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Chapter 37: The Rise of Bourgeois Culture Living the Good Life

The “Haussmannization” of Paris

•Emperor Napoleon III named Georges-Eugène Haussmann (1809-1891) to modernize Paris, beginning in 1853.

•Housing, sanitation, and transportation were carefully planned.

•The result is the open, organized, modern Paris that exists today.

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Felix Thorigny. Demolition of the rue de la Barillerie to allow for construction of the Boulevard Sebastopol, Paris, 1st

arrondissement. 1859.

The Re-making of Paris

•The modernization involved:

•urban redevelopment based on wide-scale destruction of existing structures

•the development of public parks within the city

•the banning of large-scale industry from the city

•Paris became a city of leisure, and a symbol of social and cultural innovation, enjoying a high standard of art, theatre, and literature.

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Camille Pissarro, Avenue de l’Opera, Sunlight, Winter Morning, 1880

Political Upheavals

•Louis-Napoleon’s imperial ambitions had led to intervention in Mexican politics, which had ended badly, eroding his popularity. (1867)

•War between France and Prussia broke out, ending in humiliating defeat for the French. (1870)

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The Société anonyme, 1873

•The Société anonyme was founded by a group of young artists to revive French art.

• Many writers called for artists to rebuild French culture, and for the arts to play a more active role in the politics, education and economy of France.

•They saw the École des Beaux Arts, France’s official Fine Arts Academy and its salons (exhibits) as part of the system that had led to the recent political disasters.

•The Société anonyme held exhibitions were held between 1874 and 1886.

Features of Impressionism

• Painting in plein air was a feature of the new society

• Plein Air refers to painting outdoors, rather than the centuries old method of sketching outside and then painting in a studio. It is “on sight” painting. It was became popular, in part, because for the first time artists had portable metallic tubes of paint rather than having the laborious job of grinding their own paint and

mixing it. Also, the tubes kept unused paint from drying out.

• It was the natural effects of light that most interested the Impressionists. Because the artist was outside, he could paint the effects of light in a more detailed way. Impressionists were the first to paint, for example, the way light filters through leaves, how light changes throughout the day, and how that affects one’s view of the landscape, or a building and its shadows.

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Impressionist Features, cont.

• Abandoning the traditional environment of the studio, these artists emphasized spontaneity and improvisation. Every painting had to be quick and deliberately sketchy in order to capture the ever-changing effects of light in the natural setting.

• The present moment was the subject. The object(s) was less important than the color and the light of that moment.

• The fleeting quality of sensory experience was paramount.

• Impressionists also use varieties of colors within shadows. They were not the first to do this, but theirs is the most radical use of this technique.

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1873, Oil on canvas, 19 5/8” by 25 ½”

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Impression: Sunrise by Monet

• The name “Impressionism” came from this painting. It was first a derogatory term used by critics. 19th Century critics initially hated Impressionism because they did not know how to “read” it. We may be too familiar with it today to grasp how confusing it was to the 19th century eye.

Monet’s “Series” Works •Monet’s “series” paintings show the same

subject under differing conditions, each work a fragment of a whole reality. He wanted to capture a whole subject, by capturing its existence in individual moments and circumstances.

•His Grainstacks series was exhibited to great acclaim in 1891.

•Other subjects, including poplar trees, Rouen Cathedral, and most famously, Water Lilies, received similar treatments.

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Claude Monet, Grainstacks (End of Summer), 1890, oil on canvas

Claude Monet, Grainstacks (End of Summer, Morning) 1890, oil on canvas

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Claude Monet, Grainstack (Snow Effect), 1891, oil on canvas, 25 ¾” by 36 3/8”

Claude Monet, Grainstack (Snow Effect, Sunset), 1891, Oil on

canvas

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Claude Monet, Grainstack (Sunset), 1891

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Auguste Renoir

•Renoir was interested in human figures, not landscapes.

• The Industrial Revolution created a middle class that, for the first time in human history, had the money and means for leisure time.

•Renoir sometimes painted people he knew. His portraits required clarity, outlines and detail that other Impressionist works did not.

Auguste Renoir (Ah-goost Ren-wah) Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1881, Oil on canvas, 51” by 68”

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Edgar Degas (Day-gah) • His Ballet Dancers series comprises almost half of his paintings.

• He rarely showed the dancers on stage performing. He was more interested in classes, rehearsals, pre or post-performance.

• Degas was interested in the casual, “unposed” scenes, which were not always graceful.

• Degas was influenced by photography.

• His paintings capture situations like photography does. Like photos, sometimes the figures are cut off at the edge of the painting. The figures are not kept within the frame, which was very radical at the time.

• Degas also sometimes leaves empty space in the middle of his paintings. His paintings are more of the present moment of reality being captured, rather than the traditional drafted, planned, and composed artworks before him.

• Degas also catches scenes in movement. In the next moment, the space will look different, which is a very Impressionistic theme.

• His paintings unnerved the academic, traditional painters and critics.

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Edgar Degas, Dance Class, 1874 Oil on canvas

32 ¾” by 30 ¼”

Japanese Influences on Impressionist Painters

• Subjects shows everyday urban life.

• Cut off objects, layers of objects at different depths

• Similar use of foreground framing device

Edgar Degas, Racecourse, Amateur Jockeys 1877-1880

Ando Hiroshige, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo.

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Edgar Degas, The

Absinthe Drinker, 1876 oil on canvas

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Mary Cassatt (Kuh-sott)

•Cassatt was born near Pittsburgh, PA.

• She studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, beginning at age 15 (1861 – 65) before she went off to tour Europe

• She lived most of her life in Paris

• Like Berthe Morisot, her subject matter was limited by her gender. Her scenes often reflect domestic life, and often focus on the bonds of mother and child.

Mary Cassatt, The Bath,

1893

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Édouard Manet, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère. 1881–1882, oil on canvas

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Chi-kof-skee) (1840-1893)

•Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer.

•In Russia, his music was often considered too cosmopolitan and too affected by “Western” influences.

•His 1812 Overture, and his music for the ballets of Swan Lake (1876), Sleeping Beauty (1889), and The Nutcracker (1892) remain among the most famous and often-performed works by any Russian composer.

•Link to: Last Part of 1812 Overture

Link to:

From the Nutcracker: Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy