Claude Monet

Claude Monet
(1840–1926)
Contents
The Highlights
LUNCHEON ON THE GRASS
SELF PORTRAIT WITH A BERET
THE TERRACE AT SAINTE-ADRESSE
WOMEN IN THE GARDEN
BATHERS-AT-LA-GRENOUILLÈRE
ON THE BANK OF THE SEINE, BENNECOURT
THE MAGPIE
POPPIES BLOOMING
WOMAN WITH A PARASOL
IMPRESSION, SUNRISE
GARE SAINT LAZARE, ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN
IN THE WOODS AT GIVERNY BLANCHE HOSCHEDÉ
HAYSTACKS, (SUNSET)
ROUEN CATHEDRAL, FAÇADE (SUNSET)
BRIDGE OVER A POND OF WATER LILIES
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON
WATER LILIES
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE
NYMPHEAS
THE ROSE-WAY IN GIVERNY
The Paintings
THE PAINTINGS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS
The Biography
THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS by Camille Mauclair
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
© Delphi Classics 2014

Version 2
Masters of Art Series
Claude Monet
By Delphi Classics, 2014

COPYRIGHT
Masters of Art - Claude Monet

First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by Delphi Classics.
© Delphi Classics, 2014.
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, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher,
nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is published.
ISBN: 978 1 90890 992 3
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The Highlights
Monet was born on the fifth floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris
Claude Monet and his wife Camille Doncieux Monet, c.1860
THE HIGHLIGHTS
In this section, a sample of Monet’s most celebrated works is provided, with concise introductions,
special ‘detail’ reproductions and additional biographical images.
LUNCHEON ON THE GRASS
Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 in Paris; he was the second
son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet. Five
years later, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy, where his father
intended him to go into the family's ship-chandling and grocery business.
However, the young Monet had very different plans. He wanted to become
an artist and his mother, an accomplished singer, supported his desire for a
career in art.
On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts,
where he became renowned for his charcoal caricatures, which he would
sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons
from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of the Neo-Classical
master Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy, he became
acquainted with his fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor
and introduced him to oil paints. It is believed that Boudin also taught him
"en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting — a later important
convention for the Impressionists.
On 28 January 1857, Monet’s mother died suddenly. At the age of
sixteen, he left school and went to live with his widowed, childless aunt,
Marie-Jeanne Lecadre. On his arrival in Paris, he visited the Louvre and
witnessed many painters copying from the old masters. Having brought his
paints and other tools with him, he would instead go and sit by a window
and paint what he saw outside. Monet remained in Paris for several years
and met other pioneering painters, including Édouard Manet and future
Impressionists.
Luncheon on the Grass, which Monet completed in 1865 at the age of
25, is now considered by many to be his first youthful masterpiece. Heavily
inspired by Édouard Manet’s 1863 painting Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, which
caused great scandal in the Parisian art world, Monet’s painting portrays a
similar scene. Five well-to-do Parisians are enjoying the summer weather
in the shade of a light-hearted picnic, located in the Fontainebleau Forest,
just outside of Paris. The experimental use of light, shadows and the
blurring of natural shapes, such as the leaves, have been identified as
precursors to Impressionism, which would later infuse the artist’s work.
Monet had hoped the painting would achieve recognition at the Paris
Salon, as Manet had done in his previous work. However, due to financial
difficulties, which would go on to plague him throughout his younger years
as an artist, Monet had to sell the painting to a creditor, who kept it locked
up and unseen in a cellar for many years.
Detail
Detail
Detail
‘Le déjeuner sur l’herbe’ by Édouard Manet, 1863
The Forest of Fontainebleau, where Monet worked on this painting
‘Forest of Fontainebleau’ by Paul Cézanne, 1892
SELF PORTRAIT WITH A BERET
Disillusioned with the traditional art taught at art schools, Monet became a
student of Charles Gleyre in Paris, where he met Pierre-Auguste Renoir,
Frédéric Bazille and Alfred Sisley. Together they shared new approaches to
art, painting the effects of light en plein air with broken colour and rapid
brushstrokes, in what would later be known as Impressionism.
Now privately owned, the following portrait was completed by 1886 and
is the first known self-portrait of the artist. In the painting, Monet gazes
directly at the viewer, exhibiting his confidence in his art, as well as his
personality, in a pose that is reminiscent of the great self-portrait Dutch
painter Rembrandt. The loose brushstrokes and unfinished appearance at
the corners demonstrate the artist’s advances into what would later be
termed Impressionism.
Detail
Detail
Detail
‘Self Portrait with Beret and Turned-Up Collar’, by Rembrandt, 1659
THE TERRACE AT SAINTE-ADRESSE
This painting depicts Monet’s family in the garden of their home at Sainte
Adresse, near Le Havre. Facing a view of Honfleur on the horizon, Monet
employed rapid, separate brushwork, blended with vibrant colour. The
painting portrays Monet’s father in the foreground, Monet’s cousin Jeanne
Marguérite Lecadre at the fence; Dr. Adolphe Lecadre, her father; and
Lecadre’s other daughter, Sophie, as the woman seated with her back to the
viewer. Monet’s relations with his father were tense at the time, owing to
the family’s disapproval of his liaison with Camille Doncieux, a model. The
stiff representation of the figures and looming dark clouds in the sky seem
to hint at the difficult time Monet had when staying with his family in the
summer of 1867. Unable to see his mistress, who just given birth to their
son, and disillusioned by his art not being recognised, Monet attempted
suicide shortly after completing the painting.
The brushwork is clearly looser than in earlier paintings, as demonstrated
by how the flowers, figures and sea are depicted, causing many critics to
label this work as a forerunner of Impressionism. The painting is divided
into three parts, including the terrace garden, the sea and the sky, which are
all counterpoised by the vertical lines of the two flags, adding to the
impressive compositional structure of the work.
The Terrace at Sainte-Adresse is now housed in the New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, after being purchased in 1967, with special
contributions given or bequeathed by friends of the Museum.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Sainte-Adresse, today
WOMEN IN THE GARDEN
Completed by 1867, this painting is now housed in Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

In the late 1860’s, Camille Doncieux (1847–1879) modelled for Monet on
several occasions and became his favoured model, though she also
modelled for Renoir and Manet. In Women in the Garden, Camille was the
model for all four women in the composition.
Monet had high hopes for this painting, which he began working on
outdoors, having dug an open trench, allowing him to work on the upper
areas, while still remaining outside. The painting was then finished in his
studio. Nevertheless, when submitted to the fastidious Salon, the work was
rejected, although success was drawing closer.
Camille and Monet were married in 1870 and she was a loyal and
dependable wife, helping Monet battle depression and his suicide attempt,
where he had tried to down himself in the Seine. Sadly, Camille died in her
early thirties, most likely of pelvic cancer or tuberculosis. Reportedly,
Monet painted her on her death bed.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Camille Doncieux by Renoir
The Musée d’Orsay, where many Impressionist masterpieces are now housed
Inside the museum
BATHERS-AT-LA-GRENOUILLÈRE
During the late 1860’s Monet’s financial situation became strained and he
found little solace, except for his close friendship with fellow artist Pierre-
Auguste Renoir. On 25 September 1869, Monet wrote in a letter to Frédéric
Bazille, “I do have a dream, a painting, the baths of La Grenouillère, for
which I have made some bad sketches, but it is only a dream. Renoir, who
has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting.”
La Grenouillère was a popular middle-class resort consisting of a spa, a
boating establishment and a floating café. It was promoted as ‘Trouville-
sur-Seine’ and was easily accessible by train from Paris. The resort had
recently been favoured with a visit by Emperor Napoleon III with his wife
and son. Monet and Renoir both recognised in La Grenouillère an ideal
subject for the images of leisure they hoped to sell.
Housed today in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bathers-at-
la-Grenouillère was completed in 1869 and is identified by many critics as
Monet’s ‘breakthrough’ piece. It is a bright and colourful portrayal of the
pleasures of a summer’s day, with Parisians enjoying themselves, rendered
by minimal brushstrokes. Monet had journeyed to La Grenouillère with
Renoir to prepare studies for his Salon paintings. No longer having the
financial means to execute large paintings, he produced this small
composition, using radical thick brushwork and completing the piece
outside –en plein air. Monet concentrates on repetitive elements, such as
the ripples on the water, the foliage, the boats and human figures, to arrange
a complex fabric of brushstrokes that convey a strong descriptive quality.
The canvas won instant recognition for the artist, fuelling his confidence
for future works that would challenge the Parisian art world’s pre-conceived
notions of an acceptable composition.
Detail
Detail
Detail
La Grenouillère, today
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
ON THE BANK OF THE SEINE,
BENNECOURT
Housed as part of the Potter Palmer Collection in The Art Institute of

Chicago, this painting was completed in 1868. It portrays Monet’s wife
Camille, peering across the Seine at the suburb of Bennecourt. The bold use
of colour, with stark contrasts of dark and light, underlines the artist’s
innovative approach; however, it is the elusive depiction of light and
reflection on the water that is for many the painting’s greatest
accomplishment.
Detail
Detail
Detail
THE MAGPIE
Created during the winter of 1868 in the countryside near the commune of
Étretat in Normandy, this painting is one of approximately 140 snowscapes
produced by Monet. The patron Louis Joachim Gaudibert helped arrange a
house in Étretat for Monet, Camille and their newborn son, allowing the
artist to paint in relative comfort, surrounded by his family.
The canvas depicts a solitary black magpie perched on a wattle fence as
the light of the sun shines upon freshly fallen snow, creating blue shadows.
The painting features one of the first examples of Monet’s use of coloured
shadows, which would later become a typical device used by the
Impressionists. Monet and the Impressionists used coloured shadows to
represent the actual, changing conditions of light and shadow as seen in
nature, challenging the academic convention of painting shadows black.
At the time of its composition, Monet’s innovative use of light and
colour led to the painting’s rejection by the Paris Salon of 1869. However,
critics now classify The Magpie as one of Monet’s greatest achievements.
The painting hangs in the Musée d’Orsay and is considered one of the most
popular paintings in their permanent collection.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Cliffs in the commune of Étretat, Normandy, close to the setting of the painting
POPPIES BLOOMING
Now housed at the Musee d’Orsay, this is one of several paintings by

Monet set in a poppy field. A woman and a child are seen, Camille and
their son Jean, walking towards the right foreground, in a field near
Argenteuil, where the poppies are vividly represented, making this one of
artist’s most distinctive images. Poppies blooming was painted in 1873 and
effectively evokes the atmosphere of a languid summer’s day. Monet’s
brushstrokes aim to capture the changing quality of light.
After returning from England, Monet had lived in Argenteuil from 1871
to 1878. The colourful landscape of the region allowed the artist to work en
plein air, which he had already experimented with in early works. This
painting reveals how passionate Monet was about his use of vibrant colours,
as shown by the lurid blobs of red to depict the poppies, which are scattered
across lush green fields.
Detail
Detail
Detail
WOMAN WITH A PARASOL
Completed by 1875, this painting now hangs in the National Gallery of Art,
Washington. Once more it depicts the artist’s wife Camille, holding a
parasol, while walking in a field near Argenteuil. Wistfully, she gazes
down at the viewer, establishing a stance of superiority and dominance,
whilst the much smaller figure of her son Jean also looks directly out of the
painting. Broad brushstrokes simply portray the clouds and flowers,
creating the impression of movement with the summer breeze, which stirs
Camille’s veil.
Detail
Detail
Detail
IMPRESSION, SUNRISE
This famous painting gave rise to the name of the Impressionist movement.
Completed by 1872, it depicts the harbour of Le Havre in France, with very
loose brushstrokes that suggest an impression of the scene, rather than a
realistic delineation of the subject. Monet later explained the purpose of the
painting in a letter:
“Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was
given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the
mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground....They asked me for a title for the
catalogue, it couldn’t really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: ‘Put Impression.’”
Impression, Sunrise was displayed in 1874 during the first independent

art show of a group of painters that would later be known as the
Impressionists. It was critic Louis Leroy’s hostile review of the show that
encouraged the naming of the new art movement, when he titled it “The
Exhibition of the Impressionists” in Le Charivari newspaper.
The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan Monet in 1985.
Five masked gunmen with pistols entered the museum and stole nine
paintings from the collection. All together they were valued at $12 million.
A tip-off led to the arrest in Japan of a Yakuza gangster named Shuinichi
Fujikuma, which then led to the recovery of the stolen paintings in a small
villa in Corsica in December 1990. Impression, Sunrise has been back on
display in Musée Marmottan Monet ever since.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Louis Leroy, whose hostile review inadvertently named the Impressionist art movement
Musée Marmottan Monet, rue Louis Boilly, Paris, where ‘Impression, Sunrise’ is on permanent
display
GARE SAINT LAZARE, ARRIVAL OF A TRAIN
Monet was keen to not only create images of the countryside, but also to
represent vivid impressions of urban life too. In 1877, the artist rented a
studio near the Gare Saint Lazare. At the time, the country was gripped by
railway frenzy, as stations were appearing in many places across the
country. One day, dressed in his best clothes, Monet visited the station.
Announcing himself as ‘Claude Monet the painter’ to the surprised train
workers, they assumed he was a great Salon artist, and immediately cleared
the station, so that he might paint undisturbed.
That same year he exhibited seven paintings of the railway station in an
Impressionist exhibition. These images demonstrated how impressionism
was a diverse style, which was not only concerned with floral compositions,
but could also be used to effectively portray a scene of busy city life. In the
following painting, Monet captures a single moment in time, where the
great clouds of billowing steam, the busy workers and the colossal train are
given a monumental appearance, celebrating the technology of the age.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Paris Saint-Lazare, one of the six large terminus train stations of Paris and now immortalised by the
artist
IN THE WOODS AT GIVERNY BLANCHE
HOSCHEDÉ
This painting was completed in 1887 and depicts Monet’s fellow artist
Blanche Hoschedé, who was both his stepdaughter and daughter-in-law.
Her mother, Alice Hoschedé, was the wife of a bankrupt department-store
owner. After Camille’s death, she lived with Monet and eight children in
Giverny, in what was deemed at the time a highly unconventional
relationship. They were only married in 1892, when Alice’s first husband
died. Blanche was the second daughter of Alice and she became an
accomplished artist, having been trained and encouraged by Monet.
In 1914, aged forty-nine, Blanche returned to live at Giverny. Unlike the
other women Impressionists, Blanche chose not to paint the domestic
interior, where women are depicted looking after children, sewing or
reading. Instead, Blanche chose to explore the countryside in her art,
painting landscapes and sensitive portrayals of nature.
For women artists, en plein air painting was a liberating medium. It was
a cheap and convenient option, when compared to renting a studio, hiring a
model and the academic conventions of large scale works. A landscape
painter’s equipment merely consisted of a field stool, a small easel, a canvas
umbrella and a travel box for brushes and paints and it meant the artist
could choose where and when she wished to work.
Blanche found it difficult to gain prominence in the art world due to her
gender, although she was actively supported by her father-in-law,
particularly by his respectful representation of her in his own paintings. In
the following image, Monet portrays Blanche at work, her palette in one
hand, whilst she paints with the other. Straight-backed and confident, she
works with determination. Her older sister Suzanne sits nearby, lounging
against a tree. Monet often depicted the women of his family engaged in
leisurely pursuits, but he tended to depict Blanche as being active and
painting, underlining his respect for her work.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Alice Hoschedé, Monet’s second wife
Blanche Hoschede by Monet, 1880
Monet beside Blanche
HAYSTACKS, (SUNSET)
This painting was completed by 1891 and is now housed in the Museum of
Fine Arts, Boston. It forms part of a series of paintings depicting stacks of
hay in fields near Monet’s home in Giverny. The series included twenty-five
works and was started in the summer of 1890 and continued through to the
following spring, culminating in that year’s harvest. Monet’s thematic use
of repetition allowed him to depict subtle differences in the perception of
light across various times of day, seasons and types of weather.
Monet had settled in Giverny in 1883 and from that time on, most of his
paintings, until his death 40 years later, portrayed scenes within two miles
of his home. The haystacks themselves were actually situated just outside
his front door. The artist was intensely fascinated by the visual nuances of
the region’s landscape and the variation in the seasons, which he strove to
depict the impression of perceiving in his work.
The haystacks depicted in this painting are from 15 to 20 foot and
functioned as storage facilities that preserved the wheat until stalk and chaff
could be more efficiently separated. The Norman method of storing hay
was to use hay as a cover to shield ears of wheat from the elements until
they could be threshed. The threshing machines traveled from village to
village. Thus, although the wheat was harvested in July it often took until
March for all the farms to be reached. These stacks became common in the
mid 19th century. This method survived for 100 years, until the inception of
combine harvesters. Although shapes of stacks were regional, it was
common for them to be round in the Paris basin and the region of
Normandy in which Giverny is situated.
The Haystacks series was a financial success. Fifteen of these paintings
were exhibited by Durand-Ruel in May 1891, and every painting sold
within days, for as much as 1,000 francs. Additionally, Monet’s prices in
general began to rise steeply. As a result, he was able to buy outright the
house and grounds at Giverny and to start constructing a water lily pond.
After years of financial difficulties, he was now able to enjoy success and
live comfortably.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Monet’s home at Giverny
ROUEN CATHEDRAL, FAÇADE (SUNSET)
This painting forms part of the Rouen Cathedral series, which depicts the
façade of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame at different times of the day and year,
reflecting changes in the edifice’s appearance under varying conditions.
Numbering more than thirty works in all, the series was begun in 1892 and
completed in Monet’s studio in 1894. The artist rented spaces across the
street from the cathedral, where he set up temporary studios for the purpose.
In 1895, he selected what he considered to be the twenty best paintings
from the series for display at his Paris dealer’s gallery and he had sold eight
of these works before the exhibition was over. Artists Pissarro and Cézanne
visited the exhibition and praised the Rouen Cathedral series highly.
Monet was keen to explore how light imparts a distinctly different
character to a subject at different times of the day and the year, which he
made a focal point of the series. By focusing on the same subject through a
whole series of paintings, Monet was able to concentrate on recording
visual sensations themselves. The subjects did not change, but the visual
sensations, due to the mutable conditions of light, changed constantly.
In the following painting, Monet portrays the cathedral at sunset, where
the bottom half of the canvas surrenders to dubious shadows, while the
Gothic architecture above is infused with the day’s dying light, creating a
sense of doomed grandeur. The subtle interweaving of colours, as well as
Monet’s keen perception and his brilliant use of texture, all serve to create a
poignant portrayal of the twilight hour.
Detail
Detail
Rouen cathedral, 1822
The cathedral today
BRIDGE OVER A POND OF WATER LILIES
This famous painting was completed in 1899 and is now one of the most
celebrated works in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. Previously
in 1893, Monet purchased land with a pond near his property in Giverny
and he began building a water-lily garden, which would provide suitable
motifs for him to include in his art. He enlisted the services of a Japanese
garden designer. Six years later, he began a series of eighteen views of the
wooden footbridge over the pond, that summer completing twelve
paintings, including the following image. The vertical format of the
composition, unusual in the rest of the series, gives prominence to the water
lilies and their myriad reflections on the pond.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Monet, with an unidentified visitor, in his garden at Giverny, 1922
The same bridge now
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON
This painting was completed in 1904 and is now housed in Musée

Marmottan Monet, Paris. Monet created a series of paintings of the Palace
of Westminster, home of the British Parliament, during his stays in London
between 1900 and 1905. The paintings all have the same size and viewpoint
from Monet’s window at St Thomas’ Hospital, overlooking the Thames. As
in Monet’s other series, these works are painted at different times of the day
and during varied weather circumstances, capturing the subtle differences of
perceiving the same scene.
At this time Monet had abandoned his earlier working practice of
completing a painting en plein air. He would now take the canvases back to
Giverny, where he continued refining the images. Therefore he had to send
to London for photographs to help with the final preparations of the series.
Although criticised harshly by some for this process, the artist was adamant
it was ‘his own business’ how he went about his work, also arguing it was
up to the viewer to judge the final result for themselves.
Detail
Detail
Detail
St Thomas’ Hospital, where Monet painted the series
Palace of Westminster, today
WATER LILIES
Monet’s series of Water Lilies is composed of approximately 250 oil

paintings, which depict his flower garden at Giverny. The series was the
main focus of Monet’s artistic production during the last thirty years of his
life. The majority of the works were created when the artist had very poor
eyesight, due to his suffering from cataracts, which partly explains their
enigmatic and unusual colouring.
During the 1920s, the state of France built a pair of oval rooms at the
Musée de l’Orangerie as a permanent home for eight water lily murals by
Monet. The exhibit opened to the public on 16 May 1927, a few months
after Monet’s death. Sixty water lily paintings from around the world were
assembled for a special exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie in 1999.
Many of Monet’s water lily paintings have commanded enormous sums of
money at auctions, as they are now identified as being among the most
celebrated works of the twentieth century.
The following example is just one of the many images that comprise this
beautiful series of paintings. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago, it was
completed by 1906 and portrays an enticing mix of water and reflection,
while flowers seem to drift peacefully in the bottom section of the canvas.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Musée de l’Orangerie
THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE
Painted in 1908, this painting is one Monet’s most accomplished works to

emerge from his series of paintings in Venice. Monet journeyed to the old
city in the autumn of that year. The series comprised 37 canvases, featuring
a dozen different views, taken within a short distance of each another. This
painting, now housed in Boston, depicts the famous church Santa Maria
della Salute, beside the Grand Canal, Venice’s main waterway and an
inspiration for artists over hundreds of years.
Monet was 68 when he discovered Venice. He had already been in Italy,
but no further than Bordighera on the Riviera. The opportunity afforded by
an invitation from his English friend Mary Hunter persuaded him to make
the journey. He and his second wife Alice stayed in the Barbaro Palace on
the Grand Canal.
Once he saw the city, Monet was “gripped by Venice”. After several
days looking for locations, he felt an urge to paint. According to Monet, he
believed he only delved in “trials and beginnings” in Venice. Although the
canvases were finished afterwards in his studio, they do not have the same
impasto as other works. The suite of Venetian views he created suggest the
pictures a tourist would like to bring home.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Monet with his second wife Alice, Venice, October, 1908
The Santa Maria della Salute, today
NYMPHEAS
This painting was completed in 1915 and is housed in Neue Pinakothek,

Munich. It portrays the reflection of a willow tree, which hangs above the
water, its lush leaves merging with the water lilies. The chromatic intensity
of the blues, greens and complimentary pinks provide a rich texture that
seems to shimmer on the water’s surface.
Detail
Detail
Detail
Monet in his garden, 1917
THE ROSE-WAY IN GIVERNY
Completed by 1920, this canvas depicts a path beneath a large rose arch in
Monet’s garden at Giverny. Being a creative project that occupied half his
life, the garden became the principal subject of his later paintings. The
following image was created when the artist was 80 years old and
demonstrates how he continued to paint with extraordinary freedom, in
spite of his failing eyesight.
The Rose-Way in Giverny offers a glorious assortment of colours,
creating an almost hypnotic effect in their abstract quality. Monet embraced
the fashionable interest in Japanese art of the time, decorating the walls of
his house with Oriental prints and building the now-famous Japanese bridge
in his garden. The influence of Japanese motifs can also be detected in this
vibrant mesh of brushstrokes. The use of thick paint and strange
combinations of colour are partly the result of his failing eyesight,
expressing a visual representation of Monet’s struggle to accept his
imminent blindness.
Fortunately, Monet had a precise memory for colours and he would ask
his stepdaughter, fellow artist Blanche, for each colour by its name before
he applied it to the canvas. In 1922, Monet had to stop his work altogether,
but in the following year he had an operation that partially restored his
sight, allowing him to continue with his art. However, his sight now had a
strange veiled quality, distorting the colours he perceived. Sadly, he lost his
eyesight completely in 1926, shortly before his death. What he left behind,
though, was one of the most extraordinary series of paintings the world has
ever seen.
Detail
Detail
Detail
The Paintings
Claude Monet, 1880
THE PAINTINGS IN CHRONOLOGICAL
ORDER
CONTENTS
1850s
1860s
1870s
1880s
1890s
1900s
1910s
1920s
Index of Paintings
1850s
Woodgatherers at the Edge of the Forest
59.7 x 92 cm
c. 1857
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Fontainebleau Forest
50 x 65 cm
1856
Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Winterthur
View of Rouelles
46 x 65 cm
1858
Private Collection
1860s
Still Life with Pheasant
76 x 62.5 cm
1861
Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen, Rouen
Farmyard in Normandy
65 x 80 cm
c. 1861
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Still Life with Meat
24 x 32 cm
1862
Still Life with Bottle, Bread and Wine
40.5 x 59.5 cm
1862
Private collection
Hunting Trophy
104 x 75 cm
1862
Farmyard near Honfleur
38 x 46 cm
1864
Private collection
La Chapelle de Notre-Dame-de Grace,
Honfleur
52 x 68 cm
1864
Private collection
Towing of a Boat at Honfleur
55.5 x 82 cm
1864
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester
La Rue de La Bavolle at Honfleur
58 x 63 cm
1864
Stadstische Kunsthalle Mannheim , Mannheim
Seaside at Honfleur
60 x 81 cm
1864
Los Angeles Museum of Art, Los Angeles
Boatyard near Honfleur
57 x 81 cm
1864
Private collection
La Pointe de la Hève
41 x 73 cm
1864
Private collection
Road by Saint-Siméon Farm
82 x 46 cm
1864
National Museum of Western Art, Toyko
Le Phare de l’Hospice
54 x 81 cm
1864
Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich
The Point de la Heve
41 x 73 cm
1864
Private Collection
Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise
30 x 60 cm
1865
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego
Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
89.5 x 150.5 cm
1865
Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena
The Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
90 x 150 cm
1865
Norton Simon Foundation, Pasadena
The Walk (Bazille and Camille)
93 x 69 cm
1865
National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.
Luncheon on the Grass (centre)
248 x 217 cm
1865
Luncheon on the Grass (left side)
418 x 150 cm
1865
Pointe at Heve at Low Tide
90 x 150 cm
1865
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
The Cart, Alley under the Snow at Honfleur
65 x 92 cm
1865
The Pavé de Chailly
43 x 59 cm
1865
The Bodmer Oak, Forest of Fontainebleau
97 x 130 cm
1865
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Portrait of J. F. Jaxquesmart with a Parasol
105 x 61 cm
1865
Kunsthaus, Zurich
Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in a Garden
80 x 99 cm
1866
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg
Seascape
42 x 59.5 cm
1866
Ordrupgaardsmlingen, Charlottenlund-Copenhagen
Jar of Peaches
46 x 55.5 cm
1866
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Dresden
Seascape, Storm
48.5 x 64.5 cm
c. 1866
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (Mass.)
Camille or The Woman in a Green Dress
231 x 151 cm
1866
Kunsthalle, Bremen
Garden in Flower
65 x 54 cm
1866
Camille with a Small Dog
73 x 54 cm
1866
Private Collection
Unloading Coal
55 x 66 cm
1866
Private Collection
Fishing Boats
45 x 55 cm
1866
Private collection
Boats at Honfleur
55 x 46 cm
1866
Private collection, Zurich
The Beach at Sainte-Adresse
75.8 x 102.5 cm
1867
Art Institute of Chigao, Chicago
Saint-Germain-l’Auzerrois
79 x 98 cm
1867
Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kunstbesitz, Nationalgalerie, Berlin
75 x 101 cm
1867
The Art Institute, Chigao
Terrace at Sainte-Adresse
98 x 130 cm
1867
The Quai at the Louvre
65 x 93 cm
1867
Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague
Street in Sainte-Adresse
80 x 59.5 cm
1867
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute , Williamstown (Mass.)
Taling a Walk on the Cliff at Sainte-Adresse
52 x 62 cm
1867
Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo
Sainte-Adresse
57 x 80.5 cm
1867
Gardens of the Princess
91 x 62 cm
1867
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College
The Cradle - Camille with the Artist’s Son
Jean
116.2 x 88.8 cm
1867
The Entrance to the Port of Honfleur
59 x 61 cm
1867
Norton Simon Foundation, Los Angeles
Snow near Honfleur
81.5 x 102 cm
1867
Louvre, Paris
Bonnières, Quick Sketch
1868
Private collection
Stormy Sea at Étretat
66 x 131 cm
1868
The Jetty at La Havre
147 x 226 cm
1868
Private Collection
Interior, after Dinner
50.2 x 65.4 cm
1868
River Scene at Bennecourt
81 x 100 cm
1868
Chicago Art Institute, Chicago
Lane in Normandy
81 x 60 cm
1868
Matsuoka Museum of Art, Tokyo
Portrait of Madame Gaudibert
217 x 138 cm
1868
Red Mullets
33.5 x 50 cm
1869
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (Mass.)
The Magpie
89 x 130 cm
c. 1869
Bathers at Grenouillere
73 x 91 cm
1869
National Gallery of Art, London
Infantry Guards Wandering Along the River
55 x 65 cm
1869
Private collection
Flowers and Fruit
100 x 80 cm
1869
Getty Museum, Los Angeles
1870s
Train in the Countryside
50 x 65 cm
1870
The Landing Stage
54 x 74 cm
1869
Camille Sitting on the Beach at Trouville
45 x 36 cm
1870
Private Collection
Camille on the Beach
31 x 15 cm
1870
Musée Marmottan, Paris
Camille at the Beach at Trouville
38 x 47 cm
1870
Collection of Mrs. John Hay Whitney
Trouville Beach
38 x 46 cm
1870
National Gallery, London
Hôtel des Roches Noires Trouville
80 x 55 cm
1870
The Boardwalk at Trouville
52.1 x 59.1 cm
1870
Wadsworth-Atheneum Museum, Hartford
Entrance to the Port of Trouville
54 x 66 cm
1870
Szepmuveszeti Muzeum, Budapest
The Bridge at Bougival
63 x 91 cm
1870
Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester (N.H.)
Green Park
34 x 72 cm
1871
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
The Port at Zaandam
47 x 74 cm
1871
Private Collection
Canal in Zaandam
44 x 72.5 cm
1871
Private Collection
The Port of London
49 x 74 cm
1871
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
Windmills Near Zaandam
40 x 72 cm
1871
Walters Art Museum, Santa Barbara
Boats at Zaandam
45 x 82 cm
1871
Private Collection
The Zaan at Zaandam
42 x 73 cm
1871
Private collection
The Zaan at Zaandam
44.5 x 65 cm
1871
Private collection
The Thames and House of Parliment
47 x 73 cm
1871
The Voorzaan near Zaandam
39 x 71.5 cm
1871
Private Collection
Guurtje Van de Stadt
73 x 40 cm
1871
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Windmill at Zaandam
1871
Private Collection
47 x 73 cm
1871
Private collection
Zaandam
48 x 73 cm
1871
The Dam at Zaandam, Evening
44.5 x 72.5 cm
1871
Private Collection
Madame Monet on a Couch
48 x 75 cm
1871
A Windmill at Zaandam
1871
Private Collection
Houses along the Zaan at Zaandam
47.5 x 73.5 cm
1871
Stadeslsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt
Windmill at Zaandam
43 x 73 cm
1871
Ashmolean Museum of Art, Oxford
View of Rouen
54 x 73 cm
1872
Private Collection
Boats at Rouen
47 x 56 cm
1872
Private collection
The Seine at the Petit Genneviliers
47.5 x 63 cm
1872
Private collection
Fog Effect
48 x 76 cm
1872
Private collection
Argenteuil, Seen from the Small Branch of
the Seine
50 x 65 cm
1872
Private collection
Ships on the Seine at Rouen
37.8 x 46.6 cm
1872
Argenteuil, Seen from the Small Branch of
the Seine
54.5 x 72.5 cm
1872
Private collection
Sailing Boat
41.5 x 71.5 cm
1872
Private Collection
The Fête at Argenteuil
60 x 81 cm
1872
Private collection
The Petite Bras d’Argenteuil
53 x 73 cm
1872
Pleasure Boats at Argenteuil
47 x 65 cm
1872
Still Life with Melon
53 x 73 cm
1872
Fundacao Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbona
Lilacs, Grey Weather
48 x 64 cm
1872
Musee d’Orsay, Paris
Lilacs in the Sun
50 x 65.8 cm
1872
Puskin Museum, Moscow
Jean Monet on his Mechanical Horse
59.5 x 73.5 cm
1872
Private Collection
Grand Quai at Le Havre
1872
The Regatta at Argenteuil
48 x 75 cm
1872
Impression, Sunrise
48 x 63 cm
1872
The Hospice at Argenteuil
49.5 x 63.5 cm
1872
Private Collection
Lane in the Vineyards at Argenteuil
47 x 74 cm
1872
Private collection
The Basin at Argenteuil
60 x 80.5 cm
1872
Argenteuil, Late Afternoon
60 x 81 cm
1872
Private collection
Small Boat on the Small Branch of the Seine
at Argenteuil
51 x 63.5 cm
1872
Private collection
1872
Private collection
Argenteuil, the Bridge under Repair
60 x 80.5 cm
1872
Fitzwilliam Museum
The Tea Service
1872
Private collection, Dallas
Camille Reading
50 x 65 cm
1872
Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore
The Promenede at Argenteuil
53 x 73 cm
1872
Private collection
Argenteuil
50 x 65 cm
1872
The Wooden Bridge
1872
Portland Musem of Art, Portland
The Gare d’Argenteuil
47.5 x 71 cm
1872
usée Tavet-Delacour / Musée de Luzarches, Conseil général de Val d’Oise, Pontoise
The Stream of Robec (Rouen)
50 x 65 cm
1872
The Luncheon
162 x 203 cm
1873
Monet’s Garden in Argenteuil (The Dahlias)
61 x 82 cm
1873
Private Collection
The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Mrs. Monet
99 x 73.5 cm
1873
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland
Seine at Asnieres
1873
Autumn Effect at Argenteuil
56 x 75 cm
1873
Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
Le Havre Museum
75 x 100 cm
1873
Ripose under the Lilacs
50 x 65 cm
1873
The Walk near Argenteuil
81 x 60 cm
1873
Poppy Field near Argenteuil
50 x 65 cm
1873
The Bench
60 x 80 cm
c. 1873
Private Collection
The Seine at Argenteuil
50.5 x 61 cm
1873
Ships in a Harbor
49.8 x 61 cm
c. 1873
The Plain of Colombes, White Frost
55 x 73 cm
1873
The Niigata Perfectual Museum of Art, Niigata
Camille Monet at a Window, Argenteuil
60 x 49.5 cm
1873
Private Collection
Sunrise (Marine)
1873
Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
The Sheltered Path
54 x 65 cm
1873
Walk in the Meadows at Argenteuil
54.5 x 64.5 cm
1873
Private collection
The Boulevard des Capucines
80 x 60 cm
1873
Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City
Maisons d’Argenteuil
54 x 73 cm
1873
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
Monet’s House at Argenteuil
60.5 x 74 cm
1873
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago
Camille in the Garden with Jean
59 x 79.5 cm
1873
Private collection
Camille and Jean Monet at the Garden of
Argenteuil
131 x 97 cm
1873
Private collection
Snow at Argenteuil
1874
Private Collection
The Windmill on the Obekende
56 x 65 cm
1874
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Woman Seated on a Bench
72 x 54 cm
c. 1874
By the Bridge at Argenteuil
54.5 x 78 cm
1874
Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis
60 x 100 cm
1874
The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil
55 x 72 cm
1874
The Roadbridge at Argenteuil
50 x 65 cm
1874
Private collection
Boaters at Argenteuil
60 x 81 cm
1874
Private Collection
Sunset on the Seine
49.5 x 60 cm
1874
Snow on Argenteuil
54.6 x 73.8 cm
1874
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Studio Boat
50 x 64 cm
1874
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo
Sailboat at the Petit-Gennevilleirs
55 x 64 cm
1874
Private collection
The Bridge at Argenteuil
60 x 79.7 cm
1874
60 x 81.3 cm
1874
Neue Pinakothek, Munich
Le Binnen-Amstel, Amsterdam
56.3 x 74 cm
1874
Private collection
The Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam
54.5 x 64.5 cm
1874
Snow at Argenteuil
50.5 x 65 cm
1874
Private Collection
Snow in Amsterdam
56 x 73 cm
1874
Private collection
65.5 x 80 cm
1874
Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat
Oil on canvas
55 cm × 65 cm (21.6 in × 25.6 in)
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, Republic of Ireland
Camille Monet and a Child in the Artist’s
Garden in Argenteuil
55.3 x 64.7 cm
1875
Snow in Argenteuil
55.5 x 65 cm
1875
The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Madame Monet Embroidering
75 x 55 cm
1875
Barnes Foundation Museum of Art, Marion (Pen.)
Monet’s Garden at Giverny
81.5 x 92 cm
1875
E. G. Bührle Collection, Zurich
The Studio Boat
80 x 100 cm
1875
Private collection
The Studio Boat
72 x 60 cm
1875
Barnes Foundation, Merion (Penn.)
Snow Effect, Argenteuil (Boulevard Saint-
Densi)
66 x 81 cm
1875
Boulevard de Pontoise under Snow
60 x 81 cm
1875
Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel, Basel
The Train in the Snow
59 x 78 cm
1875
In the Garden
70 x 101 cm
1875
Private collection
Poplars near Argenteuil
54.5 x 65.5 cm
1875
Taking a Walk near Argenteuil
60 x 81 cm
1875
The Walk, Woman with a Parasol
100 x 81 cm
1875
Woman with a Parasol in the Garden at
Argenteuil
75 x 100 cm
1875
Private collection
Poppy Field, Summertime
51 x 65.5 cm
1875
Private collection
The Walk (Argenteuil)
59.5 x 80 cm
1875
Puskin Museum
Poppies (Argenteuil)
54 x 73.5 cm
1875
Private collection
The Artist’s Family in the Garden
61 x 80.6 cm
1875
Private Collection
Cliffs at Varengeville
65 x 81 cm
1875
Private Collection
Red Boats, Argenteuil
55 x 65 cm
1875
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
Camille in the Garden at Argenteuil
81 x 59 cm
1876
Ernest Hoschedé with his Daughter Marthe in
1876
86 x 130 cm
1876
Museo Nazional des Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires
Camille Monet in Japanese Costume
231.8 x 142.3 cm
1876
Woman in Garden
1876
The River Yerres near Montegeron
60 x 82 cm
1876
Private collection
The Beach at Saint-Adresse
59 x 80 cm
1876
Private Collection
Gare Saint-Lazare
75 x 100 cm
1876
Turkeys
174.5 x 172.5 cm
1876
The Park Monceau
60 x 81 cm
1876
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork
The Garden, Gladioli
73 x 54.5 cm
1876
Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco
In the Meadow
60 x 82 cm
1876
Private collection
The Ball-Shaped Tree, Argenteuil
60 x 81 cm
1876
Private collection
63 x 52 cm
1876
Private Collection
Ice Flows on the Seine at Bougival
65 x 81 cm
c. 1876
Musée del Louvre, Paris
The Plain at Gennervilliers
50 x 61 cm
1876
Private collection
The Garden
50 x 65 cm
1876
The Shoot
1876
Private collection
Arriving at Montegeron
81 x 60 cm
1876
Private Collection
Gladiolas
55 x 82 cm
1876
Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
Argenteuil, the Bank of Flower
54 x 65 cm
1877
Private Collection
Ponte de l’Europe, Gaire Saint-Lazare
64 x 81 cm
1877
The Garden, Hollyhocks
73 x 54 cm
1877
Private Collection
Young Girls in the Rowing Boat
145 x 132 cm
1877
National Museum of Wester Art, Tokyo
The Gare Saint-Lazare
75 x 100 cm
1877
Tracks outside Saint-Lazare
60 x 80 cm
1877
Private Collection
Saint-Lazaire Station
54.3 x 73.6 cm
1877
Exterior of Gaire Saint-Lazare Station, The
Signal
65 x 81.5 cm
1877
Niedersachsische Landesmuseum, Hanover
Saint-Lazare Station
53.5 x 72.5 cm
1877
Rue Saint-Denis, Holiday of June 30 1878
76 x 52 cm
1878
Musee des Beaux-Arts, Roen
The Banks of the Seine at Lavacourt, with
domestic geese
60 x 80 cm
1878
Private Collection
The Church at Vétheuil
65.2 x 55.7 cm
1878
1878, National Gallery of Scotland
Farmyard
61 x 50 cm
1878
Private collection
Small Arm of the Seine at Mousseaux
60 x 81 cm
1878
Private Collection
Arm of the Seine near Vétheuil
60.5 x 80 cm
1878
Private Collection
The Park Monceau
54 x 65 cm
1878
Private collection
The Village of Lavacourt
35.5 x 73.8 cm
1878
Private Collection
The Road Coming into Vétheuil
49.5 x 61 cm
1878
Private Collection
Apple Trees on the Chantemesle Hill
1878
The Steps
62 x 50 cm
1878
Private collection
Apple Trees in Bloom at Vétheuil
55 x 66 cm
1878
Private Collection
At the Parc Monceau
1878
Private Collection
Portrait of Leon Peltier
56 x 38 cm
1879
Private collection
The Seine at Vétheuil
43 x 70 cm
1879
Camille on her Deathbed
1879
Chrysanthemums
54 x 65 cm
1878
An Apple Tree in Blossom near Vétheuil
65 x 92 cm
1879
Private collection
Vétheuil, Blossoming Plum Trees
73.5 x 94 cm
1879
Private collection
81 x 60 cm
1879
Musée des Beaux Arts de Rouen, Rouen
The Seine at Vétheuil, Effect Sunshine after
Rain
60 x 81 cm
1879
The Church at Vétheuil (winter)
65 x 50 cm
1879
Vétheuil, Landscape
60 x 73 cm
1879
The Meadow
79 x 98 cm
1879
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha (Neb.)
Poppy Field near Vétheuil
70 x 90 cm
1879
Stifung Sammlung E. G. Buhrle, Zurich
The Bend of the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter
54 x 65 cm
1879
Private collection
Vétheuil
60 x 81.6 cm
1879
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
1880s
Cliffs of Petite-Dalles
59 x 75 cm
1880
Monet’s Studio in Vétheuil
151 x 121 cm
1880
Apple Tree in Blossom by the Water
73 x 60 cm
1880
Private collection
Asters
1880
Private Collection
Portrait of Michael with Hat and Pom Pom
46 x 38 cm
1880
Bouquet of Mallows
100 x 81 cm
1880
Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
The Banks of the Seine near Vétheuil
73 x 100 cm
1880
Lavacourt
100 x 150 cm
1880
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
The Seine at Lavacourt
98.4 x 149.2 cm
1880
Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
Portrait of Jean Monet
46 x 37 cm
1880
By the Seine near Vétheuil
73 x 100 cm
1880
Blanche Hoschedé as a Young Girl
46 x 38 cm
1880
Musée des Beaux-Arts et de la Céramique, Rouen
Breakup of Ice, Grey Weather
68 x 90 cm
1880
Museu Calouste Gulbenkian
Chantemelse Hamlet at the Foot of the Rock
60 x 80 cm
1880
Private Collection
Pears and Grapes
65 x 81 cm
1880
Hamburg Kunsthalle, Hamburg
Floating Ice
97 x 150.5 cm
1880
Shelburne Museum, (Vermont)
Floating Ice
61 x 100 cm
1880
Path Through the Poppies, Ile Saint-Martin
80 x 60 cm
1880
The Road to Roche-Guyon
60 x 81 cm
1880
Private collection
Sunflowers
101 x 81.3 cm
1880
Springtime in Vétheuil
60.5 x 80.5 cm
1880
Museu Boijmansvan Beuningen, Rotterdam
River Thawing near Vétheuil
65 x 93 cm
1880
Vétheuil, Summer
60 x 99.7 cm
1880
The Road to Vétheuil
58.5 x 72.5 cm
1880
Phillips Collection, Washington D. C.
Sunset on the Seine in Winter
60 x 80 cm
1880
Private Collection
Chrysanthemums
100 x 80 cm
1880
Woman Seated under the Willows
81 x 60 cm
1880
Vétheuil, Flooded Meadow
60 x 73.5 cm
1881
Private Collection
The Garden at Vétheuil
60 x 73 cm
1881
Private collection
Cliffs of Petit-Dalles
60 x 74 cm
1881
Private collection
Boat Lying at Low Tide
80 x 60 cm
1881
Tokyo Fiji Art, Tokyo
The Cliff at Grainval near Fécamp
61 x 80 cm
1881
Private Collection
Alice Hoschedé in the Garden
81 x 65 cm
1881
Private Collection
View taken from Grainval
61 x 81 cm
1881
Private Collection
A Field of Corn
65.5 x 81.5 cm
1881
Gust of Wind
81 x 65.5 cm
1881
Private collection
The Seine seen from the Hills of Chantemesle
14.4 x 23.3 cm
1881
Musée delle Ville de Rouen, Rouen
The Cliff at Fécamp
63.5 x 80 cm
1881
Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum
Stormy Sea
60 x 74 cm
1881
National Gallery of Canada, Ottowa
Hills near Vétheuil
14.4 x 22.1 cm
1881
Musée delle Ville de Rouen, Rouen
The Needle and the Porte d’Aval
65 x 81 cm
1881
Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown
The Sea Viewed from Grainval
60 x 75 cm
1881
Private Collection
A Spot on the Bank of the Seine
81 x 60 cm
1881
Private collection
The Hut in Trouville, Low Tide
60 x 73.5 cm
1881
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Vase of Dahlias
128.5 x 37 cm
1882
Private collection
The Fishermen on the Seine near Poissy
60 x 82 cm
1882
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
Fishing Boats off Pourville
54 x 65 cm
1882
Private collection
Fishing Boats on the Cliffs at Pourville
60 x 81 cm
1882
Private collection
Dahlias
128.5 x 37 cm
1882
Private collection
Cliffs at Dieppe
65 x 81 cm
1882
Cliffs at Pourville
60 x 73 cm
1882
Private collection
Fishing Nets at Pourville
60 x 81 cm
1882
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester (N.Y.)
Low Tide at Varengeville
60 x 81 cm
1882
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Cliffs near Pourville
60 x 81 cm
1882
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Pourville, Flood Tide
65 x 81 cm
1882
Brooklyn Museum, New York
Pourville, Low Tide
63 x 77 cm
1882
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York
Vase of Peonies
1882
Private Collection
Shadows on the Sea The Cliffs at Pourville
57 x 80 cm
1882
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen
Pourville, near Dieppe
60 x 81 cm
1882
Private Collection
Three Pots of Tulips
50.5 x 37 cm
1882
Private collection
The Cook (Monsieur Paul)
65 x 52 cm
1882
Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna
The Customs Official’s House at Varengville
60 x 81 cm
1882
The Sunken Road in the Cliff at Varangeville
60.5 x 73.5 cm
1882
Garman Ryan Collection, New Art Gallery Walsall, Walsall
Path in the Wheatfield at Pourville
58.2 x 78 cm
1882
Private Collection
Low Tide at Pourville, near Dieppe
1882
Varengeville Church
65 x 81 cm
1882
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham
The Two Anglers
38 x 52 cm
1882
Private collection
The Pointe de l’Ailly, Low Tide
60 x 100 cm
1882
Private Collection
Road at La Cavée, Pourville
60.3 x 81.6 cm
1882
The Path of La Cave at Pourville
60 x 81 cm
1882
The Path of La Cavée at Pourville
73 x 60 cm
1882
Private collection
The Church at Varengeville, Effect of Morning
60 x 73 cm
1882
Private Collection
60 x 100 cm
1882
Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth
Étretat, the Beach and the Porte d’Aval
60 x 73 cm
1883
Marauchi Art Museum, Tokyo
Étretat, Sunset
63 x 73 cm
1883
Private Collection
Étretat, Setting Sun
60.5 x 81.8 cm
1883
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh (N. C.)
1890s
Grainstacks, Midday
65.6 x 100.6 cm
1890
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Grain Stacks, End of Summer
60 x 100 cm
1890
Grainstack, Sun in the Mist
65 x 100 cm
1890
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
Oat and Poppy Field
73 x 92 cm
1890
Private Collection
Grain Stacks, (Effects of Snow, Morning)
65 x 100 cm
1890
Private Collection
Field of Poppies
60.5 x 100 cm
1890
Effect of Spring at Giverny
60 x 100 cm
1890
Private collection
Stack of Wheat
65.6 x 92 cm
1890
Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day)
66 x 93 cm
1890
Monet’s Garden, The Iris
81 x 92 cm
1890
Oat Fields (Giverny)
73 x 92 cm
1890
Private Collection
68 x 90 cm
1890
Private Collection
Grain Stack. (Sunset)
73.3 x 92.7 cm
1890
The Pink Skiff
135 x 175 cm
1890
Private Collection
Two Grain Stacks, Close of Day, Autumn
65.5 x 100 cm
1890
Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset)
64.9 x 92.3 cm
1890
Portrait of Suzanne Hoschedé with
Sunflowers
162 x 107 cm
c. 1890
Private Collection
Grainstacks at the End of Summer, Evening
Effect
101 x 65.8 cm
1891
Grain Stack, Sunset
65 x 92 cm
1891
Private Collection
60 x 100 cm
1891
Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis
Grain Stack, Effect Snow, Overcast Sky
66 x 93 cm
1891
Three Trees in Autumn
92 x 72 cm
1891
Private collection
Row of Poplars
100 x 65 cm
1891
Private Collection
Poplars (Evening Effect)
100 x 65 cm
1891
Private Collection
Poplars along the Epte (Sunset Effect)
100 x 65 cm
1891
Private Collection
Grain Stack under the Sun
60 x 100 cm
1891
Three Trees, Summer
92 x 73 cm
1891
National Museum of Western Art, Toyko
Grain Stack at Sunset, Winter
65 x 92 cm
1891
Private Collection
Three Rose Trees, Autumn
81.9 x 81.6 cm
1891
Poplars, Wind Effect
100 x 73 cm
1891
Grain Stack at Sunset
73 x 92 cm
1891
Poplars along the Epte
88 x 93 cm
1891
Private Collection
Grain Stacks, Snow Effect, Morning
65 x 92 cm
1891
Cathedral of Rouen. Morning Sun, Blue
Harmony
91 x 63 cm
1892
The Cathedral of Roeun, The Portal, Gray
Weather
100 x 65 cm
1892
Floating Ice at Bennecourt
65 x 100 cm
1892
Private collection
Rouen Cathedral, Facade
104.4 x 65.4 cm
1892
Pola Museum of Art, Sengokuhara
A Meadow at Giverny
92 x 73 cm
1893
Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton (N.J.)
Cathedral of Rouen, The Portal and Tower of
Saint-Roman, Effect Morning
106 x 73 cm
1893
The Cathedral of Rouen, the Portal, Morning
Sun
107 x 73 cm
1893
Springtime Landscape at Giverny
92 x 65 cm
1894
Private collection
Springtime Landscape
92 x 73 cm
1894
Private collection
Vernon Church in the Fog
1894
Private Collection
The Cathedral of Rouen at Sunset
100 x 65 cm
1894
Museum Pushkin, Moscow
1900s
Charing Cross Bridge, Overcast Weather
60 x 92 cm
1900
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge (Mass.)
Houses of Parliament, Sunset
81 x 92 cm
1900
Private collection
Houses of Parliament, Westminster
81 x 92 cm
1900
Private collection
Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect
81 x 92 cm
1900
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn (N.Y.)
Houses of Parliament, Seagulls
81 x 92 cm
1900
Art Museum, Princeton University, Princeton (N.J.)
Houses of Parliament (Setting Sun)
81 x 92 cm
1900
Private Collection
Houses of Parliament, Fog Effect
81 x 92 cm
1900
Museum of Fine Arts, Saint Petersburg (Fla.)
Houses of Parliamnet, Symphonie in Rose
81 x 92 cm
1900
Private collection
81 x 92 cm
1900
Houses of Parliament, Stormy Skies
81 x 92 cm
1900
Musee de Beaux-Arts, Lille
Charing Cross Bridge, Fog on the Thames
73 x 92 cm
1900
Waterloo Bridge
64.5 x 91.3 cm
1900
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara
81 x 92 cm
1900
Private collection
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sun in the
Fog
81 x 92 cm
Private Collection. London.
The Water Lily Pond (Japanese Bridge)
89 x 100 cm
1900
Private Collection
The Water Lily Bridge (Japanese Bridge)
99.11 x 88.9 cm
1900
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight in
the Fog
81 x 92 cm
1900
Houses of Parliament, Reflections on the
Thames
81 x 92 cm
1900
Houses of Parliament (Rays of Sun and Fog)
81 x 92 cm
1901
View of Vétheuil
90 x 92.1 cm
1901
Museum Pushkin, Moscow
Main Path through the Garden at Giverny
82 x 92 cm
1901
Oesterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna
View of Vétheuil
90 x 93 cm
1901
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Waterloo Bridge, Fog Effect
65 x 100 cm
1901
Water Lilies. Water Landscape, Clouds
73 x 100 cm
1903
Private Collection
Water Lilies
89 x 100 cm
1903
Waterloo Bridge, Sunliight Effect
65 x 100 cm
1903
Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
The Houses of Parliament, Sunset
81.3 x 92.5 cm
1903
Parliment, Sun and Fog
1904
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog
92.7 x 82.6 cm
1904
Museum of Fine art, Saint Petersburg
Water Lilies
81 x 92 cm
1906
Water Lilies
90 x 100 cm
1905
Private Collection
Water Lilies
89 x 100 cm
1905
Venice at Dusk
73 x 92 cm
1908
Bridgestone Museum of Art , Tokyo
Palazzo Ducale
81 x 100 cm
1908
The Palazzo Dario
81 x 66 cm
1908
Private Collection
Rio della Salute
100 x 65 cm
1908
Private Collection
Rio della Salute
81 x 65 cm
1908
Private Foundation, Baltimore
Gondola in Venice
81 x 55 cm
1908
Musee des Beaux Arts de Nantes, Nantes
Palazzo Dario
56 x 75 cm
1908
Private Collection
Palazzo Dario
64.8 x 80.7 cm
1908
Water Lilies
90 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
Water Lilies
92 x 90 cm
1908
Worchester Art Museum, Worchester (Mass.)
Palazzo Dario
92 x 73 cm
1908
Palazzo Dario
81 x 61 cm
1908
Private Collection
Palazzo Contarini
92 x 81 cm
1908
Kunstmuseum Saint Gallen, St.Gallen
Palazzo Contarini
73 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
Venice, Twilight
73 x 92 cm
1908
Bridgestone Museum of Art , Tokyo
San Giorgio by Twilight
65 x 92 cm
1908
National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff
The Doges’ Palace
57 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
Palazzo da Mula
62 x 81 cm
1908
Palazzo da Mula, Venice
62 x 81.1 cm
1908
Grand Canal, Venice
1908
San Giorgio at Venice
60 x 73 cm
1908
Private Collection
San Giorgio Maggiore
65 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
60 x 73 cm
1908
Collection of Alice F. Mason, New York
64.8 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
The Gran Canal, Venice
73 x 92 cm
1908
San Fracisco Museum of Art, San Francisco
73 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
81.2 x 91.4 cm
1908
Private Collection
73 x 92 cm
1908
Private Collection
The Doges’ Palace seen from San Giorgio
Maggiore
65.5 x 2 cm
1908
(destroyed in fire)
Maggiore
65 x 100 cm
1908
Private Collection, New York
The Doges Palace seen from San Giorgio
Maggiore
65 x 100 cm
1908
Private Collection
Maggiore
65 x 100 cm
1908
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
The Red House
65 x 81.6 cm
1908
Galerie Rosengart, Lucerne
1910s
Yellow Irises
200 x 100 cm
1914
Water Lilies
200.5 x 201 cm
1914
Water Lilies
150 x 200 cm
1914
Nymphéas (Waterlilies)
181 x 201.6 cm
1914
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Self Portrait
77 x 55 cm
1917
The Japanese Bridge at Giverny
89 x 100 cm
1918
The Japanese Bridge
89 x 100 cm
1918
Weeping Willow
131.2 x 110.3 cm
1918
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus (Oh.)
1920s
Grandes Decorations. The Setting Sun
200 x 600 cm
1920
Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris
The House of the Artist, View of the Rose
Garden
89 x 92 cm
1922
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF PAINTINGS
Monet’s water lily garden in Giverny

