir and Monet in 1874 and he
showed at the Impressionist exhibition of 1876 and at four
successive exhibitions. His originality lies in capturing an
unconventional angle that draws the viewer’s eye into the
subject, similar to a photograph, forming a skilled exercise
in perspective and recession.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894)
Caillebotte came from a wealthy Parisian family and following training as an engineer, he attended the École des
Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he met Degas, Monet, Renoir
and became involved in the Impressionist movement. He
participated in five Impressionist exhibitions, becoming
one of their chief organisers, supporters and promoters.
On his father’s death in 1874 he used his inherited fortune to acquire works by Impressionist artists. He died in
28
1894 and left his collection to the French state. Caillebotte
never achieved the fame of his Impressionist colleagues
because his works remained within his family and were
not exhibited or reproduced until the second half of the
twentieth century. He then began to receive recognition.
His best known paintings illustrated the wide new Parisian
boulevards and modern apartment blocks created in the
1850s and 1860s. Caillebotte was interested in depicting
modern life themes as he saw them, drawing academic and
Impressionist styles together to create finely crafted works,
emerging a thoroughly accomplished realist painter. Many
of his later works – portraits, figure studies, still-lifes, boating and rural landscapes – were painted at his home, PetitGennevilliers near Argenteuil.
Art
Compare the similarities and the differences in the prominence and treatment of water in the work of Impressionist
painters such as Monet, Sisley and Caillebotte.
Explain one-point perspective and trace its origins through
the history of art.
Geography
Locate Naples on a map of Italy. Discuss the people and
communities that live there, their language, myths and stories, art and culture, their clothes, play and pastimes. Note
features of the natural environment, homes and buildings,
food and farming, work and workplaces.
Look at the topography and landscape, exploring similarities
between Naples and the students’ home town in Ireland.
Take a similar picture of their own area (from their home
or their school) and discuss and describe the physical
features they can see.
In what way has the natural landscape depicted been
altered for humans, e.g. bridges and roads built, canals?
History
Discuss the history and development of canals. Why were
they built? Find and name some Irish canals on a map.
English
Junior Certificate students can write an imaginative piece
(text or poem) inspired by the path. Who is walking on
the path? Where have they come from and where are they
going to?
Leaving Certificate Art affords the opportunity to elicit an
aesthetic and a personal response promoting a wider understanding of genre through the inclusion of comparative
study. Discuss how Literature and Art are bound up with
many well-known writers and poets having a documented
interest in Art.
Make cross-curricular links between the intellectual currents that influenced Art, which also influenced Music and
Literature (Impressionism, Classicism and Romanticism).
Suggested Projects
• Explain one-point perspective and the horizon line.
Identify the vanishing point. Find different examples
of one-point perspective on the internet and in
magazines.
• Note the strongly cast shadows in this painting.
Place an object on a sheet of white paper and record
its cast shadow in drawing using a variety of blues.
Rotate a lamp around the object to demonstrate the
movement of the cast shadow.
29
4. Chrysanthemums in a Chinese Vase, 1873
Artist: Camille Pissarro (1830–1903),
Medium, support and size: oil on canvas, 60 x 50.5 cm
Acquired in 1983. NGI 4459
Explain still-life and make a list of objects found in still-life
paintings.
Name and identify the different textures. How have they
been created?
Do some objects in the picture appear flat and does the
picture look real?
The Painting: Chrysanthemums in a Chinese
Vase, 1873
This flower piece was painted shortly after Pissarro returned
from London and moved with his family to Pontoise in
1872, where he remained for a decade, devoting himself
to rural scenes and developing the Impressionist style of
his painting. While mainly preoccupied with depicting the
landscape, he also carried out some still-life and flower
pieces in 1872–1873, of which this is one; the wallpaper
with pink flowers appears in several of these works. The
focus of the picture is a spray of pale-coloured chrysanthemums tightly arranged in a rich ornate vertical blue vase
with a Chinese pattern that is reflected on the polished
table. Pissarro’s wife, Julie, used to gather flowers for her
husband to paint during bad weather. The books reinforce
the domestic setting. Despite the muted colours, the brushwork displays suppleness and softly nuanced gradations of
tone, making it a surprisingly vivid composition. Pissarro
painted still-life throughout his career. His was a constant
presence at all eight Impressionist exhibitions (1874–1886).
He painted with Cézanne at Pontoise, introducing him to
open-air painting and Impressionist techniques, and his
teaching and wise counsel was acknowledged by both Cézanne and Gauguin, whom he encouraged in their careers.
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)
Born on the island of Saint Thomas in the West Indies,
Pissarro lived in France from 1855. Having painted briefly
with a Dutch artist, Fritz Melbye (1826–1869), he enrolled
at the Académie Suisse in 1855, where he met Monet in
1859, and Cézanne in 1861, with whom he worked for
many years, particularly in the 1870s. The encouragement
30
of Corot, together with Courbet, influenced his early work
but he was closest in sympathy to Monet. He exhibited
at the Salon 1864–1870 (except 1867), and at the Salon
des Refusés in 1863. During the Franco-Prussian war
(1870–1871) he joined Monet in London, where they met
Durand-Ruel. A founding member of the Impressionists,
he was the only one to exhibit at all eight shows, introducing the younger artists, Gauguin and Seurat. He favoured
small, informal landscapes, often peopled with peasants,
his work reflecting the changes in approach to landscape
painting up to the end of the century. In 1886–1888 Pissarro
adopted the pointillist technique after meeting Seurat and
Signac. However, from 1896 he returned to his earlier style,
depicting views of Rouen and Paris. His skills extended
to fan and porcelain painting, engraving and illustration.
Art
Use this painting to teach your students about texture and
pattern, forming a support study for a still-life composition.
English
See what Junior Certificate students observe every day.
Show them this painting quickly. Ask them to list the
objects and name all the formal art elements used by the
artist (line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone). Develop
the project for Leaving Certificate students.
Geography
In what climate do chrysanthemums grow? Examine native plants and list the flowers that form national emblems,
e.g. the Dutch tulip.
Home Economics
Ask Transition Year Home Design and Management students to find patterns in their house. Look at different
pattern styles and date them. Identify the style of different
eras, e.g. the 1970s or 1980s.
Suggested Projects
• Ask the students to visualise the rest of the room
and make a drawing of it, including the table and
the vase of flowers. Make a still-life drawing of an
arrangement of flowers inspired by the painting
techniques of Pissarro.
• Discuss the art of flower arrangement and the role of
a florist.
• Use organic shapes to create a repeat pattern or a tile.
• Ask the students to look at designing and printing
a patterned fabric that could be used for cushion
making.
31
5. Young Woman in White Reading, 1873
Artist: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Describe the type(s) of brushwork and list the colours
used.
How do the brushstrokes and the colours create an atmosphere in this painting?
Discuss the lady in the painting and her costume.
The Painting: Young Woman in White Reading,
1873
In the summer of 1873 Renoir visited Monet at Argenteuil,
where he painted the artist and his family. The dark-haired
figure forming the focus of this picture may have been
Monet’s wife, Camille, who Renoir painted on several occasions. She is absorbed in her book, her hat on the sofa
and her feet resting on a cushion. The subject may also
have been Lise Tréhot, Renoir’s former model and partner
for six years until she married in 1872. However, the artist is
not seeking to show an exact likeness; instead he wishes to
present an image that captures the mood and atmosphere
of the moment. The picture’s fluid brushwork and thin layers of paint reflect Renoir’s close association with Monet.
His use of dark shades of one colour highlighted with
touches of red shows the influence of Manet, Velázquez
and artists of the Spanish Golden Age. The impact of
Japanese prints by artists such as Utamaro Kitagawa is also
important. Renoir’s small canvases of women in domestic
settings were greatly admired. Works such as these blurred
the lines between portraiture and genre-painting, resulting in Renoir’s modern-life scenes influencing the intimate
domestic interiors of Jean-Edouard Vuillard (1868–1940)
and Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947).
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
Born in Limoges, Renoir’s father was a tailor and the family moved to Paris when he was a child. After working as a
painter in a porcelain factory, he studied at Gleyre’s studio,
where he met Monet, Sisley and Bazille. He exhibited at
the Salon in 1864 and 1865 but was rejected in 1866 and
1867. By 1869 he was painting with Monet at Bougival on
the Seine near Paris, at the café La Grenouillére, the birthplace of Impressionism, focusing on modern-life figure
32
scenes. He served in the Franco-Prussian war. Renoir contributed to four Impressionist exhibitions, and his career
received a boost when one of his portraits was exhibited
at the Salon of 1879. Following a trip to Italy and Algeria,
where he was impressed by the work of Raphael and the
Pompeian frescoes, he visited l’Éstaque, where Cézanne
was developing his own form of Impressionism. This led
Renoir to develop a hard, linear style reflected in nudes
and figure studies. In 1888 he moved to the South of France
due to his arthritis, and from 1912, painted from a bath
chair with a brush attached to his wrist. In 1904 the Salon
d’Automne devoted a room to his work.
Art
Use the painting to demonstrate the correct proportions
of the figure. Look at other examples of a seated figure and
examine the various shifts in balance and the dispersion of
weight. Is this a formal, informal or semi-abstract portrait?
History and CSPE
Discuss nineteenth-century city life and what it might
have been like to live in Paris at that time.
Compare the role of men and women in the nineteenth
century. How have their roles and lifestyles evolved and
changed by the twenty-first century?. Draw on the Primary
School ‘Eras of change and conflict’ strand of the History
curriculum, under the theme ‘Changing roles of women
in the 19th and 20th centuries’.
Suggested Projects
• Ask the students to name all the colours in the
woman’s dress. Demonstrate how to make tints and
tones of the three primary colours.
• Drape white fabric around a seated figure. Pay
attention to the drapery folds and how it follows the
contours of the figure. Use chalk pastels to copy the
painterly effects of Renoir. Use a variety of tints and
tones to recreate the shadows and highlights.
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6. Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, 1874
Artist: Claude-Oscar Monet (1840–1926)
Bequeathed by Edward Martyn in 1924. NGI 852
What is happening in this painting and which season is
the artist depicting?
Describe the brushwork and Monet’s colour palette.
Discuss how to create a calendar illustrating twelve different landscapes.
The Painting: Argenteuil Basin with a Single
Sailboat, 1874
Monet responded to the seasons by studying open-air
effects year round, illustrated in this autumn scene at
Argenteuil. Towns like Argenteuil were painted by the
Impressionists because they were accessible by train from
Paris. When Monet moved to Argenteuil in 1871, he acquired a boat and fitted it out as a floating studio. John
Singer Sargent (1856–1925) painted him on the boat using
his folding-box easel. This boat gave him many new viewpoints for his river scenes. It enabled him to study closely
the reflections of light on water as he painted with speed
and directness, capturing their fleeting effects in the sunlight and adding an extra intensity to the red, orange and
yellow foliage. He used a variety of brushstrokes to capture
these reflections. Monet was an admirer of Japanese prints
with their unusual viewpoints. A pictorial rigour underlies
the structure of this work, composed of sky, trees and river,
with the town on the horizon and a sailing boat adding
movement. The peacefulness of his river scene is enhanced
by a virtuoso display of brushwork, employing clear bright
colours to depict the shimmering effects of light and colour on water. Due to the nature and consistency of his art,
Monet was the driving force of Impressionism.
Claude-Oscar Monet (1840–1926)
Monet was born in Paris, the son of a grocer who moved
his business in 1845 to Le Havre. In 1858 he met Boudin,
who encouraged him to explore landscape and open-air
painting. In 1859 he attended the Académie Suisse, where
he met Pissarro, and in the summer of 1862 he painted
with Boudin and Jongkind, who influenced his outlook.
While studying under Gleyre, he met Bazille, Renoir and
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Sisley and these and other artists planned the first Impressionist exhibition at Nadar’s studio. Some of his landscapes
and figure scenes were accepted by the Salon in the 1860s,
but after 1870 he exhibited in group shows and dealers’ galleries. He painted in London during the Franco-Prussian
War. Monet and Renoir worked together at La Grenouillère, where Impressionism became fully fledged in their
paintings of the Seine, Monet working from his floating
studio. He showed at all the Impressionist exhibitions except 1880, 1882 and 1886. After the Seine valley, he settled
in Giverny in 1883, where he constructed his famous water
garden. He travelled widely in the 1880s, and from 1890
on he concentrated on painting series of works of the same
subject exhibited together.
Art
Note the use of complementary colours. Use a colour
wheel to explain what complementary colours are and how
they are employed. Has the brighter palette and open-air
style of these paintings had any influence on Irish artists?
Geography
Initiate research and discussion on the following topics:
global warming and the changing seasons, renewable energy, and the harmful effects of polluted water.
Science
Nineteenth-century artists had access to a range of new
colours made by chemists and sold in portable containers.
Discuss natural colours and dyes.
History
Discuss the history of Impressionism in the context of the
social history of the period.
Suggested Projects
• Work in groups in order to create four large
landscapes depicting the four seasons.
Consider Monet’s political activities or cultural life in the
Third Republic as part of the Leaving Certificate research
studies component.
• Paint a colour wheel and create works of art using a
single combination of the complementary colours
(purple and yellow, red and green, blue and orange).
Consider the ratio of the complementary colours used.
• Use a viewfinder, place it over any part of the
painting, enlarge the details and make an analysis of
the colours. Use it to form the basis of an abstract
painting or collage.
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7. Children Playing on Sand Dunes, Grandcamp,
1877–1878
Artist: Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883)
Discuss the seaside and describe a day in the life of these
children.
How does the artist lead your eye into the background?
Do you think the boy and girl are brother and sister?
Which child is the eldest?
The Painting: Children Playing on Sand Dunes,
Grandcamp, 1877–1878
Gonzalès was in Grandcamp during 1877–1878, when she
painted several works, including this one. Grandcamp
was a seaside town in the north of Brittany, accessible by
train from Paris. The artist, who came from a middle-class
background, was fascinated by the pursuits of the children,
who had been sent to collect fish for the family meal. Work
such as this formed a regular pattern of the lives of rural
children. The small redheaded girl rests in the sand dunes,
while her sandy-haired companion tries to coax her up
in order to return with the fish. The picture is structured
around a high horizon line, distant sea, beach and sand
dunes, outlined in a loose sketchy style with a variety of
brushes, using a light palette of fresh muted colours. The
most striking element is the children and basket forming
a triangle at the centre of the composition. Gonzalès captures the soft outline of the children’s faces, highlighting
their worn clothing on their bodies – blue jacket, black
breeches, grey shawl and black and white pinafore. It is a
sympathetic portrait which succeeds in evoking the mood
of the weary children, demonstrating the ability of the artist to paint in an Impressionist style.
Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883)
Gonzalès grew up in an artistic environment; her father was
a novelist of Spanish origin, her mother, a musician. Aged
sixteen, she studied under the fashionable portrait painter
Charles Joshua Chaplin (1825–1891). She was the only pupil ever to be taken on by Édouard Manet (1832–1883),
whom she met in 1869, modelling frequently for him and
for other Impressionist painters. She remained his devoted
disciple and friend. Like Morisot, she painted themes from
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modern life, gradually evolving a style of her own. Many
of her paintings show theatre-goers, women and children
relaxing outdoors, including still-life and open-air scenes.
Her work resembled Manet’s early Spanish paintings,
featuring a dark restricted palette with strong contrasts of
light and shadow. Although she did not show at Impressionist exhibitions, preferring to exhibit at the Salon, she is
considered part of the group because of her painting style.
In 1878 she married the engraver Henri-Charles Guérard
(1846–1897) and four years later, aged thirty-four, she died
after giving birth. Guérard later married her sister Jeanne.
This work was included in Guérard’s death inventory that
passed into his wife’s collection.
Art
Observe how the figures stand out against the background,
painted using vibrant colours and refined brushstrokes. A
smaller paintbrush is used to capture the details of the figure, especially the face. Find other examples showing the
care an artist has taken over the face.
Study the artist’s style and practise using similar artistic
techniques in classwork.
Geography
Examine the structure and nature of landscape and seascapes. Explain the formation of rocks, the creation of
sand, and coastal erosion.
Discuss sand dunes. What are they? Where would you
find them? Are there any sand dunes in your area? Discuss
safety. Is it safe to play on sand dunes?
Explore aspects of the lives of people and especially of children, in Ireland, Europe and other areas, using the picture
as a stimulus. Discuss peoples and communities, environments in which people live, and adapting to environments.
English
Write a short story about a day at the beach, fictional or
based on memory.
Suggested Projects
• Discuss the beach. Ask the students to make a
colourful painting of a day at the seaside adding sand
to the paint to create texture.
• Use shells collected from the beach to make prints.
• Collect sand and beach objects for a seaside still-life
in the classroom. Record the textures and forms using
warm and cool colours.
• Use clay or construction of fabric and fibre to depict
a scene in a painting by Gonzalès or Van Gogh.
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8. Le Corsage Noir, 1878
Artist: Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)
Discuss different types of painting, e.g. subject pictures,
portraits, still-life.
Describe the costume. Is it special? Would it be as effective
painted in white?
Consider the subject of the painting. Is she happy? What
is she thinking about?
The Painting: Le Corsage Noir, 1878
Le Corsage Noir is a study of a woman in a low-cut dress
successfully captured by Morisot’s observant eyes and decisive brushwork. It shows a professional model (Milly)
ready for an evening at the theatre, wearing a sheer black
gown with a close-fitting bodice (Morisot’s own dress,
worn in an 1875 studio photograph), gold earrings, a jet
neck choker, hair softly gathered, and a stole loosely draped
over her arms. While the setting is the artist’s studio, the
illusion given is of a fashionable drawing room with the
gilded chair and decorative plant container. Between 1878
and 1880 Morisot painted several of these interior portrait
compositions, each one providing an ideal opportunity to
explore light and colour. This was particularly important in
1878, the year her daughter Julie was born, when the artist
did not have the freedom to paint outdoors. The eye is
drawn to the model’s face as she gazes directly at the viewer.
The dress is painted in overlapping layers of light grey on
black brushstrokes, each layer enhancing the impression
of a rich decorative gown, the delicate grey stole rendered
in soft broad brushstrokes. The muted background and
grey-green foliage emphasise the delicate pale-white tones
of the model’s skin.
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)
Daughter of a senior civil servant, the Morisots moved
to Paris in 1852, where Berthe received painting lessons
from Joseph-Benoît Guichard (1806–1880). Her independent mind became evident when she painted outdoors
under Corot, benefitting from his teaching and advice
from 1860–1866. In 1868, on days set aside for copying
in the Louvre, Morisot met Édouard Manet, who had
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a great influence on her work. She modelled for twelve
paintings by him and he took an interest in her work. She
engaged Manet in painting outdoors just as she was evolving her own distinctive style, which led her firmly to the
Impressionists. Her confidence, ambition and originality
increased as she developed the free and direct style that
distinguishes her painting from Manet. Morisot exhibited
portraits, landscapes and domestic scenes at the Salon and
at all the Impressionist exhibitions, except 1879. Many of
her portraits and domestic scenes used family and friends
as models, reflecting the restrictions of her class and gender. She married Édouard Manet’s brother Eugène in 1874
and gave birth to a daughter, Julie, in 1878, who formed the
subject of many of her paintings. Morisot’s house became
a great social centre for the Impressionists.
Art
Images of people have been used as symbols throughout
the centuries on medals, coins, notes etc. Design a medal
with a symbol on it for your school.
History
Discuss famous women painters and look at the representation of women in art. Have there been any developments
in this subject in the twenty-first century?
English
Imagine the conversation between the artist and the model. Is the model curious, lazy, impatient, sullen or disinterested? Write the conversation as a short scene from a play.
Suggested Projects
• Hold an experimental mark-making class, using a
variety of tools dipped in ink to create interesting
marks. Study the brushwork in this painting for
inspiration.
• Discuss the proportions of the face. Ask the students
to draw a portrait of the person sitting opposite them.
Discuss and demonstrate how to make skin tones.
39
9. Two Ballet Dancers in a Dressing Room, c.1880
Artist: Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917)
Medium, support and size: pastel on paper, 48.5 x 64 cm
Bequeathed by Edward Martyn in 1924. NGI 2740
Is this a spontaneous ‘snapshot’ view or did Degas arrange
the figures to seem casual?
Do the objects on the shelf and foreground form an important part of the picture?
What materials has the artist used to create this picture?
The Painting: Two Ballet Dancers in a Dressing
Room, c.1880
This early pastel shows two dancers in a dressing room
(members of the corps de ballet), wearing their ballet shoes
and delicate layered tutus while waiting to go on stage. One
dancer leans on a wooden chair after practising, while behind her costumes hang in the cramped changing room.
Such was the interest of Degas in ballet dancers that from
the 1870s onwards he created over a thousand drawings,
paintings, prints and sculptures of them. He focused on
their everyday world, performing onstage, in rehearsal and
in the dressing rooms, underscored by the hard routine of
their lives. He sometimes employed young dancers (known
as ‘petit rats’) to study their movements and gestures, and in
1885 gained a permit to observe ballerinas backstage at the
Paris Opéra. The unusual high viewpoint, together with the
cut-off aspect of the sideboard with a bowl, jug and blue
glass, reflects the contemporary influence of photography
and Japanese prints. Degas’s superb drawing ability and
outstanding skill with pastel is evident in the fluid forms
of the dancers. The Irish writer George Moore assembled a
collection of works by Manet, Monet and Morisot and it
is possible that Edward Martyn, who was in Paris with the
writer in 1886, purchased it directly from Degas.
Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917)
Degas was a member of a wealthy Neapolitan banking
family that settled in Paris. Like Manet, he was a man of
independent means. He studied at the École des BeauxArts, influenced by the artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique
Ingres (1780–1867), who emphasised the importance of
line and drawing, and he spent several years in Italy (1856–
1859). Although Degas participated in all the Impression-
40
ist exhibitions (except 1882), he was not very involved in
their technical innovations, being preoccupied with line
and composition, and preferring to be described as a realist
painter. As an artist he was one of the great experimenters
and innovators in oil painting, watercolour, pastel, drawing and printing. He moved from history painting and
portraiture to scenes of contemporary life ranging from
horse racing, ballet, theatre scenes and the café to models
dressing and bathing, and cabaret singers. He was also a
keen photographer. Later in life Degas used pastel more
than any other medium, creating images of women about
their toilette and as his eyesight declined, his use of the medium became broader and freer. In old age, with eyesight
failing, he turned to sculpture, producing many figures of
dancers and racehorses.
Art
Examine the human figure in motion by looking at pictures/photographs of figures dancing or playing sports.
Observe the shapes the figures make and take note of the
negative space. The negative space is the space in between
and around the bodies.
Science
Discuss the manner in which we move and dance occurs.
Look at human anatomy and physiology.
Geography
Explore traditional and native dance or costumes from
a variety of different nations and regions. Compare and
contrast them and try to figure out the symbolism in each.
Music/Drama
Look at the area of dance choreography and design.
English
What was life like for the young dancers, constantly rehearsing and eating little to remain slim and light? Even
with these sacrifices they often stayed in the corps de ballet,
never becoming leading dancers. Discuss the challenges
facing artists in contemporary society.
Suggested Projects
• Make a clay model of a figure dancing by adding
plasticine or clay to a wire armature. Make drawings
of the figure, exploring form through light and shade.
• Degas observes the dancers from above, as if standing
on the shelf in the foreground. Experiment with
different viewpoints whilst sketching figures.
• Map the movement of a figure walking or dancing
in the centre of the classroom, using a prop like a
chair. Show how to make gestural drawings. Keep
the drawings on one page, using different coloured
pencils for each pose.
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10. Two Harlequins, c.1885
Artist: Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas (1834–1917)
Medium, support and size: pastel on paper, 32 x 24 cm
Bequeathed to the NGI by Edward Martyn in 1924. NGI
2741
What is the difference between pastel and paint?
Degas made studies of performers backstage. Think of
other artists who illustrated similar backstage themes and
compare how they depicted them, e.g. Irish painter Jack
B. Yeats.
The Painting: Two Harlequins, c.1885
Two harlequin figures are in conversation, reflecting the
companionship of dancers who spend hours in each other’s
company. The wooden chair, green shutter and yellow
poster illustrate a rehearsal space. The androgynous-shaped
figures are female travesty dancers (dressed as males), wearing colourful chequered leotards and the black masks and
dark caps of Commedia dell’Arte characters. It is one of
many works inspired by a contemporary production of
Les Jumeaux de Bergame, an original play by Jean-Pierre
Claris de Florian (1782), adapted as a ballet-arlequinade
by Charles Nuitter and Louis Mérante and premiered at
the Paris Opéra on 26 January 1886. The story tells of two
harlequin brothers (senior and junior) who fall in love with
the same woman, with harlequin senior holding the baton
she would later use to attack junior. The artist attended
ballet rehearsals in July 1885, and although the pastel predates the performance, the harlequins’ masked figures appear in seven known pastels by Degas. He was fascinated
with their intimate lives, observing the motion inherent in
their agility and acrobatic skills, paying particular attention
to the costumed figures backstage in a favoured motif of
dancers resting. This work illustrates the importance of line
and drawing in all of Degas’s compositions.
See the life of Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas
(1834–1917) under No. 9.
Art
Identify the key figures involved in a play, musical or
film and discuss the director, producer, set/costume
designers, make-up artist, scripwriter, actors, dancers,
graphic designer.
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English
Write a description about the lives of actors and dancers
and how they prepare, train and assume a role for a major
performance, e.g. ballet or theatre.
Science and Physiology
Explore the subject of health, energy, food and nutrition –
the importance of having a balanced lifestyle and the value
of exercise for the mind and the body.
Discuss the various types of energy including chemical energy, which is the energy stored in food, and examine the
importance of an active lifestyle and how this contributes
to it.
Maths
Select paintings in the Resource focusing on lines, angles,
shapes, symmetry in shapes and symmetry in the environment. Describe direction and location using body-centred
(left/right, forward/back) language.
Music
Discuss the role of music in theatre and film. Identify
different genres of music and explain how they are used
to create a mood or atmosphere. Compare the musical
elements in horror films, romantic films and slapstick
comedies.
Suggested Projects
• Use chalk pastels to make brightly coloured drawings
of a figure in space.
• Ask the students to bring in props and to model their
brightly coloured clothes. Create an imaginary stage
so the students can draw these costumes in different
poses.
• Discuss a professional design process. Make a
preparatory sheet for a costume design through to a
final drawing. Research the history of the costume,
sketch it, gather images (support studies). Make
observation drawings, working different ideas
through thumbnail sketches.
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11. The Banks of the Canal du Loing at Saint-Mammès, 1888
Artist: Alfred Sisley (1839–1899)
Can you see figures? What are they doing? What is the
nationality of the flags?
What would you hear on a riverbank? Has this canal any
significance for Sisley?
The Painting: The Banks of the Canal du Loing
at Saint-Mammès, 1888
This painting depicts the River Loing and its canal, which
joined the river Seine at Saint-Mammès. As with many of
Sisley’s compositions, it is structured using a horizontal
line, above which is painted the wall, buildings, trees and
sky, and below, the canal, jetty and foreground foliage. Sisley rarely strayed far from the Seine, and in 1880 moved his
family to Veneux-Nadon near Moret-sur-Loing. He first
painted outdoors in this area in the footsteps of Corot,
observing the changing weather effects on the river. When
planning a landscape, he sketched the outline first, unlike
other Impressionists who preferred not to make preliminary drawings. The cluster of houses with red roofs beside
the lock at the mouth of the canal attracted his attention.
He uses small touches of intense colour to describe different textures: the soft cloudy sky, the broken surface of the
water, the figures and colourful boats. Employing contrasting types of brushwork, he highlights the vegetation at the
water’s edge, captured in a manner that is truthful to the
way objects in nature looked. In works such as this one,
Sisley proved to be the painter who remained most faithful
to the principles of Impressionism as it was practised in
the early 1870s.
Alfred Sisley (1839–1899)
Sisley was born in Paris of a wealthy English merchant
(his grandmother was French), and educated in England.
In 1862 he studied painting at Gleyre’s studio, where he
met Monet, Renoir and Bazille. Monet made the greatest
impression on the artist and he painted with him in Fontainebleau and along the banks of the Seine, coming close
to Monet in style and conception of landscape. Although
he painted in England, the Isle of Wight and Cardiff for
short intervals, the main source of his work was found in
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northern France and the river Seine at Argenteuil, Louveciennes, Bougival, Marly, Sèvres and Moret. During
the 1870s Sisley, Monet and Pissarro worked together at
Argenteuil, Bougival, Louveciennes and Marly. One of
the circle of artists frequenting the Café Guerbois, Sisley
showed at the Salon des Refusés, and at four Impressionist exhibitions (1874, 1876, 1877, 1882). In 1870, after his
father’s business failed, he suffered financial hardship. In
1880 he settled at Veneux-Nadon near Moret-sur-Loing.
Late in life his work began to receive the recognition it
deserved, although it was not until after his death that the
tide turned in favour of his paintings.
Art
Observe the reflections in the water in this painting. Put
a paintbrush in a glass of water. Notice how the water distorts the brush and observe its reflections, making a series
of rapid sketches, noting the changes.
Geography
Discuss transport on canals and the function and design
of barges.
Identify the flags of Europe.
English
Imagine the scene covered in snow. The canal would be
frozen, with children ice-skating on it. How would fuel
be transported from town to village? Use interesting visual
adjectives and adverbs to describe this landscape.
Suggested Projects
• The pictures in this Resource show different
techniques and expressive brushwork. Experiment
with marks in painting, using different-sized
paintbrushes. Explore colour and texture by using
different textured papers in a range of colours.
• Impressionist artists often illustrated the same subject
and motif, e.g. Cézanne painted Mont SainteVictoire over and over again. Select a subject and
work on it for a series of artworks.
45
12. Boy Eating Cherries, 1895
Artist: Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947)
Medium, support and size: oil on board, 52 x 41 cm
Presented in 1982. NGI 4356
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2013
Does this painting have an emotional impact, create memories or remind you of your childhood?
Describe the atmosphere and discuss the conservation in
this painting.
The Painting: Boy Eating Cherries, 1895
This is one of several small close-up studies painted on
board of family members at mealtimes, which Bonnard
executed of his sister’s first child, Jean (b.1892) and his
grandmother (Bonnard’s mother). The work is likely to
have been undertaken at Le Grand-Temps in south-east
France, where the grandmother lived and the extended
family gathered during holidays. Painted in the summer
of 1895, when the child was three years old, Jean sits comfortably at the table, wearing a blue and white chequered
shirt, while his grandmother oversees his meal. He is eating
red cherries spread out on the tablecloth as he muses over
which one he will have next. The artist paints a sympathetic portrait of the grandmother, grey hair framing her
face as she looks on with amusement at the child’s game.
The structure of the painting and its decorative qualities
are paramount as the artist focuses on the child at the table,
framed by the profile of the grandmother, with emphasis
placed on the decorative pattern of blue on white china,
the chequered shirt and background wallpaper. Bonnard
spent most of his life preoccupied with exploring the quiet
isolation of domestic interior scenes painted in an intimist
style, of which this is an example.
Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947)
Son of a War Ministry official, Bonnard studied law but
when he passed his examinations in 1888 he was already attending the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian,
where he met Paul Sérusier (1864–1927), Maurice Denis
(1870–1943) and Jean-Édouard Vuillard. He found Impressionism a liberating force. By 1890 he was evolving his own
individual style through a close study of Japanese art, the
work of Sérusier, and Gauguin’s work at the Café Volpini
(1889). A member of the Nabis group of artists, Bonnard
shared the group’s commitment to the applied arts. In the
46
1890s and 1900s his work was divided between painting,
decorative and graphic design. His early paintings included
intimate views of Paris but after 1912, when he moved to a
villa in his home village of Veronnet, his themes expanded
and his colour became richer. In 1925 he moved south to Le
Cannet near Cannes, where he painted familiar domestic
subjects and surroundings. In 1925, when he married Maria Boursin, he painted reflective and nude studies of her,
emerging as a leading colourist of his time. Mme Bonnard
died in 1942 and the will he devised caused complications
that kept his works from view and distribution.
Art
Look at intimate portraits of family and friends created by
other artists. Compare nineteenth-century family portraits
with modern portrait images.
SPHE/Home Economics
Discuss this painting (and the work by Gonzalès) in relation to the family. Analyse the different roles that family
members play. Explain the nuclear and the extended family.
English
Ask the students to write and draw as a storyboard the
sequence of events leading up to and after this scene at
the table.
Maths
Primary students can expand on the description of the
project and work on pattern and shapes from the ‘Shape
and Space’ strand of the Mathematics curriculum.
Suggested Projects
• Research and create a family tree as a striking visual
piece, using paint, collage, photomontage and
drawing, or make a three-dimensional tree using clay,
with family names or photographs on it.
• Abandon the pencil for the brush and create
spontaneous paintings, using figures in the classroom,
based on observation and without preliminary
drawings.
• Look at how Bonnard created patterns and surface
textures. Using samples of patterned materials
(curtains, tablecloths), recreate the patterns using
paint and mix it to closely match the colours.
47
13. Lady on the Terrace, 1898
Artist: Paul Victor Jules Signac (1863–1935)
Explore the picture, listing every single colour, and paint
them in the form of a colour card.
Discuss warm and cold colours and the mood and atmosphere of this picture.
The Painting: Lady on the Terrace, 1898
Signac began painting this picture in August 1898, based
at his home in Saint-Tropez in the South of France, where
he had moved in 1892 following the death of his friend
Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859–1891). Signac and his wife,
Berthe, built the Italian-style terrace to enjoy the views.
The composition is structured around strong horizontal
lines balanced by the vertical figure of Berthe (posing as
the model), the tall cypress trees and the towers. The artist employs a palette of both cold and warm colours: rich
green, warm pink and violet in the foreground, cool blue
and mauve on the mountains. The shadows are composed
of dark green, blues and mauve placed beside each other.
On his early visits to the Mediterranean (1887 and 1889), he
had been surprised to find the light refreshingly white and
luminous. Leaving behind his analytical approach to light
and colour in the 1890s, he began to treat his subjects with
more freedom, painting small sketches for his canvases,
working outdoors on studies and completing them in the
studio. His oil paintings became more decorative and classical. This painting demonstrates Signac’s later style which
developed into a looser and freer, less systematic and more
decorative form of Divisionism.
Paul Victor Jules Signac (1863–1935)
Signac is associated with Neo-Impressionism. He lived in
Paris until 1892, when he moved to Saint-Tropez. His early
art was self-taught as he left the Lycée in 1882 to paint on
the quaysides and to study Impressionism. He met Seurat
in 1884, Pissarro in 1885, and Van Gogh in 1886. Seurat
had been exploring colour from a scientific viewpoint,
developing a method known variously as Divisionism
(Seurat’s term), Pointillism and Neo-Impressionism (its familiar term). He introduced a non-Impressionist element
of formal design and his method was debated as being a
48
break from Impressionism or a systematic arrangement of
spectrum colours. In 1886 Signac began to paint in small
dots (points), using separate mosaic-like touches of pure
colour, and although his technique broadened greatly in
later years, he remained loyal to this method throughout
his life. He represented this method as the major development of the century in his book D’Eugène Delacroix au
Néo-Impressionnisme (1899). Mainly a landscapist, Signac
painted some figure paintings before 1900; however, as an
avid traveller, ships and harbour scenes, in watercolours
and oils, form a large body of his work.
Art
Discuss Signac’s use and application of colour, contrasting
it with the Impressionists. How are they similar and different? (Signac’s is more controlled and systematic). Explain
optical mixing.
Geography
Identify the countries and regions surrounding the Mediterranean Sea. Discuss their climate, lifestyles and crops
(e.g. olives, grapes, oranges, cork).
Explore the interdependence and interrelatedness of people in Ireland and France. How were communities connected? Has this changed? Was there any trade between
the countries? Has this developed?
Discuss the location of the two countries, Ireland and
France, the distance between them and the different ways
of travelling between the countries.
Science
Explain how the eye works and how we see colour.
History
Discuss the history of the Mediterranean and its role for
merchants and travellers of ancient times in enabling trade
and cultural exchange between peoples. This region is important in understanding the origins and development of
many modern societies.
Suggested Projects
• Ask the students to create a painting using a
Pointillist dotting technique or to use small pieces of
torn paper to create a Pointillist collage.
• Find images of an interesting skyline. Recreate a
favourite image using a single combination of warm
or cool colours. Use dark blues and purples instead of
blacks for shadows and darker areas.
49
14. Rooftops in Paris also known as Vue de Paris
aux Environs de Montmartre, 1886
Artist: Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)
Medium, support and size: oil on canvas, 45.6 x 38.5 cm
How does this differ from Van Gogh’s best known bright
and colourful work?