Index of Paintings
A-D E-H I-L M-O P-S T-V W-Z
A Field of Corn
A Meadow at Giverny
A Spot on the Bank of the Seine
A Windmill at Zaandam
Alice Hoschedé in the Garden
An Apple Tree in Blossom near Vétheuil
Apple Tree in Blossom by the Water
Apple Trees in Bloom at Vétheuil
Apple Trees on the Chantemesle Hill
Argenteuil
Argenteuil Basin with a Single Sailboat
Argenteuil, Late Afternoon
Argenteuil, Seen from the Small Branch of the Seine
Argenteuil, Seen from the Small Branch of the Seine
Argenteuil, the Bank of Flower
Argenteuil, the Bridge under Repair
Arm of the Seine near Vétheuil
Arriving at Montegeron
Asters
At the Parc Monceau
Autumn Effect at Argenteuil
Bathers at Grenouillere
Blanche Hoschedé as a Young Girl
Boat Lying at Low Tide
Boaters at Argenteuil
Boats at Honfleur
Boats at Rouen
Boats at Zaandam
Boatyard near Honfleur
Bonnières, Quick Sketch
Boulevard de Pontoise under Snow
Bouquet of Mallows
Breakup of Ice, Grey Weather
By the Bridge at Argenteuil
By the Seine near Vétheuil
Camille and Jean Monet at the Garden of Argenteuil
Camille at the Beach at Trouville
Camille in the Garden at Argenteuil
Camille in the Garden with Jean
Camille Monet and a Child in the Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil
Camille Monet at a Window, Argenteuil
Camille Monet in Japanese Costume
Camille on her Deathbed
Camille on the Beach
Camille or The Woman in a Green Dress
Camille Reading
Camille Sitting on the Beach at Trouville
Camille with a Small Dog
Canal in Zaandam
Cathedral of Rouen, The Portal and Tower of Saint-Roman, Effect Morning
Cathedral of Rouen. Morning Sun, Blue Harmony
Chantemelse Hamlet at the Foot of the Rock
Charing Cross Bridge, Fog on the Thames
Charing Cross Bridge, Overcast Weather
Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums
Cliffs at Dieppe
Cliffs at Pourville
Cliffs at Varengeville
Cliffs near Pourville
Cliffs of Petit-Dalles
Cliffs of Petite-Dalles
Dahlias
Effect of Spring at Giverny
Entrance to the Port of Trouville
Ernest Hoschedé with his Daughter Marthe in 1876
Étretat, Setting Sun
Étretat, Sunset
Étretat, the Beach and the Porte d’Aval
Exterior of Gaire Saint-Lazare Station, The Signal
Farmyard
Farmyard in Normandy
Farmyard near Honfleur
Field of Poppies
Fishing Boats
Fishing Boats off Pourville
Fishing Boats on the Cliffs at Pourville
Fishing Nets at Pourville
Floating Ice
Floating Ice
Floating Ice at Bennecourt
Flowers and Fruit
Fog Effect
Fontainebleau Forest
Garden in Flower
Gardens of the Princess
Gare Saint-Lazare
Gladiolas
Gondola in Venice
Grain Stack at Sunset
Grain Stack at Sunset, Winter
Grain Stack under the Sun
Grain Stack, Effect Snow, Overcast Sky
Grain Stack, Sunset
Grain Stack. (Sunset)
Grain Stacks, (Effects of Snow, Morning)
Grain Stacks, End of Summer
Grain Stacks, Snow Effect, Morning
Grainstacks at the End of Summer, Evening Effect
Grainstacks, Midday
Grand Canal, Venice
Grand Quai at Le Havre
Grandes Decorations. The Setting Sun
Green Park
Gust of Wind
Guurtje Van de Stadt
Haystacks at Chailly at Sunrise
Hills near Vétheuil
Hôtel des Roches Noires Trouville
Houses along the Zaan at Zaandam
Houses of Parliament (Rays of Sun and Fog)
Houses of Parliament (Setting Sun)
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Fog
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sun in the Fog
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight in the Fog
Houses of Parliament, Fog Effect
Houses of Parliament, Reflections on the Thames
Houses of Parliament, Seagulls
Houses of Parliament, Stormy Skies
Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect
Houses of Parliament, Westminster
Houses of Parliamnet, Symphonie in Rose
Hunting Trophy
Ice Flows on the Seine at Bougival
Impression, Sunrise
In the Garden
In the Meadow
Infantry Guards Wandering Along the River
Interior, after Dinner
Jar of Peaches
Jean Monet on his Mechanical Horse
Jeanne-Marguerite Lecadre in a Garden
La Chapelle de Notre-Dame-de Grace, Honfleur
La Pointe de la Hève
La Rue de La Bavolle at Honfleur
Lane in Normandy
Lavacourt
Le Binnen-Amstel, Amsterdam
Le Havre Museum
Le Phare de l’Hospice
Lilacs in the Sun
Lilacs, Grey Weather
Low Tide at Pourville, near Dieppe
Low Tide at Varengeville
Luncheon on the Grass (centre)
Luncheon on the Grass (left side)
Madame Monet Embroidering
Madame Monet on a Couch
Main Path through the Garden at Giverny
Maisons d’Argenteuil
Monet’s Garden at Giverny
Monet’s Garden in Argenteuil (The Dahlias)
Monet’s Garden, The Iris
Monet’s Studio in Vétheuil
Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
Nymphéas (Waterlilies)
Oat and Poppy Field
Oat Fields (Giverny)
Palazzo Contarini
Palazzo Contarini
Palazzo da Mula
Palazzo da Mula, Venice
Palazzo Dario
Palazzo Dario
Palazzo Dario
Palazzo Dario
Palazzo Ducale
Parliment, Sun and Fog
Path in the Wheatfield at Pourville
Path Through the Poppies, Ile Saint-Martin
Pears and Grapes
Pleasure Boats at Argenteuil
Pointe at Heve at Low Tide
Ponte de l’Europe, Gaire Saint-Lazare
Poplars (Evening Effect)
Poplars along the Epte
Poplars along the Epte (Sunset Effect)
Poplars near Argenteuil
Poplars, Wind Effect
Poppies (Argenteuil)
Poppy Field near Argenteuil
Poppy Field near Vétheuil
Poppy Field, Summertime
Portrait of J. F. Jaxquesmart with a Parasol
Portrait of Jean Monet
Portrait of Leon Peltier
Portrait of Madame Gaudibert
Portrait of Michael with Hat and Pom Pom
Portrait of Suzanne Hoschedé with Sunflowers
Pourville, Flood Tide
Pourville, Low Tide
Pourville, near Dieppe
Red Boats, Argenteuil
Red Mullets
Rio della Salute
Rio della Salute
Ripose under the Lilacs
River Scene at Bennecourt
River Thawing near Vétheuil
Road at La Cavée, Pourville
Road by Saint-Siméon Farm
Rouen Cathedral, Facade
Row of Poplars
Rue Saint-Denis, Holiday of June 30 1878
Sailboat at the Petit-Gennevilleirs
Sailing Boat
Sainte-Adresse
Saint-Germain-l’Auzerrois
Saint-Lazaire Station
Saint-Lazare Station
San Giorgio at Venice
San Giorgio by Twilight
Seascape
Seascape, Storm
Seaside at Honfleur
Seine at Asnieres
Self Portrait
Shadows on the Sea The Cliffs at Pourville
Ships in a Harbor
Ships on the Seine at Rouen
Small Arm of the Seine at Mousseaux
Small Boat on the Small Branch of the Seine at Argenteuil
Snow at Argenteuil
Snow at Argenteuil
Snow Effect, Argenteuil (Boulevard Saint-Densi)
Snow in Amsterdam
Snow in Argenteuil
Snow near Honfleur
Snow on Argenteuil
Springtime in Vétheuil
Springtime Landscape
Springtime Landscape at Giverny
Stack of Wheat
Stack of Wheat (Snow Effect, Overcast Day)
Stack of Wheat (Thaw, Sunset)
Still Life with Bottle, Bread and Wine
Still Life with Meat
Still Life with Melon
Still Life with Pheasant
Stormy Sea
Stormy Sea at Étretat
Street in Sainte-Adresse
Sunflowers
Sunrise (Marine)
Sunset on the Seine
Sunset on the Seine in Winter
Taking a Walk near Argenteuil
Taling a Walk on the Cliff at Sainte-Adresse
Terrace at Sainte-Adresse
The Artist’s Family in the Garden
The Ball-Shaped Tree, Argenteuil
The Banks of the Seine at Lavacourt, with domestic geese
The Banks of the Seine near Vétheuil
The Basin at Argenteuil
The Beach at Saint-Adresse
The Bench
The Bend of the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter
The Boardwalk at Trouville
The Bodmer Oak, Forest of Fontainebleau
The Boulevard des Capucines
The Bridge at Bougival
The Cart, Alley under the Snow at Honfleur
The Cathedral of Roeun, The Portal, Gray Weather
The Cathedral of Rouen at Sunset
The Cathedral of Rouen, the Portal, Morning Sun
The Church at Varengeville, Effect of Morning
The Church at Vétheuil
The Church at Vétheuil (winter)
The Cliff at Fécamp
The Cliff at Grainval near Fécamp
The Cook (Monsieur Paul)
The Cradle - Camille with the Artist’s Son Jean
The Customs Official’s House at Varengville
The Dam at Zaandam, Evening
The Doges Palace seen from San Giorgio Maggiore
The Doges’ Palace
The Doges’ Palace seen from San Giorgio Maggiore
The Entrance to the Port of Honfleur
The Fête at Argenteuil
The Fishermen on the Seine near Poissy
The Garden
The Garden at Vétheuil
The Garden, Gladioli
The Garden, Hollyhocks
The Gare d’Argenteuil
The Gare Saint-Lazare
The Hospice at Argenteuil
The House of the Artist, View of the Rose Garden
The Houses of Parliament, Sunset
The Hut in Trouville, Low Tide
The Japanese Bridge
The Japanese Bridge at Giverny
The Jetty at La Havre
The Landing Stage
The Luncheon
The Magpie
The Meadow
The Mouth of the Seine at Honfleur
The Needle and the Porte d’Aval
The Palazzo Dario
The Park Monceau
The Park Monceau
The Path of La Cave at Pourville
The Path of La Cavée at Pourville
The Pavé de Chailly
The Petite Bras d’Argenteuil
The Pink Skiff
The Plain at Gennervilliers
The Plain of Colombes, White Frost
The Point de la Heve
The Port at Zaandam
The Port of London
The Promenede at Argenteuil
The Quai at the Louvre
The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil
The Red House
The Red Kerchief: Portrait of Mrs. Monet
The River Yerres near Montegeron
The Road Coming into Vétheuil
The Road to Roche-Guyon
The Roadbridge at Argenteuil
The Sea Viewed from Grainval
The Seine at Argenteuil
The Seine at Lavacourt
The Seine at the Petit Genneviliers
The Seine at Vétheuil, Effect Sunshine after Rain
The Seine seen from the Hills of Chantemesle
The Sheltered Path
The Shoot
The Steps
The Stream of Robec (Rouen)
The Studio Boat
The Studio Boat
The Studio Boat
The Sunken Road in the Cliff at Varangeville
The Tea Service
The Thames and House of Parliment
The Train in the Snow
The Two Anglers
The Village of Lavacourt
The Voorzaan near Zaandam
The Walk (Argenteuil)
The Walk (Bazille and Camille)
The Walk near Argenteuil
The Walk, Woman with a Parasol
The Water Lily Bridge (Japanese Bridge)
The Water Lily Pond (Japanese Bridge)
The Windmill on the Obekende
The Wooden Bridge
The Zaan at Zaandam
The Zaan at Zaandam
The Zuiderkerk in Amsterdam
Three Pots of Tulips
Three Rose Trees, Autumn
Three Trees in Autumn
Three Trees, Summer
Towing of a Boat at Honfleur
Tracks outside Saint-Lazare
Train in the Countryside
Trouville Beach
Turkeys
Two Grain Stacks, Close of Day, Autumn
Unloading Coal
Varengeville Church
Vase of Dahlias
Vase of Peonies
Venice at Dusk
Venice, Twilight
Vernon Church in the Fog
Vétheuil
Vétheuil, Blossoming Plum Trees
Vétheuil, Flooded Meadow
Vétheuil, Landscape
Vétheuil, Summer
View of Rouelles
View of Rouen
View of Vétheuil
View of Vétheuil
View taken from Grainval
Walk in the Meadows at Argenteuil
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies
Water Lilies. Water Landscape, Clouds
Waterloo Bridge
Waterloo Bridge, Fog Effect
Waterloo Bridge, Sunliight Effect
Weeping Willow
Windmill at Zaandam
Windmill at Zaandam
Woman in Garden
Woman Seated on a Bench
Woman Seated under the Willows
Woman with a Parasol in the Garden at Argenteuil
Woodgatherers at the Edge of the Forest
Yellow Irises
Young Girls in the Rowing Boat
Zaandam
The Biography
Claude Monet and his nympheas (water lilies)
THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS by Camille
Mauclair
Translated by P. G. Konody
Camille Mauclair (1872-1945) was a French biographer and art critic. He
was initially a poet and also wrote several novels, which were reasonably
successful in France. Later in life he wrote mainly non-fiction, including
travel writing and biographies of writers, artists and musicians. In his art
criticism, he supported Impressionism and in 1907 he published this
detailed account of the Impressionists, with the fifth chapter concentrating
on the works and influence of Claude Monet.
Camille Mauclair by Lucien Lévy Dhurmer, 1896
CONTENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTE TO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
I THE PRECURSORS OF IMPRESSIONISM
II THE THEORY OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS
III EDOUARD MANET: HIS WORK, HIS INFLUENCE
IV EDGAR DEGAS: HIS WORK, HIS INFLUENCE
V CLAUDE MONET: HIS WORK, HIS INFLUENCE
VI AUGUSTE RENOIR AND HIS WORK
VII THE SECONDARY PAINTERS OF IMPRESSIONISM
VIII THE MODERN ILLUSTRATORS CONNECTED WITH
IMPRESSIONISM:
IX NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
AUTHOR’S NOTE
It should be stated here that, with the exception of one reproduction after
the Neo-Impressionist Van Rysselberghe, the other forty-nine engravings
illustrating this volume I owe to the courtesy of M. Durand-Ruel, from the
first the friend of the Impressionist painters, and later the most important
collector of their works, a friend who has been good enough to place at our
disposal the photographs from which our illustrations have been
reproduced. Chosen from a considerable collection which has been formed
for thirty years past, these photographs, none of which are for sale, form a
veritable and unique museum of documents on Impressionist art, which is
made even more valuable through the dispersal of the principal
masterpieces of this art among the private collections of Europe and
America. We render our thanks to M. Durand-Ruel no less in the name of
the public interested in art, than in our own.
NOTE TO LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
The illustrations contained in this volume have been taken from different
epochs of the Impressionist movement. They will give but a feeble idea of
the extreme abundance of its production.
Banished from the salons, exhibited in private galleries and sold direct to
art lovers, the Impressionist works have been but little seen. The series left
by Caillebotte to the Luxembourg Gallery is very badly shown and is
composed of interesting works which, however, date back to the early
period, and are very inferior to the beautiful productions which followed
later. Renoir is best represented. The private galleries in Paris, where the
best Impressionist works are to be found, are those of MM. Durand-Ruel,
Rouart, de Bellis, de Camondo, and Manzi, to which must be added the one
sold by MM. Théodore Duret and Faure, and the one of Mme. Ernest
Rouart, daughter of Mme. Morisot, the sister-in-law of Manet. The public
galleries of M. Durand-Ruel’s show-rooms are the place where it is easiest
to find numerous Impressionist pictures.
In spite of the firm opposition of the official juries, a place of honour
was reserved at the Exposition of 1889 for Manet, and at that of 1900 a fine
collection of Impressionists occupied two rooms and caused a considerable
stir.
Amongst the critics who have most faithfully assisted this group of
artists, I must mention, besides the early friends previously referred to,
Castagnary, Burty, Edouard de Goncourt, Roger Marx, Geffroy, Arsène
Alexandre, Octave Mirbeau, L. de Fourcaud, Clemenceau, Mallarmé,
Huysmans, Jules Laforgue, and nearly all the critics of the Symbolist
reviews. A book on “Impressionist Art” by M. Georges Lecomte has been
published by the firm of Durand-Ruel as an edition-de-luxe. But the
bibliography of this art consists as yet almost exclusively of articles in
journals and reviews and of some isolated biographical pamphlets. Manet
is, amongst many, the one who has excited most criticism of all kinds; the
articles, caricatures and pamphlets relating to his work would form a
considerable collection. It should be added that, with the exception of
Manet two years before his death, and Renoir last year at the age of sixty-
eight, no Impressionist has been decorated by the French government. In
England such a distinction has even less importance in itself than elsewhere.
But if I insist upon it, it is only to draw attention to the fact that, through the
sheer force of their talent, men like Degas, Monet and Pissarro have
achieved great fame and fortune, without gaining access to the Salons,
without official encouragement, decoration, subvention or purchases for the
national museums. This is a very significant instance and serves well to
complete the physiognomy of this group of independents.
I THE PRECURSORS OF IMPRESSIONISM
THE BEGINNING OF THIS MOVEMENT AND THE ORIGIN OF ITS NAME
It will be beyond the scope of this volume to give a complete history of
French Impressionism, and to include all the attractive details to which it
might lead, as regards the movement itself and the very curious epoch during
which its evolution has taken place. The proportions of this book confine its
aim to the clearest possible summing up for the British reader of the ideas,
the personalities and the works of a considerable group of artists who, for
various reasons, have remained but little known and who have only too
frequently been gravely misjudged. These reasons are very obvious: first, the
Impressionists have been unable to make a show at the Salons, partly
because the jury refused them admission, partly because they held aloof of
their own free will. They have, with very rare exceptions, exhibited at
special minor galleries, where they become known to a very restricted
public. Ever attacked, and poor until the last few years, they enjoyed none of
the benefits of publicity and sham glory. It is only quite recently that the
admission of the incomplete and badly arranged Caillebotte collection to the
Luxembourg Gallery has enabled the public to form a summary idea of
Impressionism. To conclude the enumeration of the obstacles, it must be
added that there are hardly any photographs of Impressionist works in the
market. As it is, photography is but a poor translation of these canvases
devoted to the study of the play of light; but even this very feeble means of
distribution has been withheld from them! Exhibited at some galleries,
gathered principally by Durand-Ruel, sold directly to art-lovers — foreigners
mostly — these large series of works have practically remained unknown to
the French public. All the public heard was the reproaches and sarcastic
comments of the opponents, and they never became aware that in the midst
of modern life the greatest, the richest movement was in progress, which the
French school had known since the days of Romanticism. Impressionism has
been made known to them principally by the controversies and by the
fruitful consequences of this movement for the illustration and study of
contemporary life.
MANET — REST
I do not profess to give here a detailed and complete history of
Impressionism, for which several volumes like the present one would be
required. I shall only try to compile an ensemble of concise and very precise
notions and statements bearing upon this vast subject. It will be my special
object to try and prove that Impressionism is neither an isolated
manifestation, nor a violent denial of the French traditions, but nothing more
or less than a logical return to the very spirit of these traditions, contrary to
the theories upheld by its detractors. It is for this reason that I have made use
of the first chapter to say a few words on the precursors of this movement.
No art manifestation is really isolated. However new it may seem, it is
always based upon the previous epochs. The true masters do not give
lessons, because art cannot be taught, but they set the example. To admire
them does not mean to imitate them: it means the recognition in them of the
principles of originality and the comprehension of their source, so that this
eternal source may be called to life in oneself, this source which springs
from a sincere and sympathetic vision of the aspects of life. The
Impressionists have not escaped this beautiful law. I shall speak of them
impartially, without excessive enthusiasm; and it will be my special
endeavour to demonstrate in each of them the cult of a predecessor, for there
have been few artistic movements where the love for, and one might say the
hereditary link with, the preceding masters has been more tenacious.
The Academy has struggled violently against Impressionism, accusing it
of madness, of systematic negation of the “laws of beauty,” which it
pretended to defend and of which it claimed to be the official priest. The
Academy has shown itself hostile to a degree in this quarrel. It has excluded
the Impressionists from the Salons, from awards, from official purchases.
Only quite recently the acceptance of the Caillebotte bequest to the
Luxembourg Gallery gave rise to a storm of indignation among the official
painters. I shall, in the course of this book, enter upon the value of these
attacks. Meanwhile I can only say how regrettable this obstinacy appears to
me and will appear to every free spirit. It is unworthy even of an ardent
conviction to condemn a whole group of artists en bloc as fools, enemies of
beauty, or as tricksters anxious to degrade the art of their nation, when these
artists worked during forty years towards the same goal, without getting any
reward for their effort, but poverty and derision. It is now about ten years
since Impressionism has taken root, since its followers can sell their
canvases, and since they are admired and praised by a solid and ever-
growing section of the public. The hour has therefore arrived, calmly to
consider a movement which has imposed itself upon the history of French art
from 1860 to 1900 with extreme energy, to leave dithyrambics as well as
polemics, and to speak of it with a view to exactness. The Academy, in
continuing the propagation of an ideal of beauty fixed by canons derived
from Greek, Latin and Renaissance art, and neglecting the Gothic, the
Primitives and the Realists, looks upon itself as the guardian of the national
tradition, because it exercises an hierarchic authority over the Ecole de
Rome, the Salons, and the Ecole des Beaux Arts. All the same, its ideals are
of very mixed origin and very little French. Its principles are the same by
which the academic art of nearly all the official schools of Europe is
governed. This mythological and allegorical art, guided by dogmas and
formulas which are imposed upon all pupils regardless of their temperament,
is far more international than national. To an impartial critic this statement
will show in an even more curious light the excommunication jealously
issued by the academic painters against French artists, who, far from
revolting in an absurd spirit of parti-pris against the genius of their race, are
perhaps more sincerely attached to it than their persecutors. Why should a
group of men deliberately choose to paint mad, illogical, bad pictures, and
reap a harvest of public derision, poverty and sterility? It would be uncritical
to believe merely in a general mystification which makes its authors the
worst sufferers. Simple common sense will find in these men a conviction, a
sincerity, a sustained effort, and this alone should, in the name of the sacred
solidarity of those who by various means try to express their love of the
beautiful, suppress the annoying accusations hurled too light-heartedly
against Manet and his friends.
MANET — IN THE SQUARE

I shall define later on the ideas of the Impressionists on technique,
composition and style in painting. Meanwhile it will be necessary to indicate
their principal precursors.
Their movement may be styled thus: a reaction against the Greco-Latin
spirit and the scholastic organisation of painting after the second
Renaissance and the Italo-French school of Fontainebleau, by the century of
Louis XIV., the school of Rome, and the consular and imperial taste. In this
sense Impressionism is a protest analogous to that of Romanticism,
exclaiming, to quote the old verse: “Qui nous délivrera des Grecs et des
Romains?”1 From this point of view Impressionism has also great affinities
with the ideas of the English Pre-Raphaelites, who stepped across the second
and even the first Renaissance back to the Primitives.
This reaction is superimposed by another: the reaction of Impressionism,
not only against classic subjects, but against the black painting of the
degenerate Romanticists. And these two reactions are counterbalanced by a
return to the French ideal, to the realistic and characteristic tradition which
commences with Jean Foucquet and Clouet, and is continued by Chardin,
Claude Lorrain, Poussin, Watteau, La Tour, Fragonard, and the admirable
engravers of the eighteenth century down to the final triumph of the
allegorical taste of the Roman revolution. Here can be found a whole chain
of truly national artists who have either been misjudged, like Chardin, or
considered as “small masters” and excluded from the first rank for the
benefit of the pompous Allegorists descended from the Italian school.
Impressionism being beyond all a technical reaction, its predecessors
should first be looked for from this material point of view. Watteau is the
most striking of all. L’Embarquement pour Cythère is, in its technique, an
Impressionist canvas. It embodies the most significant of all the principles
exposed by Claude Monet: the division of tones by juxtaposed touches of
colour which, at a certain distance, produce upon the eye of the beholder the
effect of the actual colouring of the things painted, with a variety, a freshness
and a delicacy of analysis unobtainable by a single tone prepared and mixed
upon the palette.
MANET — YOUNG MAN IN COSTUME OF MAJO
Claude Lorrain, and after him Carle Vernet, are claimed by the
Impressionists as precursors from the point of view of decorative landscape
arrangement, and particularly of the predominance of light in which all
objects are bathed. Ruysdael and Poussin are, in their eyes, for the same
reasons precursors, especially Ruysdael, who observed so frankly the blue
colouring of the horizon and the influence of blue upon the landscape. It is
known that Turner worshipped Claude for the very same reasons. The
Impressionists in their turn, consider Turner as one of their masters; they
have the greatest admiration for this mighty genius, this sumptuous
visionary. They have it equally for Bonington, whose technique is inspired
by the same observations as their own. They find, finally, in Delacroix the
frequent and very apparent application of their ideas. Notably in the famous
Entry of the Crusaders into Constantinople, the fair woman kneeling in the
foreground is painted in accordance with the principles of the division of
tones: the nude back is furrowed with blue, green and yellow touches, the
juxtaposition of which produces, at a certain distance, an admirable flesh-
tone.
And now I must speak at some length of a painter who, together with the
luminous and sparkling landscapist Félix Ziem, was the most direct initiator
of Impressionist technique. Monticelli is one of those singular men of genius
who are not connected with any school, and whose work is an inexhaustible
source of applications. He lived at Marseilles, where he was born, made a
short appearance at the Salons, and then returned to his native town, where
he died poor, ignored, paralysed and mad. In order to live he sold his small
pictures at the cafés, where they fetched ten or twenty francs at the most. To-
day they sell for considerable prices, although the government has not yet
acquired any work by Monticelli for the public galleries. The mysterious
power alone of these paintings secures him a fame which is, alas!
posthumous. Many Monticellis have been sold by dealers as Diaz’s; now
they are more eagerly looked for than Diaz, and collectors have made
fortunes with these small canvases bought formerly, to use a colloquial
expression which is here only too literally true, “for a piece of bread.”
Monticelli painted landscapes, romantic scenes, “fêtes galantes” in the
spirit of Watteau, and still-life pictures: one could not imagine a more
inspired sense of colour than shown by these works which seem to be
painted with crushed jewels, with powerful harmony, and beyond all with an
unheard-of delicacy in the perception of fine shades. There are tones which
nobody had ever invented yet, a richness, a profusion, a subtlety which
almost vie with the resources of music. The fairyland atmosphere of these
works surrounds a very firm design of charming style, but, to use the words
of the artist himself, “in these canvases the objects are the decoration, the
touches are the scales, and the light is the tenor.” Monticelli has created for
himself an entirely personal technique which can only be compared with that
of Turner; he painted with a brush so full, fat and rich, that some of the
details are often truly modelled in relief, in a substance as precious as
enamels, jewels, ceramics — a substance which is a delight in itself. Every
picture by Monticelli provokes astonishment; constructed upon one colour as
upon a musical theme, it rises to intensities which one would have thought
impossible. His pictures are magnificent bouquets, bursts of joy and colour,
where nothing is ever crude, and where everything is ruled by a supreme
sense of harmony.
MANET — THE READER
Claude Lorrain, Watteau, Turner and Monticelli constitute really the descent
of a landscapist like Claude Monet. In all matters concerning technique, they
form the direct chain of Impressionism. As regards design, subject, realism,
the study of modern life, the conception of beauty and the portrait, the
Impressionist movement is based upon the old French masters, principally
upon Chardin, Watteau, Latour, Largillière, Fragonard, Debucourt, Saint-
Aubin, Moreau, and Eisen. It has resolutely held aloof from mythology,
academic allegory, historical painting, and from the neo-Greek elements of
Classicism as well as from the German and Spanish elements of
Romanticism. This reactionary movement is therefore entirely French, and
surely if it deserves reproach, the one least deserved is that levelled upon it
by the official painters: disobedience to the national spirit. Impressionism is
an art which does not give much scope to intellectuality, an art whose
followers admit scarcely anything but immediate vision, rejecting
philosophy and symbols and occupying themselves only with the
consideration of light, picturesqueness, keen and clever observation, and
antipathy to abstraction, as the innate qualities of French art. We shall see
later on, when considering separately its principal masters, that each of them
has based his art upon some masters of pure French blood.
Impressionism has, then, hitherto been very badly judged. It is contained
in two chief points: search after a new technique, and expression of modern
reality. Its birth has not been a spontaneous phenomenon. Manet, who, by his
spirit and by the chance of his friendships, grouped around him the principal
members, commenced by being classed in the ranks of the Realists of the
second Romanticism by the side of Courbet; and during the whole first
period of his work he only endeavoured to describe contemporary scenes, at
a time when the laws of the new technique were already dawning upon
Claude Monet. Gradually the grouping of the Impressionists took place.
Claude Monet is really the first initiator: in a parallel line with his ideas and
his works Manet passed into the second period of his artistic life, and with
him Renoir, Degas and Pissarro. But Manet had already during his first
period been the topic of far-echoing polemics, caused by his realism and by
the marked influence of the Spaniards and of Hals upon his style; his
temperament, too, was that of the head of a school; and for these reasons
legend has attached to his name the title of head of the Impressionist school,
but this legend is incorrect.
To conclude, the very name “Impressionism” is due to Claude Monet.
There has been much serious arguing upon this famous word which has
given rise to all sorts of definitions and conclusions. In reality this is its
curious origin which is little known, even in criticism. Ever since 1860 the
works of Manet and of his friends caused such a stir, that they were rejected
en bloc by the Salon jury of 1863. The emperor, inspired by a praiseworthy,
liberal thought, demanded that these innovators should at least have the right
to exhibit together in a special room which was called the Salon des Refusés.
The public crowded there to have a good laugh. One of the pictures which
caused most derision was a sunset by Claude Monet, entitled Impressions.
From this moment the painters who adopted more or less the same manner
were called Impressionists. The word remained in use, and Manet and his
friends thought it a matter of indifference whether this label was attached to
them, or another. At this despised Salon were to be found the names of
Manet, Monet, Whistler, Bracquemont, Jongkind, Fantin-Latour, Renoir,
Legros, and many others who have since risen to fame. Universal ridicule
only fortified the friendships and resolutions of this group of men, and from
that time dates the definite foundation of the Impressionist school. For thirty
years it continued to produce without interruption an enormous quantity of
works under an accidental and inexact denomination; to obey the creative
instinct, without any other dogma than the passionate observation of nature,
without any other assistance than individual sympathies, in the face of the
disciplinary teaching of the official school.
DEGAS — THE DANCER AT THE PHOTOGRAPHER’S
II THE THEORY OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS
THE DIVISION OF TONES, COMPLEMENTARY COLOURS, THE STUDY OF ATMOSPHERE
— THE IDEAS OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS ON SUBJECT-PICTURES, ON THE BEAUTY OF
CHARACTER, ON MODERNITY, AND ON STYLE
It should be stated from the outset that there is nothing dogmatic about this
explanation of the Impressionist theories, and that it is not the result of a
preconceived plan. In art a system is not improvised. A theory is slowly
evolved, nearly always unknown to the author, from the discoveries of his
sincere instinct, and this theory can only be formulated after years by
criticism facing the works. Monet and Manet have worked for a long time
without ever thinking that theories would be built upon their paintings. Yet a
certain number of considerations will strike the close observer, and I will put
these considerations before the reader, after reminding him that spontaneity
and feeling are the essentials of all art.
DEGAS — CARRIAGES AT THE RACES

The Impressionist ideas may be summed up in the following manner: —
In nature no colour exists by itself. The colouring of the objects is a pure
illusion: the only creative source of colour is the sunlight which envelopes
all things, and reveals them, according to the hours, with infinite
modifications. The mystery of matter escapes us; we do not know the exact
moment when reality separates itself from unreality. All we know is, that our
vision has formed the habit of discerning in the universe two notions: form
and colour; but these two notions are inseparable. Only artificially can we
distinguish between outline and colour: in nature the distinction does not
exist. Light reveals the forms, and, playing upon the different states of
matter, the substance of leaves, the grain of stones, the fluidity of air in deep
layers, gives them dissimilar colouring. If the light disappears, forms and
colours vanish together. We only see colours; everything has a colour, and it
is by the perception of the different colour surfaces striking our eyes, that we
conceive the forms, i.e. the outlines of these colours.
The idea of distance, of perspective, of volume is given us by darker or
lighter colours: this idea is what is called in painting the sense of values. A
value is the degree of dark or light intensity, which permits our eyes to
comprehend that one object is further or nearer than another. And as painting
is not and cannot be the imitation of nature, but merely her artificial
interpretation, since it only has at its disposal two out of three dimensions,
the values are the only means that remain for expressing depth on a flat
surface.
Colour is therefore the procreatrix of design. Or, colour being simply the
irradiation of light, it follows that all colour is composed of the same
elements as sunlight, namely the seven tones of the spectrum. It is known,
that these seven tones appear different owing to the unequal speed of the
waves of light. The tones of nature appear to us therefore different, like those
of the spectrum, and for the same reason. The colours vary with the intensity
of light. There is no colour peculiar to any object, but only more or less rapid
vibration of light upon its surface. The speed depends, as is demonstrated by
optics, on the degree of the inclination of the rays which, according to their
vertical or oblique direction, give different light and colour.
The colours of the spectrum are thus recomposed in everything we see. It
is their relative proportion which makes new tones out of the seven spectral
tones. This leads immediately to some practical conclusions, the first of
which is, that what has formerly been called local colour is an error: a leaf is
not green, a tree-trunk is not brown, and, according to the time of day, i.e.
according to the greater or smaller inclination of the rays (scientifically
called the angle of incidence), the green of the leaf and the brown of the tree
are modified. What has to be studied therefore in these objects, if one wishes
to recall their colour to the beholder of a picture, is the composition of the
atmosphere which separates them from the eye. This atmosphere is the real
subject of the picture, and whatever is represented upon it only exists
through its medium.
DEGAS — THE GREEK DANCE — PASTEL
A second consequence of this analysis of light is, that shadow is not absence
of light, but light of a different quality and of different value. Shadow is not
a part of the landscape, where light ceases, but where it is subordinated to a
light which appears to us more intense. In the shadow the rays of the
spectrum vibrate with different speed. Painting should therefore try to
discover here, as in the light parts, the play of the atoms of solar light,
instead of representing shadows with ready-made tones composed of
bitumen and black.
The third conclusion resulting from this: the colours in the shadow are
modified by refraction. That means, f.i. in a picture representing an interior,
the source of light (window) may not be indicated: the light circling round
the picture will then be composed of the reflections of rays whose source is
invisible, and all the objects, acting as mirrors for these reflections, will
consequently influence each other. Their colours will affect each other, even
if the surfaces be dull. A red vase placed upon a blue carpet will lead to a
very subtle, but mathematically exact, interchange between this blue and this
red, and this exchange of luminous waves will create between the two
colours a tone of reflections composed of both. These composite reflections
will form a scale of tones complementary of the two principal colours. The
science of optics can work out these complementary colours with
mathematical exactness. If f.i. a head receives the orange rays of daylight
from one side and the bluish light of an interior from the other, green
reflections will necessarily appear on the nose and in the middle region of
the face. The painter Besnard, who has specially devoted himself to this
minute study of complementary colours, has given us some famous
examples of it.
The last consequence of these propositions is that the blending of the
spectral tones is accomplished by a parallel and distinct projection of the
colours. They are artificially reunited on the crystalline: a lens interposed
between the light and the eye, and opposing the crystalline, which is a living
lens, dissociates again these united rays, and shows us again the seven
distinct colours of the atmosphere. It is no less artificial if a painter mixes
upon his palette different colours to compose a tone; it is again artificial that
paints have been invented which represent some of the combinations of the
spectrum, just to save the artist the trouble of constantly mixing the seven
solar tones. Such mixtures are false, and they have the disadvantage of
creating heavy tonalities, since the coarse mixture of powders and oils
cannot accomplish the action of light which reunites the luminous waves into
an intense white of unimpaired transparency. The colours mixed on the
palette compose a dirty grey. What, then, is the painter to do, who is anxious
to approach, as near as our poor human means will allow, that divine
fairyland of nature? Here we touch upon the very foundations of
Impressionism. The painter will have to paint with only the seven colours of
the spectrum, and discard all the others: that is what Claude Monet has done
boldly, adding to them only white and black. He will, furthermore, instead of
composing mixtures on his palette, place upon his canvas touches of none
but the seven colours juxtaposed, and leave the individual rays of each of
these colours to blend at a certain distance, so as to act like sunlight itself
upon the eye of the beholder.
DEGAS — WAITING
This, then, is the theory of the dissociation of tones, which is the main point
of Impressionist technique. It has the immense advantage of suppressing all
mixtures, of leaving to each colour its proper strength, and consequently its
freshness and brilliancy. At the same time the difficulties are extreme. The
painter’s eye must be admirably subtle. Light becomes the sole subject of the
picture; the interest of the object upon which it plays is secondary. Painting
thus conceived becomes a purely optic art, a search for harmonies, a sort of
natural poem, quite distinct from expression, style and design, which were
the principal aims of former painting. It is almost necessary to invent another
name for this special art which, clearly pictorial though it be, comes as near
to music, as it gets far away from literature and psychology. It is only natural
that, fascinated by this study, the Impressionists have almost remained
strangers to the painting of expression, and altogether hostile to historical
and symbolist painting. It is therefore principally in landscape painting that
they have achieved the greatness that is theirs.
Through the application of these principles which I have set forth very
summarily, Claude Monet arrived at painting by means of the infinitely
varied juxtaposition of a quantity of colour spots which dissociate the tones
of the spectrum and draw the forms of objects through the arabesque of their
vibrations. A landscape thus conceived becomes a kind of symphony,
starting from one theme (the most luminous point, f.i.), and developing all
over the canvas the variations of this theme. This investigation is added to
the habitual preoccupations of the landscapist study of the character peculiar
to the scene, style of the trees or houses, accentuation of the decorative side
— and to the habitual preoccupations of the figure painter in the portrait.
The canvases of Monet, Renoir and Pissarro have, in consequence of this
research, an absolutely original aspect: their shadows are striped with blue,
rose-madder and green; nothing is opaque or sooty; a light vibration strikes
the eye. Finally, blue and orange predominate, simply because in these
studies — which are more often than not full sunlight effects — blue is the
complementary colour of the orange light of the sun, and is profusely
distributed in the shadows. In these canvases can be found a vast amount of
exact grades of tone, which seem to have been entirely ignored by the older
painters, whose principal concern was style, and who reduced a landscape to
three or four broad tones, endeavouring only to explain the sentiment
inspired by it.
And now I shall have to pass on to the Impressionists’ ideas on the style
itself of painting, on Realism.
From the outset it must not be forgotten that Impressionism has been
propagated by men who had all been Realists; that means by a reactionary
movement against classic and romantic painting. This movement, of which
Courbet will always remain the most famous representative, has been anti-
intellectual. It has protested against every literary, psychologic or symbolical
element in painting. It has reacted at the same time against the historical
painting of Delaroche and the mythological painting of the Ecole de Rome,
with an extreme violence which appears to us excessive now, but which
found its explanation in the intolerable tediousness or emphasis at which the
official painters had arrived. Courbet was a magnificent worker, with
rudimentary ideas, and he endeavoured to exclude even those which he
possessed. This exaggeration which diminishes our admiration for his work
and prevents us from finding in it any emotion but that which results from
technical mastery, was salutary for the development of the art of his
successors. It caused the young painters to turn resolutely towards the
aspects of contemporary life, and to draw style and emotion from their own
epoch; and this intention was right. An artistic tradition is not continued by
imitating the style of the past, but by extracting the immediate impression of
each epoch. That is what the really great masters have done, and it is the
succession of their sincere and profound observations which constitutes the
style of the races.
CLAUDE MONET — THE PINES