What Impressionist artists would have been exhibiting in
Paris about 1886?
The Painting: Rooftops in Paris also known as
Vue de Paris aux Environs de Montmartre, 1886
This is one of four related views of Paris painted by Van
Gogh when he was 33, shortly after his arrival in the city
in 1886, where his brother Théo had been living since 1878.
Executed in spring 1886 (the year of the final Impressionist exhibition), when his style was rooted in the sombre
palette of the Dutch Realist tradition, it is similar to the
tones of the French naturalist painters, Jules Adolphe
Aimé Louis Breton (1827–1906) and Jean-François Millet (1814–1875). The two brothers shared Théo’s apartment
in Rue de Laval, Montmartre, before moving to a larger
apartment on Rue Lepic, where Van Gogh remained until
he left for Arles. The rooftops of the city are illustrated
from the Butte de Montmartre, with the towers of the
Palais de Trocadéro visible in the distance. Equal proportions of sky and landscape divide the painting as vigorous
brushwork is employed on the buildings, roofs and trees,
the chimneys picked out in warm colours. His fascination
with capturing the cloudy grey sky reflects his admiration
for cloud studies by John Constable (1776–1837). When
Van Gogh encountered Impressionist painting late in 1886,
he realised the potential of colour and design, and his style
gradually changed as brighter colours appeared in his work
that winter.
Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890)
The Post-Impressionist painter Van Gogh was the son of a
Dutch Protestant minister. Having tried various careers –
the art trade (three of the minister’s brothers were art dealers), teaching, the ministry and missionary work – he became a painter. About 1880 he began drawing, influenced
by the social realism of working-class life. He worked in
Brussels, The Hague, Neunen and Antwerp, receiving
encouragement from Anton Rudolf Mauve in 1883. His
50
brother, Théo, was in the art-dealing business, directing
the Paris branch of Goupil, and provided Vincent with a
regular allowance. He joined Théo in Paris in 1886, where
he met many artists – Gauguin, Bernard, Signac, Pissarro
and Toulouse-Lautrec – just as the sight of Impressionist
and Neo-Impressionist paintings and Japanese prints affected a change in his previously dark-toned work. Seeking
warmth and colour, he went south to Arles in 1888, where
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) stayed with him
from October until Van Gogh’s breakdown in December
1888. Working avidly, using a bright colourful palette and
powerful brushstrokes, he lived in the hospital at SaintRémy from May 1889 to May 1890. His final move was to
Auvers in northern France under Dr Paul Gachet’s care,
where he died by his own hand in July 1890.
Art
Compare and contrast the early and late work of Van
Gogh, noting the difference in subject matter, technique
and palette range. What caused his work to change?
Science
Discuss the effect of pollution at Junior Certificate Science
and Leaving Certificate Chemistry level. Explore it as part
of a Transition Year programme. How is the sky different
in the city from the country?
English
Write about Van Gogh’s character and personality, noting
how the challenges and changes in his life (early and later
well-known paintings) were expressed in his work. What
was he like on arrival in Paris and what paintings might
he have seen? When did it all change? This could form a
Senior Cycle research project to gain an understanding of
the language of information and the importance of writing
for a purpose.
Plan and produce an arts TV programme in Junior and Senior Cycle aimed at young people, based on the life of Van
Gogh. Discuss the impact of the challenges and strains on
the artist taking account of the young people who might
view the programme.
History
Discuss this landscape and its main features. Is it urban or
rural? How might that landscape (cityscape) have changed
or stayed the same over time?
Link the portrayal of the structure and development of the
city of Paris and its streetscapes in Impressionist art with
one of the options in Leaving Certificate History.
Suggested Projects
• Make a three-dimensional, bird’s-eye view of a
town or city using paper and card. Photograph the
cardboard city from above, noting areas of light and
shadow.
• Colour and expressive brushwork make the rooftops
lively. Draw or paint a scene with buildings in
black and white, using two colours and a variety of
brushstrokes to bring the picture to life.
• Draw the view from a bedroom window, including
the window frame. Photograph the view from the
classroom window and compare viewpoints.
51
15. La Montagne Sainte-Victoire from Les Lauves,
near Aix-en-Provence, 1902–1904
Artist: Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
Medium, support and size: graphite and watercolour on
paper, 47.5 x 61.5 cm
Presented by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty in 1954. NGI 3300
Discuss the structure and composition of this landscape.
Why did the artist use so little paint and leave so much of
the picture bare?
The Painting: La Montagne Sainte-Victoire from
Les Lauves, near Aix-en-Provence, 1902–1904
Cézanne painted the Montagne Sainte-Victoire in his native Aix-en-Provence numerous times during the latter
part of his life, in thinly laid touches of pure colour in oil
and in watercolour, resulting in the mountain becoming
synonymous with the artist. This late work illustrates a
panorama of houses, trees and fields stretching across to
the spectacular north face of the mountain, viewed from
Les Lauves, where his studio was completed in 1902. A
few pencil lines have been combined with several drawn
by brush in order to trace the structure of his mountain.
Despite the importance of colour to Cézanne, it has been
applied sparingly and separately to build up the composition gradually into the shape of the mountain. The scene
is infused with a sense of spiritual contemplation. Each of
these landscapes is equally distinctive in depicting a different aspect of this particular mountain, illustrating the
grandeur the artist could impart to a simple motif. The
white of the paper is as significant as the light touches of
green, blue, pink and yellow watercolour in conveying the
feeling of space, enhanced by the balanced rhythms of the
surface pattern, demonstrating Cézanne’s great achievement in integrating nature with art.
Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)
The son of a hat-maker turned banker in Aix-en-Provence,
where a childhood friend was Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (1840–1902), celebrated novelist and critic. In
1861 Cézanne went to Paris to study, failing the exam at the
École des Beaux-Arts but gaining training at the Académie
Suisse, where he met Pissarro, who introduced him to the
circle of artists at the Café Guerbois. He participated in
two Impressionist exhibitions (1874, 1877), soon diverging
from the group to develop a greater concern for form and
space. For most of his life Cézanne worked partly around
52
Paris and partly in Provence, exhibiting his work rarely.
Alongside portraits, landscapes and still-life painting from
nature, Cézanne continued to paint imaginary subjects,
the romantic figure scenes of earlier years giving way to
monumental compositions of bathers. He not only sought
to make something solid and durable of Impressionism,
like the art of the museums, but began the inquiries that
led in time to Cubism and Fauvism. Although considered
one of the greatest painters of the twentieth century, recognition came late and it was Cézanne’s retrospective exhibition of 1907, the year after his death, which established his
importance and extended his influence.
Art
Artists use watercolour for preparatory sketches, preliminary studies and finished pictures. Explore the differences
between pastel, watercolour, acrylic and oil paint.
Religion
It has been suggested that Cézanne’s works evoke a sense of
peace, calm and spiritual contemplation. Discuss spirituality and how it can be achieved in works of art.
English
Initiate a formal analysis of the painting by describing the
lines, colours and shapes (ignore subject matter) and discuss the feelings the work evokes by using words like bare,
spacious, minimalist, contours, brushstrokes, delicate,
calm and mysterious.
Suggested Projects
• Devote a class to watercolour painting without using
white paint. Water helps to make colours lighter
and the white of the page can be maintained for
highlights.
• Encourage the students to change the angle of the
subject several times when painting, as it causes subtle
distortions in perspective and space. Arrange the
students in a circle around a still-life, moving from
chair to chair at intervals.
53
Art Terms: Some Words to Describe Works of Art
Patternmodel/pose featuresemotion
Decorativeimagination
anatomy context
Shape/Form skill
drawing/designhard/soft
Painterly likeness
expressioncanvas
Colour
natural/artificialreal/realisticcollage
Style/Stylisation
shadow/shading
movement illustrator
Techniquesculpture
pigment balance
Sketch fashion
rhythmtexture
Volume
line/linear
compositioncrosshatching
Horizon
cold/cool colours
warm/hot colours
mood
Pastels
loose/free
tight/controlled
tone primary
Light/highlightallude/suggest
define/outline still-life
Portrait
seascape
landscape
open-air painting
Visual Literacy Art Term Projects
• Use some of these art terms to encourage visual
literacy.
Useful References for Impressionism
Blühm A. (editor), Masters of Impressionism: a history of
painting from 1874 to 1926, Hatje Cantz, 2008.
• Photocopy them.
Bomford D., J. Kirby, J. Leighton & A. Roy, Art in the
Making: Impressionism, National Gallery Publications,
1990.
• Cut up the words and use them in individual and
group work.
• Display the art terms around the classroom, with
student-made responses to each term.
• Give the students a theme for a collage using art
terms. Select the words carefully so the theme of the
collage can be understood.
• Ask the students to describe and explain the collage.
• Circulate the art terms with images of paintings,
asking students to apply the words that best describe
the artworks.
• Ask the students to discuss and describe the artwork
to the class.
• Suggest the students make an artwork using two
colours in response to an art term. Exhibit the works
on the class wall so the different responses can be
studied.
• Ask each student to discuss their choice of art term,
the reason they selected their colours and what they
feel is the effect of painting using just two colours.
NGI online Resources at www.nationalgallery.ie/learning:
1. Bourke M., Impressionism at the National Gallery of
Ireland, National Gallery of Ireland, 2013.
2. Bourke M., and S. Edmondson, Irish Artists Painting
in France c.1860-1910, National Gallery of Ireland, 2013.
Explore the National Gallery of Ireland website at
www.nationalgallery.ie and the online collections and
resources of other major art galleries and museums.
54
Brettell R. R., Impression, Painting Quickly in France
1860-1890, National Gallery Publications/Yale, 1999.
Davis C. (editor), National Gallery of Ireland Essential
Guide, 2008.
Denvir B., The Chronicle of Impressionism, Thames and
Hudson, 2000.
Gaunt W., The Impressionists, Thames & Hudson,
reprinted 2003.
House J., Impressionism, Paint and Politics, Yale
University Press, 2004.
Le Harivel A. (editor), Taking Stock: Acquisitions 2000–
2010, National Gallery of Ireland, 2010.
Lemoine S. (editor), Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay,
Thames & Hudson, 2004.
Mayes E. (editor), Monet, Renoir and the Impressionist
Landscape, National Gallery of Ireland/Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston, 2002.
McLean J. (editor), Impressionist Interiors, National
Gallery of Ireland, 2008.
McConkey K., Impressionism in Britain, Yale/Barbican
Art Gallery, 1995.
Munro M., French Impressionists, Cambridge University
Press, 2003.
O’Neill J. P. (editor), American Impressionism and
Realism. Paintings of Modern Life 1885–1915, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1995.
55
Acknowledgements
Art teachers: Caroline Bond, Sarah Edmondson, Ailbhe Garvey,
Niamh Garvey.
BNP Paribas Foundation and BNP Paribas Ireland: Roseanne
Connolly, Ann d’Aboville, Gilles de Decker de Brandeken,
Melanie Devine, Christiane Marier-Orlowski.
Department of Education and Skills: Amanda Geary, Clare
Griffin, Pádraigh Mac Fhlannchadha and Breda Naughton.
National Gallery of Ireland: Joanne Drum, Lydia Furlong,
Roy Hewson, Valerie Keogh, Niamh MacNally, Janet McLean,
Simone Mancini, Andrew Moore, Louise Morgan, Orla O’Brien,
Caoilte O’Mahony, Sean Rainbird and the Digital Media Team:
Claire Crowley, Andrea Lydon, Catherine Ryan, Catherine
Sheridan.
Readers: Aoife Kenny, Audrey Nicholls.
The Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.
Published in 2013 by
The National Gallery of Ireland
Merrion Square West
Dublin 2
Ireland
Text Copyright © Marie Bourke and the National Gallery
of Ireland 2013.
All photos © National Gallery of Ireland.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the National
Gallery of Ireland.
ISBN 978-1-904288-49-7
Designer: Jason Ellams
Copy Editor: Ken Chambers, KTCProofing.com
Printed in Ireland by: Hudson Killeen
Cover: Claude-Oscar Monet (1840–1926)
Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat, 1874 (detail).
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland.
Back cover: Eva Gonzalès (1849–1883)
Children Playing on Sand Dunes, Grandcamp, 1877–1878 (detail)
Photo © National Gallery of Ireland.
Detail of Bonnard’s Boy Eating Cherries
© ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2013
56
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Impressionism at the National Gallery of Ireland

Transcription

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