Manet and his friends drew all their strength from this idea. Much finer and
more learned than a man like Courbet, they saw an aspect of modernity far
more complex, and less limited to immediate and grossly superficial realism.
Nor must it be forgotten that they were contemporaries of the realistic, anti-
romantic literary movement, a movement which gave them nothing but
friends. Flaubert and the Goncourts proved that Realism is not the enemy of
refined form and of delicate psychology. The influence of these ideas created
first of all Manet and his friends: the technical evolution (of which we have
traced the chief traits) came only much later to oppose itself to their
conceptions. Impressionism can therefore be defined as a revolution of
pictorial technique together with an attempt at expressing modernity. The
reaction against Symbolism and Romanticism happened to coincide with the
reaction against muddy technique.
The Impressionists, whilst occupying themselves with cleansing the
palette of the bitumen of which the Academy made exaggerated use, whilst
also observing nature with a greater love of light, made it their object to
escape in the representation of human beings the laws of beauty, such as
were taught by the School. And on this point one might apply to them all
that one knows of the ideas of the Goncourts and Flaubert, and later of Zola,
in the domain of the novel. They were moved by the same ideas; to speak of
the one group is to speak of the other. The longing for truth, the horror of
emphasis and of false idealism which paralysed the novelist as well as the
painter, led the Impressionists to substitute for beauty a novel notion, that of
character. To search for, and to express, the true character of a being or of a
site, seemed to them more significant, more moving, than to search for an
exclusive beauty, based upon rules, and inspired by the Greco-Latin ideal.
Like the Flemings, the Germans, the Spaniards, and in opposition to the
Italians whose influence had conquered all the European academies, the
French Realist-Impressionists, relying upon the qualities of lightness,
sincerity and expressive clearness which are the real merits of their race,
detached themselves from the oppressive and narrow preoccupation with the
beautiful and with all the metaphysics and abstractions following in its train.
CLAUDE MONET — CHURCH AT VERNON

This fact of the substitution of character for beauty is the essential feature of
the movement. What is called Impressionism is — let it not be forgotten — a
technique which can be applied to any subject. Whether the subject be a
virgin, or a labourer, it can be painted with divided tones, and certain living
artists, like the symbolist Henri Martin, who has almost the ideas of a Pre-
Raphaelite, have proved it by employing this technique for the rendering of
religious or philosophic subjects. But one can only understand the effort and
the faults of the painters grouped around Manet, by constantly recalling to
one’s mind their predeliction for character. Before Manet a distinction was
made between noble subjects, and others which were relegated to the domain
of genre in which no great artist was admitted to exist by the School, the
familiarity of their subjects barring from them this rank. By the suppression
of the nobleness inherent to the treated subject, the painter’s technical merit
is one of the first things to be considered in giving him rank. The Realist-
Impressionists painted scenes in the ball-room, on the river, in the field, the
street, the foundry, modern interiors, and found in the life of the humble
immense scope for studying the gestures, the costumes, the expressions of
the nineteenth century.
Their effort had its bearing upon the way of representing persons, upon
what is called, in the studio language, the “mise en cadre.” There, too, they
overthrew the principles admitted by the School. Manet, and especially
Degas, have created in this respect a new style from which the whole art of
realistic contemporary illustration is derived. This style had been hitherto
totally ignored, or the artists had shrunk from applying it. It is a style which
is founded upon the small painters of the eighteenth century, upon Saint-
Aubin, Debucourt, Moreau, and, further back, upon Pater and the Dutchmen.
But this time, instead of confining this style to vignettes and very small
dimensions, the Impressionists have boldly given it the dimensions and
importance of big canvases. They have no longer based the laws of
composition, and consequently of style, upon the ideas relative to the
subjects, but upon values and harmonies. To take a summary example: if the
School composed a picture representing the death of Agamemnon, it did not
fail to subordinate the whole composition to Agamemnon, then to
Clytemnestra, then to the witnesses of the murder, graduating the moral and
literary interest according to the different persons, and sacrificing to this
interest the colouring and the realistic qualities of the scene. The Realists
composed by picking out first the strongest “value” of the picture, say a red
dress, and then distributing the other values according to a harmonious
progression of their tonalities. “The principal person in a picture,” said
Manet, “is the light.” With Manet and his friends we find, then, that the
concern for expression and for the sentiments evoked by the subject, was
always subordinated to a purely pictorial and decorative preoccupation. This
has frequently led the Impressionists to grave errors, which they have,
however, generally avoided by confining themselves to very simple subjects,
for which the daily life supplied the grouping.
RENOIR — PORTRAIT OF MADAME MAITRE
One of the reforms due to their conception has been the suppression of the
professional model, and the substitution for it of the natural model, seen in
the exercise of his occupation. This is one of the most useful conquests for
the benefit of modern painting. It marks a just return to nature and simplicity.
Nearly all their figures are real portraits; and in everything that concerns the
labourer and the peasant, they have found the proper style and character,
because they have observed these beings in the true medium of their
occupations, instead of forcing them into a sham pose and painting them in
disguise. The basis of all their pictures has been first of all a series of
landscape and figure studies made in the open air, far from the studio, and
afterwards co-ordinated. One may wish pictorial art to have higher
ambitions; and one may find in the Primitives an example of a curious
mysticism, an expression of the abstract and of dreams. But one should not
underrate the power of naïve and realistic observation, which the Primitives
carried into the execution of their works, subordinating it, however, to
religious expression, and it must also be admitted that the Realist-
Impressionists served at least their conception of art logically and
homogeneously. The criticism which may be levelled against them is that
which Realism itself carries in its train, and we shall see that esthetics could
never create classifications capable of defining and containing the infinite
gradations of creative temperaments.
In art, classifications have rarely any value, and are rather damaging.
Realism and Idealism are abstract terms which cannot suffice to characterise
beings who obey their sensibility. It is therefore necessary to invent as many
words as there are remarkable men. If Leonardo was a great painter, are
Turner and Monet not painters at all? There is no connection between them;
their methods of thought and expression are antithetical. Perhaps it will be
most simple, to admire them all, and to renounce any further definition of the
painter, adopting this word to mark the man who uses the palette as his
means of expression.
Thus preoccupation with contemporary emotions, substitution of
character for classic beauty (or of emotional beauty for formal beauty),
admission of the genre-painter into the first rank, composition based upon
the reciprocal reaction of values, subordination of the subject to the interest
of execution, the effort to isolate the art of painting from the ideas inherent
to that of literature, and particularly the instinctive move towards the
“symphonisation” of colours, and consequently towards music, — these are
the principal features of the aesthetic code of the Realist-Impressionists, if
this term may be applied to a group of men hostile towards esthetics such as
they are generally taught.
III EDOUARD MANET: HIS WORK, HIS
INFLUENCE
As I have said, Edouard Manet has not been entirely the originator of the
Impressionist technique. It is the work of Claude Monet which presents the
most complete example of it, and which also came first as regards date. But
it is very difficult to determine such cases of priority, and it is, after all,
rather useless. A technique cannot be invented in a day. In this case it was
the result of long investigations, in which Manet and Renoir participated,
and it is necessary to unite under the collective name of Impressionists a
group of men, tied by friendship, who made a simultaneous effort towards
originality, all in about the same spirit, though frequently in very different
ways. As in the case of the Pre-Raphaelites, it was first of all friendship, then
unjust derision, which created the solidarity of the Impressionists. But the
Pre-Raphaelites, in aiming at an idealistic and symbolic art, were better
agreed upon the intellectual principles which permitted them at once to
define a programme. The Impressionists who were only united by their
temperaments, and had made it their first aim to break away from all school
programmes, tried simply to do something new, with frankness and freedom.
Manet was, in their midst, the personality marked out at the same time by
their admiration, and by the attacks of the critics for the post of standard-
bearer. A little older than his friends, he had already, quite alone, raised
heated discussions by the works in his first manner. He was considered an
innovator, and it was by instinctive admiration that his first friends, Whistler,
Legros, and Fantin-Latour, were gradually joined by Marcelin Desboutin,
Degas, Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, the young
painter Bazille, who met his premature death in 1870, and by the writers
Gautier, Banville, Baudelaire (who was a passionate admirer of Manet’s);
then later by Zola, the Goncourts, and Stéphane Mallarmé. This was the first
nucleus of a public which was to increase year by year. Manet had the
personal qualities of a chief; he was a man of spirit, an ardent worker, and an
enthusiastic and generous character.
MANET — THE DEAD TOREADOR
Manet commenced his first studies with Couture. After having travelled a
good deal at sea to obey his parents, his vocation took hold of him
irresistibly. About 1850 the young man entered the studio of the severe
author of the Romains de la Décadence. His stay was short. He displeased
the professor by his uncompromising energy. Couture said of him angrily:
“He will become the Daumier of 1860.” It is known that Daumier,
lithographer, and painter of genius, was held in meagre esteem by the
academicians. Manet travelled in Germany after the coup d’etat, copied
Rembrandt in Munich, then went to Italy, copied Tintoretto in Venice, and
conceived there the idea of several religious pictures. Then he became
enthusiastic about the Spaniards, especially Velasquez and Goya. The sincere
expression of things seen took root from this moment as the principal rule of
art in the brain of this young Frenchman who was loyal, ardent, and hostile
to all subtleties. He painted some fine works, like the Buveur d’absinthe and
the Vieux musicien. They show the influence of Courbet, but already the
blacks and the greys have an original and superb quality; they announce a
virtuoso of the first order.
It was in 1861 that Manet first sent to the Salon the portraits of his parents
and the Guitarero, which was hailed by Gautier, and rewarded by the jury,
though it roused surprise and irritation. But after that he was rejected,
whether it was a question of the Fifre or of the Déjeuner sur l’herbe. This
canvas, with an admirable feminine nude, created a scandal, because an
undressed woman figured in it amidst clothed figures, a matter of frequent
occurrence with the masters of the Renaissance. The landscape is not painted
in the open air, but in the studio, and resembles a tapestry, but it shows
already the most brilliant evidence of Manet’s talent in the study of the nude
and the still-life of the foreground, which is the work of a powerful master.
From the time of this canvas the artist’s personality appeared in all its
maturity. He painted it before he was thirty, and it has the air of an old
master’s work; it is based upon Hals and the Spaniards together.
The reputation of Manet became established after 1865. Furious critics
were opposed by enthusiastic admirers. Baudelaire upheld Manet, as he had
upheld Delacroix and Wagner, with his great clairvoyance, sympathetic to all
real originality. The Olympia brought the discussion to a head. This
courtesan lying in bed undressed, with a negress carrying a bouquet, and a
black cat, made a tremendous stir. It is a powerful work of strong colour,
broad design and intense sentiment, astounding in its parti-pris of reducing
the values to the greatest simplicity. One can feel in it the artist’s
preoccupation with rediscovering the rude frankness of Hals and Goya, and
his aversion against the prettiness and false nobility of the school. This
famous Olympia which occasioned so much fury, appears to us to-day as a
transition work. It is neither a masterpiece, nor an emotional work, but a
technical experiment, very significant for the epoch during which it appeared
in French art, and this canvas, which is very inferior to Manet’s fine works,
may well be considered as a date of evolution. He was doubtful about
exhibiting it, but Baudelaire decided him and wrote to him on this occasion
these typical remarks: “You complain about attacks? But are you the first to
endure them? Have you more genius than Chateaubriand and Wagner? They
were not killed by derision. And, in order not to make you too proud, I must
tell you, that they are models each in his own way and in a very rich world,
whilst you are only the first in the decrepitude of your art.”
MANET — OLYMPIA
Thus it must be firmly established that from this moment Manet passed as an
innovator, years before Impressionism existed or was even thought of. This
is an important point: it will help to clear up the twofold origin of the
movement which followed. To his realism, to his return to composition in
the modern spirit, and to the simplifying of planes and values, Manet owed
these attacks, though at that time his colour was still sombre and entirely
influenced by Hals, Goya and Courbet. From that time the artist became a
chief. As his friends used to meet him at an obscure Batignolles café, the
café Guerbois (still existing), public derision baptized these meetings with
the name of “L’Ecole des Batignolles.” Manet then exhibited the Angels at
the Tomb of Christ, a souvenir of the Venetians; Lola de Valence, commented
upon by Baudelaire in a quatrain which can be found in the Fleurs du Mal;
the Episode d’un combat de taureaux (dissatisfied with this picture, he cut
out the dead toreador in the foreground, and burnt the rest). The Acteur
tragique (portrait of Rouvière in Hamlet) and the Jésus insulté followed, and
then came the Gitanos, L’Enfant à l’Epée, and the portrait of Mme. Manet.
This series of works is admirable. It is here where he reveals himself as a
splendid colourist, whose design is as vigorous as the technique is masterly.
In these works one does not think of looking for anything but the witchery of
technical strength; and the abundant wealth of his temperament is simply
dazzling. Manet reveals himself as the direct heir of the great Spaniards,
more interesting, more spontaneous, and freer than Courbet. The Rouvière is
as fine a symphony in grey and black as the noblest portraits by Bronzino,
and there is probably no Goya more powerful than the Toréador tué. Manet’s
altogether classic descent appears here undeniably. There is no question yet
of Impressionism, and yet Monet and Renoir are already painting, Monet has
exhibited at the Salon des Refusés, but criticism sees and attacks nobody but
Manet. This great individuality who overwhelmed the Academy with its
weak allegories, was the butt of great insults and the object of great
admiration. Banished from the Salons, he collected fifty pictures in a room
in the Avenue de l’Alma and invited the public thither. In 1868 appeared the
portrait of Emile Zola, in 1860 the Déjeuner, works which are so powerful,
that they enforced admiration in spite of all hostility. In the Salon of 1870
was shown the portrait of Eva Gonzalès, the charming pastellist and pupil of
Manet, and the impressive Execution of Maximilian at Queretaro. Manet
was at the apogee of his talent, when the Franco-German war broke out. At
the age of thirty-eight he had put forth a considerable amount of work, tried
himself in all styles, severed his individuality from the slavish admiration of
the old masters, and attained his own mastery. And now he wanted to
expand, and, in joining Monet, Renoir and Degas, interpret in his own way
the Impressionist theory.
MANET — THE WOMAN WITH THE PARROT
The Fight of the Kearsage and the Alabama, a magnificent sea-piece, bathed
in sunlight, announced this transformation in his work, as did also a study, a
Garden, painted, I believe, in 1870, but exhibited only after the crisis of the
terrible year. At that time the Durand-Ruel Gallery bought a considerable
series by the innovator, and was imitated by some select art-lovers. The
Musique aux Tuileries and the Bal de l’Opéra had, some years before,
pointed towards the evolution of this great artist in the direction of plein-air
painting. The Bon Bock, in which the very soul of Hals is revived, and the
grave Liseur, sold immediately at Vienne, were the two last pledges given by
the artist to his old admirers; these two pictures had moreover a splendid
success, and the Bon Bock, popularised by an engraving, was hailed by the
very men who had most unjustly attacked the author of the portrait of Mme.
Morisot, a French masterpiece. But already Manet was attracted irresistibly
towards the study of light, and, faithful to his programme, he prepared to
face once again outbursts of anger and further sarcasms; he was resolved
once again to offer battle to the Salons. Followed by all the Impressionists he
tried to make them understand the necessity of introducing the new ideas
into this retrograde Milieu. But they would not. Having already received a
rebuff by the attacks directed for some years against their works, they
exhibited among themselves in some private galleries: they declined to force
the gate of the Salons, and Manet remained alone. In 1875 he submitted,
with his Argenteuil, the most perfect epitome of his atmospheric researches.
The jury admitted it in spite of loud protests: they were afraid of Manet; they
admired his power of transformation, and he revolted the prejudiced,
attracting them at the same time by the charm of his force. But in 1876 the
portrait of Desboutin and the Linge (an exquisite picture, — one of the best
productions of open-air study) were rejected. Manet then recommenced the
experience of 1867, and opened his studio to the public. A register at the
door was soon covered with signatures protesting against the jury, as well as
with hostile jokes, and even anonymous insults! In 1877 the defeated jury
admitted the portrait of the famous singer Faure in the part of Hamlet, and
rejected Nana, a picture which was found scandalising, but has charming
freshness and an intensely modern character. In 1878, 1879 and 1880 they
accepted la Serre, the surprising symphony in blue and white which shows
Mr George Moore in boating costume, the portrait of Antonin Proust, and
the scene at the Père Lathuile restaurant, in which Manet’s nervous and
luminous realism has so curious a resemblance to the art of the Goncourts. In
1881 the portrait of Rochefort and that of the lion-killer, Pertuiset, procured
the artist a medal at the Salon, and Antonin Proust, the friend of Manet’s
childhood, who had become Minister of Fine Arts, honoured himself in
decorating him with the legion of honour. In 1882 appeared a magnificent
canvas, the Bar des Folies-Bergère, in which there is some sparkling still-life
painting of most attractive beauty. It was accompanied by a lady’s portrait,
Jeanne. But on April 30, 1883, Manet died, exhausted by his work and
struggles, of locomotor ataxy, after having vainly undergone the amputation
of a foot to avoid gangrene.
MANET — THE BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE

It will be seen that Manet fought through all his life: few artists’ lives have
been nobler. His has been an example of untiring energy; he employed it as
much in working, as in making a stand against prejudices. Rejected,
accepted, rejected again, he delivered with enormous courage and faith his
attack upon a jury which represented routine. As he fought in front of his
easel, he still fought before the public, without ever relaxing, without
changing, alone, apart even from those whom he loved, who had been
shaped by his example. This great painter, one of those who did most honour
to the French soul, had the genius to create by himself an Impressionism of
his own which will always remain his own, after having given evidence of
gifts of the first order in the tradition handed down by the masters of the real
and the good. He cannot be confused either with Monet, or with Pissarro and
Renoir. His comprehension of light is a special one, his technique is not in
accordance with the system of colour-spots; it observes the theory of
complementary colours and of the division of tones without departing from a
grand style, from a classic stateliness, from a superb sureness. Manet has not
been the inventor of Impressionism which co-existed with his work since
1865, but he has rendered it immense services, by taking upon himself all the
outbursts of anger addressed to the innovators, by making a breach in public
opinion, through which his friends have passed in behind him. Probably
without him all these artists would have remained unknown, or at least
without influence, because they all were bold characters in art, but timid or
disdainful in life. Degas, Monet and Renoir were fine natures with a horror
of polemics, who wished to hold aloof from the Salons, and were resigned
from the outset to be misunderstood. They were, so to say, electrified by the
magnificent example of Manet’s fighting spirit, and Manet was generous
enough to take upon himself the reproaches levelled, not only against his
work, but against theirs. His twenty years of open war, sustained with an
abnegation worthy of all esteem, must be considered as one of the most
significant phenomena of the history of the artists of all ages.
This work of Manet, so much discussed and produced under such
tormenting conditions, owes its importance beyond all to its power and
frankness. Ten years of developing the first manner, tragically limited by the
war of 1870; thirteen years of developing the second evolution, parallel with
the efforts of the Impressionists. The period from 1860 to 1870 is logically
connected with Hals and Goya; from 1870 to 1883 the artist’s modernity is
complicated by the study of light. His personality appears there even more
original, but one may well give the palm to those works of Manet which are
painted in his classic and low-toned manner. He had all the pictorial gifts
which make the glory of the masters: full, true, broad composition, colouring
of irresistible power, blacks and greys which cannot be found elsewhere
since Velasquez and Goya, and a profound knowledge of values. He has tried
his hand at everything: portraits, landscapes, seascapes, scenes of modern
life, still-life and nudes have each in their turn served his ardent desire of
creation. His was a much finer comprehension of contemporary life than
seems to be admitted by Realism: one has only to compare him with
Courbet, to see how far more nervous and intelligent he was, without loss to
the qualities of truth and robustness. His pictures will always remain
documents of the greatest importance on the society, the manners and
customs of the second Empire. He did not possess the gift of psychology. His
Christ aux Anges and Jésus insulté are obviously only pieces of painting
without idealism. He was, like the great Dutch virtuosos, and like certain
Italians, more eye than soul. Yet his Maximilian, the drawings to Poe’s
Raven, and certain sketches show that he might have realised some curious,
psychological works, had he not been so completely absorbed by the
immediate reality and by the desire for beautiful paint. A beautiful painter —
this is what he was before everything else, this is his fairest fame, and it is
almost inconceivable that the juries of the Salons failed to understand him.
They waxed indignant over his subjects which offer only a restricted interest,
and they did not see the altogether classic quality of this technique without
bitumen, without glazing, without tricks; of this vibrating colour; of this rich
paint; of this passionate design so suitable for expressing movement and
gestures true to life; of this simple composition where the whole picture is
based upon two or three values with the straightforwardness one admires in
Rubens, Jordaens and Hals.
MANET — DÉJEUNER
Manet will occupy an important position in the French School. He is the
most original painter of the second half of the nineteenth century, the one
who has really created a great movement. His work, the fecundity of which
is astonishing, is unequal. One has to remember that, besides the incessant
strife which he kept up — a strife which would have killed many artists —
he had to find strength for two grave crises in himself. He joined one
movement, then freed himself of it, then invented another and recommenced
to learn painting at a point where anybody else would have continued in his
previous manner. “Each time I paint,” he said to Mallarmé, “I throw myself
into the water to learn swimming.” It is not surprising that such a man
should have been unequal, and that one can distinguish in his work between
experiments, exaggerations due to research, and efforts made to reject the
prejudices of which we feel the weight no longer. But it would be unjust to
say that Manet has only had the merit of opening up new roads; that has been
said to belittle him, after it had first been said that these roads led into
absurdity. Works like the Toréador, Rouvière, Mme. Manet, the Déjeuner,
the Musique aux Tuileries, the Bon Bock, Argenteuil, Le Linge, En Bateau
and the Bar, will always remain admirable masterpieces which will do credit
to French painting, of which the spontaneous, living, clear and bold art of
Manet is a direct and very representative product.
There remains, then, a great personality who knew how to dominate the
rather coarse conceptions of Realism, who influenced by his modernity all
contemporary illustration, who re-established a sound and strong tradition in
the face of the Academy, and who not only created a new transition, but
marked his place on the new road which he had opened. To him
Impressionism owes its existence; his tenacity enabled it to take root and to
vanquish the opposition of the School; his work has enriched the world by
some beautiful examples which demonstrate the union of the two principles
of Realism and of that technical Impressionism which was to supply Manet,
Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley with an object for their efforts. For the sum total
of all that is evoked by his name, Edouard Manet certainly deserves the
name of a man of genius — an incomplete genius, though, since the thought
with him was not on the level of his technique, since he could never affect
the emotions like a Leonardo or a Rembrandt, but genius all the same
through the magnificent power of his gifts, the continuity of his style, and
the importance of his part which infused blood into a school dying of the
anaemia of conventional art. Whoever beholds a work of Manet’s, even
without knowing the conditions of his life, will feel that there is something
great, the lion’s claw which Delacroix had recognised as far back as 1861,
and to which, it is said, even the great Ingres had paid homage on the jury
which examined with disgust the Guitarero.
MANET — PORTRAIT OF MADAME M.L.
To-day Manet is considered almost as a classic glory; and the progress for
which he had given the impulse, has been so rapid, that many are astonished
that he should ever have been considered audacious. Sight is transformed,
strife is extinguished, and a large, select public, familiar with Monet and
Renoir, judge Manet almost as a long defunct initiator. One has to know his
admirable life, one has to know well the incredible inertia of the Salons
where he appeared, to give him his full due. And when, after the acceptance
of Impressionism, the unavoidable reaction will take place, Manet’s qualities
of solidity, truth and science will appear such, that he will survive many of
those to whom he has opened the road and facilitated the success at the
expense of his own. It will be seen that Degas and he have, more than the
others, and with less apparent éclat, united the gifts which produce durable
works in the midst of the fluctuations of fashion and the caprices of taste and
views. Manet can, at the Louvre or any other gallery, hold his own in the
most crushing surroundings, prove his personal qualities, and worthily
represent a period which he loved.
An enormous amount has been written on him, from Zola’s bold and
intelligent pamphlet in 1865, to the recent work by M. Théodore Duret. Few
men have provoked more comments. In an admirable picture, Hommage à
Manet, the delicate and perfect painter Fantin-Latour, a friend from the first
hour, has grouped around the artist some of his admirers, Monet, Renoir,
Duranty, Zola, Bazille, and Braquemond. The picture has to-day a place of
honour at the Luxembourg, where Manet is insufficiently represented by
Olympia, a study of a woman, and the Balcony. A collection is much to be
desired of his lithographs, his etchings and his pastels, in which he has
proved his diversified mastery, and also of his portraits of famous
contemporaries, Zola, Rochefort, Desboutin, Proust, Mallarmé, Clemenceau,
Guys, Faure, Baudelaire, Moore, and others, an admirable series by a
visionary who possessed, in a period of unrest and artificiality, the quality of
rude sincerity, and the love of truth of a Primitive.
MANET — THE HOTHOUSE

IV EDGAR DEGAS: HIS WORK, HIS
INFLUENCE
I have said how vain it is to class artistic temperaments under a title imposed
upon them generally by circumstances and dates, rather than by their own
free will. The study of Degas will furnish additional proof for it. Classed
with the Impressionists, this master participates in their ideas in the sphere of
composition, rather than in that of colour. He belongs to them through his
modernity and comprehension of character. Only when we come to his quite
recent landscapes (1896), can we link him to Monet and Renoir as colourist,
and he has been more their friend than their colleague.
Degas is known by the select few, and almost ignored by the public. This
is due to several reasons. Degas has never wished to exhibit at the Salons,
except, I believe, once or twice at the beginning of his career. He has only
shown his works at those special exhibitions arranged by the Impressionists
in hired apartments (rue le Peletier, rue Laffitte, Boulevard des Capucines),
and at some art-dealers. The art of Degas has never had occasion to shock
the public by the exuberance of its colour, because he restricted himself to
grey and quiet harmonies. Degas is a modest character, fond of silence and
solitude, with a horror of the crowd and of controversies, and almost
disinclined to show his works. He is a man of intelligence and ready wit,
whose sallies are dreaded; he is almost a misanthrope. His pictures have
been gradually sold to foreign countries and dispersed in rich galleries
without having been seen by the public. His character is, in short, absolutely
opposed to that of Manet, who, though he suffered from criticism, thought it
his duty to bid it defiance. Degas’s influence has, however, been
considerable, though secretly so, and the young painters have been slowly
inspired by his example.
DEGAS — THE BEGGAR WOMAN
Degas is beyond all a draughtsman of the first order. His spirit is quite
classical. He commenced by making admirable copies of the Italian
Primitives, notably of Fra Angelico, and the whole first series of his works
speaks of that influence: portraits, heads of deep, mat, amber colour, on a
ground of black or grey tones, remarkable for a severity of intense style, and
for the rare gift of psychological expression. To find the equal of these faces
— after having stated their classic descent — one would have to turn to the
beautiful things by Ingres, and certainly Degas is, with Ingres, the most
learned, the most perfect French draughtsman of the nineteenth century. An
affirmation of this nature is made to surprise those who judge Impressionism
with preconceived ideas. It is none the less true that, if a series of Degas’s
first portraits were collected, the comparison would force itself upon one’s
mind irrefutably. In face of the idealist painting of Romanticism, Ingres
represented quite clearly the cult of painting for its own sake. His ideas were
mediocre, and went scarcely beyond the poor, conventional ideal of the
Academy; but his genius was so great, that it made him paint, together with
his tedious allegories, some incomparable portraits and nudes. He thought he
was serving official Classicism, which still boasts of his name, but in reality
he dominated it; and, whilst he was an imitator of Raphael, he was a
powerful Realist. The Impressionists admire him as such, and agree with him
in banishing from the art of painting all literary imagination, whether it be
the tedious mythology of the School, or the historical anecdote of the
Romanticists. Degas and Besnard admire Ingres as colossal draughtsman,
and, beyond all, as man who, in spite of the limitations of his mind,
preserved the clear vision of the mission of his art at a time when art was
used for the expression of literary conceptions. Who would have believed it?
Yet it is true, and Manet, too, held the same view of Ingres, little as our
present academicians may think it! It happens that to-day Impressionism is
more akin to Ingres than to Delacroix, just as the young poets are more akin
to Racine than to Hugo. They reject the foreign elements, and search, before
anything else, for the strict national tradition. Degas follows Ingres and
resembles him. He is also reminiscent of the Primitives and of Holbein.
There is, in his first period, the somewhat dry and geometrical perfection, the
somewhat heavy colour which only serves to strengthen the correctness of
the planes. At the Exposition of 1900, there was a Degas which surprised
everybody. It was an Interior of a cotton factory in an American town. This
small picture was curiously clear: it would be impossible to paint better and
with a more accomplished knowledge of the laws of painting. But it was the
work of a soulless, emotionless Realist; it was a coloured photograph of
unheard-of truth, the mathematical science of which left the beholder cold.
This work, which is very old (it dates back to about 1860), gave no idea of
what Degas has grown into. It was the work of an unemotional master of
technique; only just the infinitely delicate value of the greys and blacks
revealed the future master of harmony. One almost might have wished to
find a fault in this aggravating perfection. But Degas was not to remain
there, and already, about that time, certain portraits of his are elevated by an
expression of ardent melancholy, by warm, ivory-like, grave colouring
which attracts one’s eye. Before this series one feels the firm will of a very
logical, serious, classic spirit who wants to know thoroughly the intimate
resources of design, before risking to choose from among them the elements
which respond best to his individual nature. If Degas was destined to invent,
later on, so personal a style of design that he could be accused of “drawing
badly,” this first period of his life is before us, to show the slow maturing of
his boldness and how carefully he first proved to himself his knowledge,
before venturing upon new things. In art the difficulty is, when one has
learnt everything, to forget, — that is, to appear to forget, so as to create
one’s own style, and this apparent forgetting cloaks an amalgamation of
science with mind. And Degas is one of those patient and reticent men who
spend years in arriving at this; he has much in common with Hokusai, the
old man “mad with painting,” who at the close of his prodigious life
invented arbitrary forms, after having given immortal examples of his
interpretation of the real.
DEGAS — THE LESSON IN THE FOYER
Degas is also clearly related to Corot, not only in the silvery harmonies of
his suave landscapes, but also, and particularly, in his admirable faces whose
inestimable power and moving sincerity we have hardly commenced to
understand. Degas passed slowly from classicism to modernity. He never
liked outbursts of colour; he is by no means an Impressionist from this point
of view. As a draughtsman of genius he expresses all by the precision of the
planes and values; a grey, a black and some notes of colour suffice for him.
This might establish a link between him and Whistler, though he is much
less mysterious and diffuse. Whenever Degas plays with colour, it is with the
same restraint of his boldness; he never goes to excess in abandoning
himself to its charm. He is neither lyrical, nor voluptuous; his energy is cold;
his wise spirit affirms soberly the true character of a face or an object.
Since a long time this spirit has moved Degas to revel in the observation
of contemporary life. His nature has been that of a patient psychologist, a
minute analyst, and also of a bitter ironist. The man is very little known. His
friends say that he has an easily ruffled delicacy, a sensibility open to poetry,
but jealous of showing its emotion. They say that Degas’s satirical bitterness
is the reverse side of a soul wounded by the spectacle of modern morality.
One feels this sentiment in his work, where the sharp notation of truth is
painful, where the realism is opposed by colouring of a sober distinction,
where nothing, not even the portrait of a drab, could be vulgar. Degas has
devoted himself to the profound study of certain classes of women, in the
state of mind of a philosopher and physiologist, impartially inclined towards
life.
His work can be divided into several great series: the race-courses, the
ballet-dancers, and the women bathing count among the most important. The
race-courses have inspired Degas with numerous pictures. He shows in them
a surprising knowledge of the horse. He is one of the most perfect painters of
horses who have ever existed. He has caught the most curious and truest
actions with infallible sureness of sight. His racecourse scenes are full of
vitality and picturesqueness. Against clear skies, and light backgrounds of
lawn, indicated with quiet harmony, Degas assembles original groups of
horses which one can see moving, hesitating, intensely alive; and nothing
could be fresher, gayer and more deliciously pictorial, than the green, red
and yellow notes of the jockey’s costumes strewn like flowers over these
atmospheric, luminous landscapes, where colours do not clash, but are
always gently shimmering, dissolved in uniform clearness. The admirable
drawing of horses and men is so precise and seems so simple, that one can
only slowly understand the extent of the difficulty overcome, the truth of
these attitudes and the nervous delicacy of the execution.
DEGAS — THE DANCING LESSON — PASTEL
The dancers go much further still in the expression of Degas’s temperament.
They have been studied at the foyer of the Opera and at the rehearsal,
sometimes in groups, sometimes isolated. Some pictures which will always
count among the masterpieces of the nineteenth century, represent the whole
corps de ballet performing on the stage before a dark and empty house. By
the feeble light of some lamps the black coats of the stage managers mix
themselves with the gauze skirts. Here the draughtsman joins the great
colourist: the petticoats of pink or white tulle, the graceful legs covered with
flesh-coloured silk, the arms and the shoulders, and the hair crowned with
flowers, offer motives of exquisite colour and of a tone of living flowers. But
the psychologist does not lose his rights: not only does he amuse himself
with noting the special movements of the dancers, but he also notes the
anatomical defects. He shows with cruel frankness, with a strange love of
modern character, the strong legs, the thin shoulders, and the provoking and
vulgar heads of these frequently ugly girls of common origin. With the irony
of an entomologist piercing the coloured insect he shows us the
disenchanting reality in the sad shadow of the scenes, of these butterflies
who dazzle us on the stage. He unveils the reverse side of a dream without,
however, caricaturing; he raises even, under the imperfection of the bodies,
the animal grace of the organisms; he has the severe beauty of the true. He
gives to his groups of ballet-dancers the charming line of garlands and
restores to them a harmony in the ensemble, so as to prove that he does not
misjudge the charm conferred upon them by rhythm, however defective they
may be individually. At other times he devotes himself to the study of their
practice. In bare rooms with curtainless windows, in the cold and sad light of
the boxes, he passionately draws the dancers learning their steps, reaching
high bars with the tips of their toes, forcing themselves into quaint poses in
order to make themselves more supple, manoeuvring to the sound of a fiddle
scratched by an old teacher — and he leaves us stupefied at the knowledge,
the observation, the talent profusely spent on these little pictures.
Furthermore there are humorous scenes: ballet-dancers chatting in the dark
with habitués of the Opera, others looking at the house through the small
opening of the curtain, others re-tying their shoe-laces, and they all are
prodigious drawings of movement anatomically as correct as they are
unexpected. Degas’s old style of drawing undergoes modification: with the
help of slight deformations, accentuations of the modelling and subtle
falsifications of the proportions, managed with infinite tact and knowledge,
the artist brings forth in relief the important gesture, subordinating to it all
the others. He attempts drawing by movement as it is caught by our eyes in
life, where they do not state the proportions, but first of all the gesture which
strikes them. In these drawings by Degas all the lines follow the impulsion
of the thought. What one sees first, is the movement transmitted to the
members by the will. The active part of the body is more carefully studied
than the rest, which is indicated by bold foreshortenings, placed in the
second plane, and apparently only serves to throw into relief the raised arm
or leg. This is no longer merely exact, it is true; it is a superior degree of
truth.
DEGAS — THE DANCERS
These pictures of dancers are psychologic documents of great value. The
physical and moral atmosphere of these surroundings is called forth by a
master. Such and such a figure or attitude tells us more about Parisian life
than a whole novel, and Degas has been lavish of his intellect and his
philosophy of bitter scepticism. But they are also marvellous pictorial
studies which, in spite of the special, anecdotal subjects, rise to the level of
grand painting through sheer power of draughtsmanship and charm of tone.
Degas has the special quality of giving the precise sensation of the third
dimension. The atmosphere circulates round his figures; you walk round
them; you see them in their real plane, and they present themselves in a
thousand unexpected arrangements. Degas is undoubtedly the one man of his
age who has most contributed towards infusing new life into the
representation of human figures: in this respect his pictures resemble no one
else’s. The same qualities will be found in his series of women bathing.
These interiors, where the actions of the bathers are caught amidst the stuffs,
flowered cushions, linen, sponges and tubs, are sharp visions of modernity.
Degas observes here, with the tenacious perfection of his talent, the slightest
shiver of the flesh refreshed by cold water. His masterly drawing follows the
most delicate inflexion of the muscles and suggests the nervous system
under the skin. He observes with extraordinary subtlety the awkwardness of
the nude being at a time when nudity is no longer accustomed to show itself,
and this true nudity is in strong contrast to that of the academicians. One
might say of Degas that he has the disease of truth, if the necessity of truth
were not health itself! These bodies are still marked with the impressions of
the garments; the movements remain those of a clothed being which is only
nude as an exception. The painter notices beauty, but he looks for it
particularly in the profound characterisation of the types which he studies,
and his pastels have the massiveness and the sombre style of bronze. He has
also painted café-scenes, prostitutes and supers, with a mocking and sad
energy; he has even amused himself with painting washerwomen, to
translate the movements of the women of the people. And his colour with its
pearly whites, subdued blues and delicate greys, always elevates everything
he does, and confers upon him a distinctive style.
Finally, about 1896, Degas has revealed himself as a dreamy landscapist.
His recent landscapes are symphonies in colours of strange harmony and
hallucinations of rare tones, resembling music rather than painting. It is
perhaps in these pictures that he has revealed certain dreams hitherto
jealously hidden.
And now I must speak of his technique. It is very singular and varied, and
one of the most complicated in existence. In his first works, which are
apparently as simple as Corot’s, he does not employ the process of colour-
spots. But many of the works in his second manner are a combination of
drawing, painting and pastel. He has invented a kind of engraving mixed
with wash-drawing, pastel crayon crushed with brushes of special pattern.
Here one can find again his meticulous spirit. He has many of the qualities of
the scientist; he is as much chemist as painter. It has been said of him, that he
was a great artist of the decadence. This is materially inexact, since his
qualities of draughtsmanship are those of a superb Classicist, and his
colouring of very pure taste. But the spirit of his work, his love of exact
detail, his exaggerated psychological refinement, are certainly the signs of an
extremely alert intellect who regards life prosaically and with a lassitude and
disenchantment which are only consoled by the passion for truth. Certain
water-colours of his heightened by pastel, and certain landscapes, are
somewhat disconcerting through the preciousness of his method; others are
surprisingly spontaneous. All his work has an undercurrent of thought. In
short, this Realist is almost a mystic. He has observed a limited section of
humanity, but what he has seen has not been seen so profoundly by anybody
else.
DEGAS — HORSES IN THE MEADOWS

Degas has exercised an occult, but very serious, influence. He has lived
alone, without pupils and almost without friends; the only pupils one might
speak of are the caricaturist Forain, who has painted many small pictures
inspired by him, and the excellent American lady-artist Miss Mary Cassatt.
But all modern draughtsmen have been taught a lesson by his painting:
Renouard, Toulouse-Lautrec and Steinlen have been impressed by it, and the
young generation considers Degas as a master. And that is also the
unexpressed idea of the academicians, and especially of those who have
sufficient talent to be able to appreciate all the science and power of such an
art. The writer of this book happened one day to mention Degas’s name
before a member of the Institute. “What!” exclaimed he, “you know him?
Why didn’t you speak to me about him?” And when he received the reply,
that I did not consider Degas to be an agreeable topic for him, the illustrious
official answered vivaciously, “But do you think I am a fool, and that I do
not know that Degas is one of the greatest draughtsmen who have ever
lived?”— “Why, then, my dear sir, has he never been received at the Salons,
and not even been decorated at the age of sixty-five?”— “Ah,” replied the
Academician a little angrily, “that is another matter!”
Degas despises glory. It is believed that he has by him a number of
canvases which will have to be burnt after his death in accordance with his
will. He is a man who has loved his art like a mistress, with jealous passion,
and has sacrificed to it all that other artists — enthusiasts even — are
accustomed to reserve for their personal interest. Degas, the incomparable
pastellist, the faultless draughtsman, the bitter, satirical, pessimistic genius,
is an isolated phenomenon in his period, a grand creator, unattached to his
time. The painters and the select few among art-lovers know what
considerable force there is in him. Though almost latent as yet, it will reveal
itself brilliantly, when an opportunity arises for bringing together the vast
quantity of his work. As is the case with Manet, though in a different sense,
his powerful classic qualities will become most prominent in this ordeal, and
this classicism has never abandoned him in his audacities. To Degas is due a
new method of observation in drawing. He will have been the first to study
the relation between the moving lines of a living being and the immovable
lines of the scene which serves as its setting; the first, also, to define
drawing, not as a graphic science, but as the valuation of the third
dimension, and thus to apply to painting the principles hitherto reserved for
sculpture. Finally, he will be counted among the great analysts. His vision,
tenacious, intense, and sombre, stimulates thought: across what appears to be
the most immediate and even the most vulgar reality it reaches a grand,
artistic style; it states profoundly the facts of life, it condenses a little the
human soul: and this will suffice to secure for Degas an important place in
his epoch, a little apart from Impressionism. Without noise, and through the
sheer charm of his originality, he has contributed his share towards
undermining the false doctrines of academic art before the painters, as Manet
has undermined them before the public.
CLAUDE MONET — AN INTERIOR, AFTER DINNER

V CLAUDE MONET: HIS WORK, HIS
INFLUENCE
With Claude Monet we enter upon Impressionism in its most significant

technical expression, and touch upon the principal points referred to in the
second chapter of this book.
Claude Monet, the artistic descendant of Claude Lorrain, Turner, and
Monticelli, has had the merit and the originality of opening a new road to
landscape painting by deducing scientific statements from the study of the
laws of light. His work is a magnificent verification of the optical
discoveries made by Helmholtz and Chevreul. It is born spontaneously from
the artist’s vision, and happens to be a rigorous demonstration of principles
which the painter has probably never cared to know. Through the power of
his faculties the artist has happened to join hands with the scientist. His work
supplies not only the very basis of the Impressionist movement proper, but
of all that has followed it and will follow it in the study of the so-called
chromatic laws. It will serve to give, so to say, a mathematic necessity to the
happy finds met by the artists hitherto, and it will also serve to endow
decorative art and mural painting with a process, the applications of which
are manyfold and splendid.
I have already summed up the ideas which follow from Claude Monet’s
painting more clearly even than from Manet’s. Suppression of local colour,
study of reflections by means of complementary colours and division of
tones by the process of touches of pure, juxtaposed colours — these are the
essential principles of chromatism (for this word should be used instead of
the very vague term “Impressionism”). Claude Monet has applied them
systematically, especially in landscape painting.
There are a few portraits of his, which show that he might have made an
excellent figure painter, if landscape had not absorbed him entirely. One of
these portraits, a large full-length of a lady with a fur-lined jacket and a satin
dress with green and black stripes, would in itself be sufficient to save from
oblivion the man who has painted it. But the study of light upon the figure
has been the special preoccupation of Manet, Renoir, and Pissarro, and, after
the Impressionists, of the great lyricist, Albert Besnard, who has
concentrated the Impressionist qualities by placing them at the service of a
very personal conception of symbolistic art. Monet commenced with trying
to find his way by painting figures, then landscapes and principally sea
pictures and boats in harbours, with a somewhat sombre robustness and very
broad and solid draughtsmanship. His first luminous studies date back to
about 1885. Obedient to the same ideas as Degas he had to avoid the Salons
and only show his pictures gradually in private galleries. For years he
remained unknown. It is only giving M. Durand-Ruel his due, to state that he
was one of the first to anticipate the Impressionist school and to buy the first
works of these painters, who were treated as madmen and charlatans. He has
become great with them, and has made his fortune and theirs through having
had confidence in them, and no fortune has been better deserved. Thirty
years ago nobody would have bought pictures by Degas or Monet, which are
sold to-day for a thousand pounds. This detail is only mentioned to show the
evolution of Impressionism as regards public opinion.
CLAUDE MONET — THE HARBOUR, HONFLEUR
So much has Monet been attracted by the analysis of the laws of light that he
has made light the real subject of all his pictures, and to show clearly his
intention he has treated one and the same site in a series of pictures painted
from nature at all hours of the day. This is the principle whose results are the
great divisions of his work which might be called “Investigation of the
variations of sunlight.” The most famous of these series are the Hay-ricks,
the Poplars, the Cliffs of Etretat, the Golfe Juan, the Coins de Rivière, the
Cathedrals, the Water-lilies, and finally the Thames series which Monet is at
present engaged upon. They are like great poems, and the splendour of the
chosen theme, the orchestration of the shivers of brightness, the symphonic
parti-pris of the colours, make their realism, the minute contemplation of
reality, approach idealism and lyric dreaming.
Monet paints these series from nature. He is said to take with him in a
carriage at sunrise some twenty canvases which he changes from hour to
hour, taking them up again the next day. He notes, for example, from nine to
ten o’clock the most subtle effects of sunlight upon a hay-rick; at ten o’clock
he passes on to another canvas and recommences the study until eleven
o’clock. Thus he follows step by step the modifications of the atmosphere
until nightfall, and finishes simultaneously the works of the whole series. He
has painted a hay-stack in a field twenty times over, and the twenty hay-
stacks are all different. He exhibits them together, and one can follow, led by
the magic of his brush, the history of light playing upon one and the same
object. It is a dazzling display of luminous atoms, a kind of pantheistic
evocation. Light is certainly the essential personage who devours the
outlines of the objects, and is thrown like a translucent veil between our eyes
and matter. One can see the vibrations of the waves of the solar spectrum,
drawn by the arabesque of the spots of the seven prismatic hues juxtaposed
with infinite subtlety; and this vibration is that of heat, of atmospheric
vitality. The silhouettes melt into the sky; the shadows are lights where
certain tones, the blue, the purple, the green and the orange, predominate,
and it is the proportional quantity of the spots that differentiates in our eyes
the shadows from what we call the lights, just as it actually happens in optic
science. There are some midday scenes by Claude Monet, where every
material silhouette — tree, hay-rick, or rock — is annihilated, volatilised in
the fiery vibration of the dust of sunlight, and before which the beholder gets
really blinded, just as he would in actual sunlight. Sometimes even there are
no more shadows at all, nothing that could serve to indicate the values and to
create contrasts of colours. Everything is light, and the painter seems easily
to overcome those terrible difficulties, lights upon lights, thanks to a gift of
marvellous subtlety of sight.
CLAUDE MONET — THE CHURCH AT VARENGEVILLE
Generally he finds a very simple motif sufficient; a hay-rick, some slender
trunks rising skywards, or a cluster of shrubs. But he also proves himself as
powerful draughtsman when he attacks themes of greater complexity.
Nobody knows as he does how to place a rock amidst tumultuous waves,
how to make one understand the enormous construction of a cliff which fills
the whole canvas, how to give the sensation of a cluster of pines bent by the
wind, how to throw a bridge across a river, or how to express the
massiveness of the soil under a summer sun. All this is constructed with
breadth, truth and force under the delicious or fiery symphony of the
luminous atoms. The most unexpected tones play in the foliage. On close
inspection we are astonished to find it striped with orange, red, blue and
yellow touches, but seen at a certain distance the freshness of the green
foliage appears to be represented with infallible truth. The eye recomposes
what the brush has dissociated, and one finds oneself perplexed at all the
science, all the secret order which has presided over this accumulation of
spots which seem projected in a furious shower. It is a veritable orchestral
piece, where every colour is an instrument with a distinct part, and where the
hours with their different tints represent the successive themes. Monet is the
equal of the greatest landscape painters as regards the comprehension of the
true character of every soil he has studied, which is the supreme quality of
his art. Though absorbed beyond all by study of the sunlight, he has thought
it useless to go to Morocco or Algeria. He has found Brittany, Holland, the
Ile de France, the Cote d’Azur and England sufficient sources of inspiration
for his symphonies, which cover from end to end the scale of perceptible
colours. He has expressed, for instance, the mild and vaporous softness of
the Mediterranean, the luxuriant vegetation of the gardens of Cannes and
Antibes, with a truthfulness and knowledge of the psychology of land and
water which can only be properly appreciated by those who live in this
enchanted region. This has not prevented him from understanding better than
anybody the wildness, the grand austereness of the rocks of Belle-Isle en
mer, to express it in pictures in which one really feels the wind, the spray,
and the roaring of the heavy waters breaking against the impassibility of the
granite rocks. His recent series of Water-lilies expressed all the melancholic
and fresh charm of quiet basins, of sweet bits of water blocked by rushes and
calyxes. He has painted underwoods in the autumn, where the most subtle
shades of bronze and gold are at play, chrysanthemums, pheasants, roofs at
twilight, dazzling sunflowers, gardens, tulip-fields in Holland, bouquets,
effects of snow and hoar frost of exquisite softness, and sailing boats passing
in the sun. He has painted some views of the banks of the Seine which are
quite wonderful in their power of conjuring up these scenes, and over all this
has roved his splendid vision of a great, amorous and radiant colourist. The
Cathedrals are even more of a tour de force of his talent. They consist of
seventeen studies of Rouen Cathedral, the towers of which fill the whole of
the picture, leaving barely a little space, a little corner of the square, at the
foot of the enormous stone-shafts which mount to the very top of the picture.
Here he has no proper means to express the play of the reflections, no
changeful waters or foliage: the grey stone, worn by time and blackened by
centuries, is for seventeen times the monochrome, the thankless theme upon
which the painter is about to exercise his vision. But Monet finds means of
making the most dazzling atmospheric harmonies sparkle upon this stone.
Pale and rosy at sunrise, purple at midday, glowing in the evening under the
rays of the setting sun, standing out from the crimson and gold, scarcely
visible in the mist, the colossal edifice impresses itself upon the eye,
reconstructed with its thousand details of architectural chiselling, drawn
without minuteness but with superb decision, and these pictures approach the
composite, bold and rich tone of Oriental carpets.
CLAUDE MONET — POPLARS ON THE EPTE IN AUTUMN
Monet excels also in suggesting the drawing of light, if I may venture to use
this expression. He makes us understand the movement of the vibrations of
heat, the movement of the luminous waves; he also understands how to paint
the sensation of strong wind. “Before one of Manet’s pictures,” said Mme.
Morisot, “I always know which way to incline my umbrella.” Monet is also
an incomparable painter of water. Pond, river, or sea — he knows how to
differentiate their colouring, their consistency, and their currents, and he
transfixes a moment of their fleeting life. He is intuitive to an exceptional
degree in the intimate composition of matter, water, earth, stone or air, and
this intuition serves him in place of intellectuality in his art. He is a painter
par excellence, a man born for painting, and this power of penetrating the
secrets of matter and of light helps him to attain a kind of grand,
unconsciously lyrical poetry. He transposes the immediate truth of our vision
and elevates it to decorative grandeur. If Manet is the realist-romanticist of
Impressionism, if Degas is its psychologist, Claude Monet is its lyrical
pantheist.
His work is immense. He produces with astonishing rapidity, and he has
yet another characteristic of the great painters: that of having put his hand to
every kind of subject. His recent studies of the Thames are, at the decline of
his energetic maturity, as beautiful and as spontaneous as the Hay-ricks of
seventeen years back. They are thrillingly truthful visions of fairy mists,
where showers of silver and gold sparkle through rosy vapours; and at the
same time Monet combines in this series the dream-landscapes of Turner
with Monticelli’s accumulation of precious stones. Thus interpreted by this
intense faculty of synthesis, nature, simplified in detail and contemplated in
its grand lines, becomes truly a living dream.
Since the Hay-ricks one can say that the work of Claude Monet is
glorious. It has been made sacred to the admiring love of the connoisseurs on
the day when Monet joined Rodin in an exhibition which is famous in the
annals of modern art. Yet no official distinction has intervened to recognise
one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century. The influence of Monet
has been enormous all over Europe and America. The process of colour
spots2 (let us adhere to this rudimentary name which has become current)
has been adopted by a whole crowd of painters. I shall have to say a few
words about it at the end of this book. But it is befitting to terminate this all
too short study by explaining that the most lyrical of the Impressionists has
also been the theorist par excellence. His work connects easel painting with
mural painting. No Minister of Fine Arts has been found, who would
surmount the systematic opposition of the official painters, and give Manet a
commission for grand mural compositions, for which his method is
admirably suited. It has taken long years before such works were entrusted to
Besnard, who, with Puvis de Chavannes, has given Paris her most beautiful
modern decorations, but Besnard’s work is the direct outcome of Claude
Monet’s harmonies. The principle of the division of tones and of the study of
complementary colours has been full of revelations, and one of the most
fruitful theories. It has probably been the principle which will designate most
clearly the originality of the painting of the future. To have invented it, is
enough to secure permanent glory for a man. And without wishing to put
again the question of the antagonism of realism and idealism, one may well
say that a painter who invents a method and shows such power, is highly
intellectual and gifted with a pictorial intelligence. Whatever the subjects he
treats, he creates an aesthetic emotion equivalent, if not similar, to those
engendered by the most complex symbolism. In his ardent love of nature
Monet has found his greatness; he suggests the secrets by stating the evident
facts. That is the law common to all the arts.
CLAUDE MONET — THE BRIDGE AT ARGENTEUIL

VI AUGUSTE RENOIR AND HIS WORK
The work of Auguste Renoir extends without interruption over a period of

forty years. It appears to sum up the ideas and methods of Impressionist art
so completely that, should it alone be saved from a general destruction, it
would suffice to bear witness to this entire art movement. It has unfolded
itself from 1865 to our days with a happy magnificence, and it allows us to
distinguish several periods, in the technique at least, since the variety of its
subjects is infinite. Like Manet, and like all truly great and powerful
painters, M. Renoir has treated almost everything, nudes, portraits, subject
pictures, seascapes and still-life, all with equal beauty.
His first manner shows him to be a very direct descendant of Boucher.
His female nudes are altogether in eighteenth century taste and he uses the
same technique as Boucher: fat and sleek paint of soft brilliancy, laid on with
the palette knife, with precise strokes round the principal values; pink and
ivory tints relieved by strong blues similar to those of enamels; the light
distributed everywhere and almost excluding the opposition of the shadows;
and, finally, vivacious attitudes and an effort towards decorative convention.
Nevertheless, his Bathers, of which he has painted a large series, are in many
ways thoroughly modern and personal. Renoir’s nude is neither that of
Monet, nor of Degas, whose main concern was truth, the last-named even
trying to define in the undressed being such psychologic observations as are
generally looked for in the features of the clothed being. Nor is Renoir’s
nude that of the academicians, that poetised nude arranged according to a
pseudo-Greek ideal, which has nothing in common with contemporary
women. What Renoir sees in the nude is less the line, than the brilliancy of
the epidermis, the luminous, nacreous substance of the flesh: it is the “ideal
clay”; and in this he shows the vision of a poet; he transfigures reality, but in
a very different sense from that of the School. Renoir’s woman comes from a
primitive dream-land; she is an artless, wild creature, blooming in perfumed
scrub. He sets her in backgrounds of foliage or of blue, foam-fringed
torrents. She is a luxuriant, firm, healthy and naïve woman with a powerful
body, a small head, her eyes wide open, thoughtless, brilliant and ignorant,
her lips blood-red and her nostrils dilated; she is a gentle being, like the
women of Tahiti, born in a tropical clime where vice is as unknown as
shame, and where entire ingenuousness is a guarantee against all indecency.
One cannot but be astonished at this mixture of “Japanism,” savagism and
eighteenth century taste, which constitutes inimitably the nude of Renoir.
RENOIR — DÉJEUNER
RENOIR — IN THE BOX

M. Renoir’s second manner is more directly related to the Impressionist
methods: it is that of his landscapes, his flowers and his portraits. Here one
can feel his relationship with Manet and with Claude Monet. These pictures
are hatchings of colours accumulated to render less the objects than their
transparency across the atmosphere. The portraits are frankly presented and
broadly executed. The artist occupies himself in the first place with getting
correct values and an exact suggestion of depth. He understands the
illogicality of a false perfection which is as interested in a trinket as in an
eye, and he knows how to proportion the interest of the picture which should
guide the beholder’s look to the essential point, though every part should be
correctly executed. He knows how to interpret nature in a certain sense; how
to stop in time; how to suggest by leaving a part apparently unfinished; how
to indicate, behind a figure, the sea or some landscape with just a few broad
touches which suffice to suggest it without usurping the principal part. It is
now, that Renoir paints his greatest works, the Déjeûner des Canotiers, the
Bal au Moulin de la Galette, the Box, the Terrace, the First Step, the
Sleeping Woman with a Cat, and his most beautiful landscapes; but his
nature is too capricious to be satisfied with a single technique. There are
some landscapes that are reminiscent of Corot or of Anton Mauve; the
Woman with the broken neck is related to Manet; the portrait of Sisley
invents pointillism fifteen years before the pointillists; La Pensée, this
masterpiece, evokes Hoppner. But in everything reappears the invincible
French instinct: the Jeune Fille au panier is a Greuze painted by an
Impressionist; the delightful Jeune Fille à la promenade is connected with
Fragonard; the Box, a perfect marvel of elegance and knowledge, condenses
the whole worldliness of 1875. The portrait of Jeanne Samary is an
evocation of the most beautiful portraits of the eighteenth century, a poem of
white satin and golden hair.
RENOIR — YOUNG GIRL PROMENADING
Renoir’s realism bears in spite of all, the imprint of the lyric spirit and of
sweetness. It has neither the nervous veracity of Manet, nor the bitterness of
Degas, who both love their epoch and find it interesting without idealising it
and who have the vision of psychologist novelists. Before everything else he
is a painter. What he sees in the Bal au Moulin de la Galette, are not the
stigmata of vice and impudence, the ridiculous and the sad sides of the
doubtful types of this low resort. He sees the gaiety of Sundays, the flashes
of the sun, the oddity of a crowd carried away by the rhythm of the valses,
the laughter, the clinking of glasses, the vibrating and hot atmosphere; and
he applies to this spectacle of joyous vulgarity his gifts as a sumptuous
colourist, the arabesque of the lines, the gracefulness of his bathers, and the
happy eurythmy of his soul. The straw hats are changed into gold, the blue
jackets are sapphires, and out of a still exact realism is born a poem of light.
The Déjeûner des Canotiers is a subject which has been painted a hundred
times, either for the purpose of studying popular types, or of painting white
table-cloths amidst sunny foliage. Yet Renoir is the only painter who has
raised this small subject to the proportions and the style of a large canvas,
through the pictorial charm and the masterly richness of the arrangement.
The Box, conceived in a low harmony, in a golden twilight, is a work worthy
of Reynolds. The pale and attentive face of the lady makes one think of the
great English master’s best works; the necklace, the flesh, the flounce of lace
and the hands are marvels of skill and of taste, which the greatest modern
virtuosos, Sargent and Besnard, have not surpassed, and, as far as the man in
the background is concerned, his white waistcoat, his dress-coat, his gloved
hand would suffice to secure the fame of a painter. The Sleeping Woman, the
First Step, the Terrace, and the decorative Dance panels reveal Renoir as an
intimiste and as an admirable painter of children. His strange colouring and
his gifts of grasping nature and of ingenuity — strangers to all decadent
complexity — have allowed him to rank among the best of those who have
expressed childhood in its true aspect, without overloading it with over-
precocious thoughts. Finally, Renoir is a painter of flowers of dazzling
variety and exquisite splendour. They supply him with inexhaustible pretexts
for suave and subtle harmonies.
RENOIR — WOMAN’S BUST
His third manner has surprised and deceived certain admirers of his. It seems
to mix his two first techniques, combining the painting with the palette knife
and the painting in touches of divided tones. He searches for certain accords
and contrasts almost analogous to the musical dissonances. He realises
incredible “false impressions.” He seems to take as themes oriental carpets:
he abandons realism and style and conceives symphonies. He pleases
himself in assembling those tones which one is generally afraid of using:
Turkish pink, lemon, crushed strawberry and viridian. Sometimes he amuses
himself with amassing faded colours which would be disheartening with
others, but out of which he can extract a harmony. Sometimes he plays with
the crudest colours. One feels disturbed, charmed, disconcerted, as one
would before an Indian shawl, a barbaric piece of pottery or a Persian
miniature, and one refrains from forcing into the limits of a definition this
exceptional virtuoso whose passionate love of colour overcomes every
difficulty. It is in this most recent part of his evolution, that Renoir appears
the most capricious and the most poetical of all the painters of his
generation. The flowers find themselves treated in various techniques
according to their own character: the gladioles and roses in pasty paint, the
poor flowers of the field are defined by a cross-hatching of little touches.
Influenced by the purple shadow of the large flower-decked hats, the heads
of young girls are painted on coarse canvas, sketched in broad strokes, with
the hair in one colour only. Some little study appears like wool, some other
has the air of agate, or is marbled and veined according to his inexplicable
whim. We have here an incessant confusion of methods, a complete
emancipation of the virtuoso who listens only to his fancy. Now and then the
harmonies are false and the drawing incorrect, but these weaknesses do at
least no harm to the values, the character and the general movement of the
work, which are rather accentuated by them.
RENOIR — YOUNG WOMAN IN EMPIRE COSTUME
Surely, it would be false to exclude ideologist painting which has produced
wonders, and not less iniquitous to reproach Impressionism with not having
taken any interest in it! One has to avoid the kind of criticism which consists
in reproaching one movement with not having had the qualities of the others
whilst maintaining its own, and we have abandoned the idea of Beauty
divided into a certain number of clauses and programmes, towards the sum
total of which the efforts of the eclectic candidates are directed. M. Renoir is
probably the most representative figure of a movement where he seems to
have united all the qualities of his friends. To criticise him means to criticise
Impressionism itself. Having spent half of its strength in proving to its
adversaries that they were wrong, and the other half in inventing technical
methods, it is not surprising to find that Impressionism has been wanting in
intellectual depth and has left to its successors the care of realising works of
great thought. But it has brought us a sunny smile, a breath of pure air. It is
so fascinating, that one cannot but love its very mistakes which make it more
human and more accessible. Renoir is the most lyrical, the most musical, the
most subtle of the masters of this art. Some of his landscapes are as beautiful
as those of Claude Monet. His nudes are as masterly in painting as Manet’s,
and more supple. Not having attained the scientific drawing which one finds
in Degas’s, they have a grace and a brilliancy which Degas’s nudes have
never known. If his rare portraits of men are inferior to those of his rivals,
his women’s portraits have a frequently superior distinction. His great
modern compositions are equal to the most beautiful works by Manet and
Degas. His inequalities are also more striking than theirs. Being a fantastic,
nervous improvisator he is more exposed to radical mistakes. But he is a
profoundly sincere and conscientious artist.
RENOIR — ON THE TERRACE
The race speaks in him. It is inexplicable that he should not have met with
startling success, since he is voluptuous, bright, happy and learned without
heaviness. One has to attribute his relative isolation to the violence of the
controversies, and particularly to the dignity of a poet gently disdainful of
public opinion and paying attention solely to painting, his great and only
love. Manet has been a fighter whose works have created scandal. Renoir
has neither shown, nor hidden himself: he has painted according to his
dream, spreading his works, without mixing up his name or his personality
with the tumult that raged around his friends. And now, for that very reason,
his work appears fresher and younger, more primitive and candid, more
intoxicated with flowers, flesh and sunlight.
VII THE SECONDARY PAINTERS OF
IMPRESSIONISM
CAMILLE PISSARRO, ALFRED SISLEY, PAUL CÉZANNE, BERTHE MORISOT, MISS
MARY CASSATT, EVA GONZALÈS, GUSTAVE CAILLEBOTTE, BAZILLE, ALBERT
LEBOURG, EUGÈNE BOUDIN
.
Manet, Degas, Monet and Renoir will present themselves as a glorious
quartet of masters, in the history of painting. We must now speak of some
personalities who have grown up by their side and who, without being great,
offer nevertheless a rich and beautiful series of works.
Of these personalities the most considerable is certainly that of M.
Camille Pissarro. He painted according to some wise and somewhat timid
formulas, when Manet’s example won him over to Impressionism to which
he has remained faithful. M. Pissarro has been enormously productive. His
work is composed of landscapes, rustic scenes, and studies of streets and
markets. His first landscapes are in the manner of Corot, but bathed in blond
colour: vast cornfields, sunny woods, skies with big, flocking clouds, effects
of soft light — these are the motifs of some charming canvases which have a
solid, classic quality. Later the artist adopted the method of the dissociation
of tones, from which he obtained some happy effects. His harvest and
market scenes are luminous and alive. The figures in these recall those of
Millet. They bear witness to high qualities of sincere observation, and are the
work of a man profoundly enamoured of rustic life. M. Pissarro excels in
grouping the figures, in correctly catching their attitudes and in rendering the
medley of a crowd in the sun. Certain fans in particular will always remain
delightful caprices of fresh colour, but it would be vain to look in this
attractive, animated and clear painting for the psychologic gifts, the
profound feeling for grand silhouettes, and the intuition of the worn and
gloomy soul of the men of the soil, which have made Millet’s noble glory. At
the time when, about 1885, the neo-Impressionists whom we shall study
later on invented the Pointillist method, M. Pissarro tried it and applied it
judiciously, with the patient, serious and slightly anxious talent, by which he
is distinguished. Recently, in a series of pictures representing views of Paris
(the boulevards and the Avenue de l’Opéra) M. Pissarro has shewn rare
vision and skill and has perhaps signed his most beautiful and personal
paintings. The perspective, the lighting, the tones of the houses and of the
crowds, the reflections of rain or sunshine are intensely true; they make one
feel the atmosphere, the charm and the soul of Paris. One can say of Pissarro
that he lacks none of the gifts of his profession. He is a learned, fruitful and
upright artist. But he has lacked originality; he always recalls those whom he
admires and whose ideas he applies boldly and tastefully. It is probable that
his conscientious nature has contributed not little towards keeping him in the
second rank. Incapable, certainly, of voluntarily imitating, this excellent and
diligent painter has not had the sparks of genius of his friends, but all that
can be given to a man through conscientious study, striving after truth and
love of art, has been acquired by M. Pissarro. The rest depended on destiny
only. There is no character more worthy of respect and no effort more
meritorious than his, and there can be no better proof of his disinterestedness
and his modesty, than the fact that, although he has thirty years of work
behind him, an honoured name and white hair, M. Pissarro did not hesitate to
adopt, quite frankly, the technique of the young Pointillist painters, his
juniors, because it appeared to him better than his own. He is, if not a great
painter, at least one of the most interesting rustic landscape painters of our
epoch. His visions of the country are quite his own, and are a harmonious
mixture of Classicism and Impressionism which will secure one of the most
honourable places to his work.
PISSARRO — RUE DE L’EPICERIE, ROUEN
PISSARRO — BOULEVARDE MONTMARTRE
PISSARRO — THE BOILDIEAUX BRIDGE AT ROUEN
PISSARRO — THE AVENUE DE L’OPÉRA
There has, perhaps, been more original individuality in the landscape painter
Alfred Sisley. He possessed in the highest degree the feeling for light, and if
he did not have the power, the masterly passion of Claude Monet, he will at
least deserve to be frequently placed by his side as regards the expression of
certain combinations of light. He did not have the decorative feeling which
makes Monet’s landscapes so imposing; one does not see in his work that
surprising lyrical interpretation which knows how to express the drama of
the raging waves, the heavy slumber of enormous masses of rock, the intense
torpor of the sun on the sea. But in all that concerns the mild aspects of the
Ile de France, the sweet and fresh landscapes, Sisley is not unworthy of
being compared with Monet. He equals him in numerous pictures; he has a
similar delicacy of perception, a similar fervour of execution. He is the
painter of great, blue rivers curving towards the horizon; of blossoming
orchards; of bright hills with red-roofed hamlets scattered about; he is,
beyond all, the painter of French skies which he presents with admirable
vivacity and facility. He has the feeling for the transparency of atmosphere,
and if his technique allies him directly with Impressionism, one can well
feel, that he painted spontaneously and that this technique happened to be
adapted to his nature, without his having attempted to appropriate it for the
sake of novelty. Sisley has painted a notable series of pictures in the quaint
village of Moret on the outskirts of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he
died at a ripe age, and these canvases will figure among the most charming
landscapes of our epoch. Sisley was a veteran of Impressionism. At the
Exhibition of 1900, in the two rooms reserved for the works of this school,
there were to be seen a dozen of Sisley’s canvases. By the side of the finest
Renoirs, Monets and Manets they kept their charm and their brilliancy with a
singular flavour, and this was for many critics a revelation as to the real
place of this artist, whom they had hitherto considered as a pretty colourist
of only relative importance.
SISLEY — SNOW EFFECT

SISLEY — BOUGIVAL, AT THE WATER’S EDGE
SISLEY — BRIDGE AT MORET
Paul Cézanne, unknown to the public, is appreciated by a small group of art
lovers. He is an artist who lives in Provence, away from the world; he is
supposed to have served as model for the Impressionist painter Claude
Lantier, described by Zola in his celebrated novel “L’Oeuvre.” Cézanne has
painted landscapes, rustic scenes and still-life pictures. His figures are
clumsy and brutal and inharmonious in colour, but his landscapes have the
merit of a robust simplicity of vision. These pictures are almost primitive,
and they are loved by the young Impressionists because of their exclusion of
all “cleverness.” A charm of rude simplicity and sincerity can be found in
these works in which Cézanne employs only just the means which are
indispensable for his end. His still-life pictures are particularly interesting
owing to the spotless brilliancy of their colours, the straightforwardness of
the tones, and the originality of certain shades analogous to those of old
faience. Cézanne is a conscientious painter without skill, intensely absorbed
in rendering what he sees, and his strong and tenacious attention has
sometimes succeeded in finding beauty. He reminds more of an ancient
Gothic craftsman, than of a modern artist, and he is full of repose as a
contrast to the dazzling virtuosity of so many painters.
CÉZANNE — DESSERT
Berthe Morisot will remain the most fascinating figure of Impressionism, —
the one who has stated most precisely the femineity of this luminous and
iridescent art. Having married Eugène Manet, the brother of the great
painter, she exhibited at various private galleries, where the works of the first
Impressionists were to be seen, and became as famous for her talent as for
her beauty. When Manet died, she took charge of his memory and of his
work, and she helped with all her energetic intelligence to procure them their
just and final estimation. Mme. Eugène Manet has certainly been one of the
most beautiful types of French women of the end of the nineteenth century.
When she died prematurely at the age of fifty (in 1895), she left a
considerable amount of work: gardens, young girls, water-colours of refined
taste, of surprising energy, and of a colouring as distinguished, as it is
unexpected. As great grand-daughter of Fragonard, Berthe Morisot (since we
ought to leave her the name with which her respect for Manet’s great name
made her always sign her works) seemed to have inherited from her famous
ancestor his French gracefulness, his spirited elegance, and all his other great
qualities. She has also felt the influence of Corot, of Manet and of Renoir.
All her work is bathed in brightness, in azure, in sunlight; it is a woman’s
work, but it has a strength, a freedom of touch and an originality, which one
would hardly have expected. Her water-colours, particularly, belong to a
superior art: some notes of colour suffice to indicate sky, sea, or a forest
background, and everything shows a sure and masterly fancy, for which our
time can offer no analogy. A series of Berthe Morisot’s works looks like a
veritable bouquet whose brilliancy is due less to the colour-schemes which
are comparatively soft, grey and blue, than to the absolute correctness of the
values. A hundred canvases, and perhaps three hundred water-colours attest
this talent of the first rank. Normandy coast scenes with pearly skies and
turquoise horizons, sparkling Nice gardens, fruit-laden orchards, girls in
white dresses with big flower-decked hats, young women in ball-dress, and
flowers are the favourite themes of this artist who was the friend of Renoir,
of Degas and of Mallarmé.
BERTHE MORISOT — MELANCHOLY

BERTHE MORISOT — YOUNG WOMAN SEATED
Miss Mary Cassatt will deserve a place by her side. American by birth, she
became French through her assiduous participation in the exhibitions of the
Impressionists. She is one of the very few painters whom Degas has advised,
with Forain and M. Ernest Rouart. (This latter, a painter himself, a son of the
painter and wealthy collector Henri Rouart, has married Mme. Manet’s
daughter who is also an artist.) Miss Cassatt has made a speciality of
studying children, and she is, perhaps, the artist of this period who has
understood and expressed them with the greatest originality. She is a
pastellist of note, and some of her pastels are as good as Manet’s and
Degas’s, so far as broad execution and brilliancy and delicacy of tones are
concerned. Ten years ago Miss Cassatt exhibited a series of ten etchings in
colour, representing scenes of mothers and children at their toilet. At that
time this genre was almost abandoned, and Miss Cassatt caused
astonishment by her boldness which faced the most serious difficulties. One
can relish in this artist’s pictures, besides the great qualities of solid
draughtsmanship, correct values, and skilful interpretation of flesh and
stuffs, a profound sentiment of infantile life, childish gestures, clear and
unconscious looks, and the loving expression of the mothers. Miss Cassatt is
the painter and psychologist of babies and young mothers whom she likes to
depict in the freshness of an orchard, or against backgrounds of the flowered
hangings of dressing-rooms, amidst bright linen, tubs, and china, in smiling
intimacy. To these two remarkable women another has to be added, Eva
Gonzalès, the favourite pupil of Manet who has painted a fine portrait of her.
Eva Gonzalès became the wife of the excellent engraver Henri Guérard, and
died prematurely, not, however, before one was able to admire her talent as
an exquisitely delicate pastellist. Having first been a pupil of Chaplin, she
soon came to forget the tricks of technique in order to acquire under Manet’s
guidance the qualities of clearness and the strength of the great painter of
Argenteuil; and she would certainly have taken one of the first places in
modern art, had not her career been cut short by death. A small pastel at the
Luxembourg Gallery proves her convincing qualities as a colourist.
MARY CASSATT — GETTING UP BABY
MARY CASSATT — WOMEN AND CHILD
Gustave Caillebotte was a friend of the Impressionists from the very first
hour. He was rich, fond of art, and himself a painter of great merit who
modestly kept hidden behind his comrades. His picture Les raboteurs de
parquets made him formerly the butt of derision. To-day his work, at the
Luxembourg Gallery seems hardly a fit pretext for so much controversy, but
at that time much was considered as madness, that to our eyes appears quite
natural. This picture is a study of oblique perspective and its curious
ensemble of rising lines sufficed to provoke astonishment. The work is,
moreover, grey and discreet in colour and has some qualities of fine light,
but is on the whole not very interesting. Recently an exhibition of works by
Caillebotte has made it apparent that this amateur was a misjudged painter.
The still-life pictures in this exhibition were specially remarkable. But the
name of Caillebotte was destined to reach the public only in connection with
controversies and scandal. When he died, he left to the State a magnificent
collection of objets-d’art and of old pictures, and also a collection of
Impressionist works, stipulating that these two bequests should be
inseparable. He wished by this means to impose the works of his friends
upon the museums, and thus avenge their unjust neglect. The State accepted
the two legacies, since the Louvre absolutely wanted to benefit by the
ancient portion, in spite of the efforts of the Academicians who revolted
against the acceptance of the modern part. On this occasion one could see
how far the official artists were carried by their hatred of the Impressionists.
A group of Academicians, professors at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, threatened
the minister that they would resign en masse. “We cannot,” they wrote to the
papers, “continue to teach an art of which we believe we know the laws,
from the moment the State admits into the museums, where our pupils can
see them, works which are the very negation of all we teach.” A heated
discussion followed in the press, and the minister boldly declared that
Impressionism, good or bad, had attracted the attention of the public, and
that it was the duty of the State to receive impartially the work of all the art
movements; the public would know how to judge and choose; the
Government’s duty was not to influence them by showing them only one
style of painting, but to remain in historic neutrality. Thanks to this clever
reply, the Academicians, among whom M. Gérôme was the most rabid,
resigned themselves to keeping their posts. A similar incident, less publicly
violent, but equally strange, occurred on the occasion of the admission to the
Luxembourg Gallery of the portrait of M. Whistler’s mother, a masterpiece
of which the gallery is proud to-day, and for which a group of writers and art
lovers had succeeded in opening the way. It is difficult to imagine the degree
of irritation and obstruction of the official painters against all the ideas of the
new painting, and if it had only depended upon them, there can be no doubt
that Manet and his friends would have died in total obscurity, not only
banished from the Salons and museums, but also treated as madmen and
robbed of the possibility of living by their work.
The Caillebotte collection was installed under conditions which the ill-
will of the administrators made at least as deplorable as possible. The works
were crowded into a small, badly lighted room, where it is absolutely
impossible to see them from the distance required by the method of the
division of tones, and the meanness of the opposition was such that, the
pictures having been bequeathed without frames, the keeper was obliged to
have recourse to the reserves of the Louvre, because he was refused the
necessary credit for purchasing them. The collection is however beautiful
and interesting. It does not represent Impressionism in all its brilliancy, since
the works by which it is composed had been bought by Caillebotte at a time,
when his friends were still far from having arrived at the full blossoming of
their qualities. But some very fine things can at least be found there. Renoir
is marvellously represented by the Moulin de la Galette, which is one of his
masterpieces. Degas figures with seven beautiful pastels, Monet with some
landscapes grand in style; Sisley and Pissarro appear scarcely to their
advantage, and finally it is to be regretted, that Manet is only represented by
a study in black in his first manner, the Balcony, which does not count
among his best pictures, and the famous Olympia whose importance is more
historical than intrinsic. The gallery has separately acquired a Young Girl in
Ball Dress by Berthe Morisot, which is a delicate marvel of grace and
freshness. And in the place of honour of the gallery is to be seen Fantin-
Latour’s great picture Hommage à Manet, in which the painter, seated before
his easel, is surrounded by his friends; and this canvas may well be
considered the emblem of the slow triumph of Impressionism, and of the
amends for a great injustice.
It is in this picture that the young painter Bazille is represented, a friend
and pupil of Manet’s, who was killed during the war of 1870, and who
should not be forgotten here. He has left a few canvases marked by great
talent, and would no doubt have counted among the most original
contemporary artists. We shall terminate this all too short enumeration with
two remarkable landscapists; the one is Albert Lebourg who paints in suave
and poetic colour schemes, with blues and greens of particular tenderness, a
painter who will take his place in the history of Impressionism. The other is
Eugène Boudin. He has not adopted Claude Monet’s technique; but I have
already said that the vague and inexact term “Impressionism” must be
understood to comprise a group of painters showing originality in the study
of light and getting away from the academic spirit. As to this, Eugène
Boudin deserves to be placed in the first rank. His canvases will be the pride
of the best arranged galleries. He is an admirable seascape painter. He has
known how to render with unfailing mastery, the grey waters of the Channel,
the stormy skies, the heavy clouds, the effects of sunlight feebly piercing the
prevailing grey. His numerous pictures painted at the port of Havre are
profoundly expressive. Nobody has excelled him in drawing sailing-boats, in
giving the exact feeling of the keels plunged into the water, in grouping the
masts, in rendering the activity of a port, in indicating the value of a sail
against the sky, the fluidity of calm water, the melancholy of the distance,
the shiver of short waves rippled by the breeze. Boudin is a learned colourist
of grey tones. His Impressionism consists in the exclusion of useless details,
his comprehension of reflections, his feeling for values, the boldness of his
composition and his faculty of directly perceiving nature and the
transparency of atmosphere: he reminds sometimes of Constable and of
Corot. Boudin’s production has been enormous, and nothing that he has done
is indifferent. He is one of those artists who have not a brilliant career, but
who will last, and whose name, faithfully retained by the elect, is sure of
immortality. He may be considered an isolated artist, on the border line
between Classicism and Impressionism, and this is unquestionably the cause
of the comparative obscurity of his fame. The same might be said of the
ingenuous and fine landscapist Hervier, who has left such interesting
canvases; and of the Lyons water-colour painter Ravier who, almost
absolutely unknown, came very close to Monticelli and showed admirable
gifts. It must, however, be recognised that Boudin is nearer to Impressionism
than to any other grouping of artists, and he must be considered as a small
master of pure French lineage. Finally, if a question of nationality prevents
me from enlarging upon the subject of the rank of precursor which must be
accorded to the great Dutch landscapist Jongkind, I must at least mention his
name. His water-colour sketches have been veritable revelations for several
Impressionists. Eugène Boudin and Berthe Morisot have derived special
benefit from them, and they are valuable lessons for many young painters of
the present day.
JONGKIND — IN HOLLAND
JONGKIND — VIEW OF THE HAGUE
We do not pretend to have mentioned in this chapter all the painters directly
connected with the first Impressionist movement. We have confined
ourselves to enumerating the most important only, and each of them would
deserve a complete essay. But our object will have been achieved, if we have
inspired art-lovers with just esteem for this brave phalanx of artists who have
proved better than any aesthetic commentaries the vitality, the originality,
and the logic of Manet’s theories, the great importance of the notions
introduced by him into painting, and who have, on the other hand, clearly
demonstrated the uselessness of official teaching. Far from the traditions and
methods of the School, the best of their knowledge and of their talent is due
to their profound and sincere contemplation of nature and to their freedom of
spirit. And for that reason they will have a permanent place in the evolution
of their art.
VIII THE MODERN ILLUSTRATORS
CONNECTED WITH IMPRESSIONISM:
RAFFAËLLI, TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, FORAIN, CHÉRET, ETC.
Not the least important result of Impressionism has been the veritable
revolution effected by it in the art of illustration. It was only natural that its
principles should have led to it. The substitution of the beauty of character
for the beauty of proportion was bound to move the artists to regard
illustration in a new light; and as pictorial Impressionism was born of the
same movement of ideas which created the naturalist novel and the
impressionist literature of Flaubert, Zola and the Goncourts, and moreover
as these men were united by close relations and a common defence,
Edouard Manet’s modern ideas soon took up the commentary of the books
dealing with modern life and the description of actual spectacles.
The Impressionists themselves have not contributed towards illustration.
Their work has consisted in raising to the style of grand painting subjects,
that seemed at the best only worthy of the proportion of vignettes, in
opposition to the subjects qualified as “noble” by the School. The series of
works by Manet and Degas may be considered as admirable illustrations to
the novels by Zola and the Goncourts. It is a parallel research in modern
psychologic truth. But this research has remained confined to pictures. It
may be presumed that, had they wished to do so, Manet and Degas could
have admirably illustrated certain contemporary novels, and Renoir could
have produced a masterpiece in commenting, say, upon Verlaine’s Fêtes
Galantes. The only things that can be mentioned here are a few drawings
composed by Manet for Edgar A. Poe’s The Raven and Mallarmé’s
L’Après-Midi d’un Faune, in addition to a few music covers without any
great interest.
But if the Impressionists themselves have neglected actively to assist the
interesting school of modern illustration, a whole legion of draughtsmen
have immediately been inspired by their principles. One of their most
original characteristics was the realistic representation of the scenes, the
mise en cadre, and it afforded these draughtsmen an opportunity for
revolutionising book illustration. There had already been some excellent
artists who occupied themselves with vignette drawings, like Tony Johannot
and Célestin Nanteuil, whose pretty and smart frontispieces are to be found
in the old editions of Balzac. The genius of Honoré Daumier and the high
fancy of Gavarni and of Grévin had already announced a serious protest of
modern sentiment against academic taste, in returning on many points to the
free tradition of Eisen, of the two Moreaus and of Debucourt. Since 1845
the draughtsman Constantin Guys, Baudelaire’s friend, gave evidence, in
his most animated water-colour drawings, of a curious vision of nervous
elegance and of expressive skill quite in accord with the ideas of the day.
Impressionism, and also the revelation of the Japanese colour prints, gave
an incredible vigour to these intuitive glimpses. Certain characteristics will
date from the days of Impressionism. It is due to Impressionism that artists
have ventured to show in illustration, for instance, figures in the foreground
cut through by the margin, rising perspectives, figures in the background
that seem to stand on a higher plane than the others, people seen from a
second story; in a word, all that life presents to our eyes, without the
annoying consideration for “style” and for arrangement, which the
academic spirit obstinately insisted to apply to the illustration of modern
life. Degas in particular has given many examples of this novelty in
composition. One of his pastels has remained typical, owing to the scandal
caused by it: he represents a dance-scene at the Opera, seen from the
orchestra. The neck of a double bass rises in the middle of the picture and
cuts into it, a large black silhouette, behind which sparkle the gauze-dresses
and the lights. That can be observed any evening, and yet it would be
difficult to recapitulate all the railleries and all the anger caused by so
natural an audacity. Modern illustration was to be the pretext of a good
many more outbursts!
We must now consider four artists of great importance who are
remarkable painters and have greatly raised the art of illustration. This title
illustrator, despised by the official painters, should be given them as the one
which has secured them the best claim to fame. They have restored to this
title all its merit and all its brilliancy and have introduced into illustration
the most serious qualities of painting. Of these four men the first in date is
M.J.F. Raffaëlli, who introduced himself about 1875 with some remarkable
and intensely picturesque illustrations in colours in various magazines. He
gave an admirable series of Parisian Types, in album form, and a series of
etchings to accompany the text of M. Huysmans, describing the curious
river “la Bièvre” which penetrates Paris in a thousand curves, sometimes
subterranean, sometimes above ground, and serves the tanners for washing
the leather. This series is a model of modern illustration. But, apart from the
book, the entire pictorial work of M. Raffaëlli is a humorous and
psychological illustration of the present time. He has painted with unique
truth and spirit the working men’s types and the small bourgeois, the poor,
the hospital patients and the roamers of the outskirts of Paris. He has
succeeded in being the poet of the sickly and dirty landscapes by which the
capitals are surrounded; he has rendered their anaemic charm, the confused
perspectives of houses, fences, walls and little gardens, and their smoke,
under the melancholy of rainy skies. With an irony free from bitterness he
has noted the clumsy gestures of the labourer in his Sunday garb and the
grotesque silhouettes of the small townsmen, and has compiled a gallery of
very real sociologic interest. M. Raffaëlli has also exhibited Parisian
landscapes in which appear great qualities of light. He excels in rendering
the mornings in the spring, with their pearly skies, their pale lights, their
transparency and their slight shadows, and finally he has proved his mastery
by some large portraits, fresh harmonies, generally devoted to the study of
different qualities of white. If the name “Impressionist” meant, as has been
wrongly believed, an artist who confines himself to giving the impression of
what he sees, then M. Raffaëlli would be the real Impressionist. He suggests
more than he paints. He employs a curious technique: he often leaves a sky
completely bare, throwing on to the white of the canvas a few colour notes
which suffice to give the illusion. He has a decided preference for white and
black, and paints very slightly in small touches. His very correct feeling for
values makes him an excellent painter; but what interests him beyond all, is
psychologic expression. He notes it with so hasty a pencil, that one might
almost say that he writes with colour. He is also an etcher of great merit,
and an original sculptor. He has invented small bas-reliefs in bronze which
can be attached to the wall, like sketches or nick-nacks; and he has applied
his talent even to renewing the material for painting. He is an ingenious
artist and a prolific producer, a roguish, but sympathetic, observer of the life
of the small people, which has not prevented him from painting very
seriously when he wanted to, as is witnessed among other works by his very
fine portrait of M. Clemenceau speaking at a public meeting, in the
presence of a vociferous audience from which rise some hundred of heads
whose expressions are noted with really splendid energy and fervour.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who died recently, insane, leaves a great
work behind him. He had a kind of cruel genius. Descended from one of the
greatest families of France, badly treated by nature who made him a kind of
ailing dwarf, he seemed to take a bitter pleasure in the study of modern
vice. He painted scenes at café-concerts and the rooms of wantons with
intense truth. Nobody has revealed better than he the lowness and suffering
of the creatures “of pleasure,” as they have been dubbed by the heartrending
irony of life. Lautrec has shown the artificiality of the painted faces; the
vulgarity of the types of the prostitutes of low origin; the infamous gestures,
the disorder, the slovenliness of the dwellings of these women; all the shady
side of their existence. It has been said that he loved ugliness. As a matter
of fact, he did not exaggerate, he raised a powerful accusation against
everything he saw. But his terrible clairvoyance passed for caricature. This
sad psychologist was a great painter; he pleased himself with dressing in
rose-coloured costumes the coarsest and most vulgar creatures he painted,
such as one can find at the cabarets and concerts, and he enjoyed the
contrast of fresh tones with the faces marked by vice and poverty; Lautrec’s
two great influences have been the Japanese and Degas. Of the former he
retained the love for decorative arabesques and the unconventional
grouping; of the other the learned draughtsmanship, expressive in its broad
simplification, and one might say that the pupil has often been worthy of the
masters. One can only regret that Lautrec should have confined his vision
and his high faculties to the study of a small and very Parisian world; but,
seeing his works, one cannot deny the science, the spirit and the grand
bearing of his art. He has also signed some fine posters, notably a Bruant
which is a masterpiece of its kind.
Degas’s deep influence can be found again in J.L. Forain, who has made
himself known by an immense series of drawings for the illustrated papers,
drawings as remarkable in themselves as they are, through their legends,
bitterly sarcastic in spirit. These drawings form a synthesis of the defects of
the bourgeoisie, which is at the same time amusing and grave. They also
concern, though less happily, the political world, in which the artist, a little
intoxicated with his success, has thought himself able to exercise an
influence by scoffing at the parliamentary régime. Forain’s drawing has a
nervous character which does, however, not weaken its science: every
stroke reveals something and has an astonishing power. In his less known
painting can be traced still more clearly the style and influence of his master
Degas. They are generally incidents behind the scenes and at night
restaurants, where caricatured types are painted with great force. But they
are insistently exaggerated, they have not the restraint, the ironical and
discreet plausibility, which give so much flavour, so much value to Degas’s
studies. Nevertheless, Forain’s pictures are very significant and are of real
interest. He is decidedly the most interesting newspaper illustrator of his
whole generation, the one whose ephemeral art most closely approaches
grand painting, and one of those who have most contributed towards the
transformation of illustration for the contemporary press.
Jules Chéret has made for himself an important and splendid position in
contemporary art. He commenced as a lithographic workman and lived for a
long time in London. About 1870 Chéret designed his first posters in black,
white and red; these were at the time the only colours used. By and by he
perfected this art and found the means of adding other tones and of drawing
them on the lithographic stone. He returned to France, started a small
studio, and gradually carried poster art to the admirable point at which it has
arrived. At the same time Chéret drew and painted and composed himself
his models. About 1885 his name became famous, and it has not ceased
growing since. Some writers, notably the eminent critic Roger Marx and the
novelist Huysmans, hailed in Chéret an original artist as well as a learned
technician. He then exhibited decorative pictures, pastels and drawings,
which placed him in the first rank. Chéret is universally known. The type of
the Parisian woman created by him, and the multi-coloured harmony of his
works will not be forgotten. His will be the honour of having invented the
artistic poster, this feast for the eyes, this fascinating art of the street, which
formerly languished in a tedious and dull display of commercial
advertisements. He has been the promoter of an immense movement; he has
been imitated, copied, parodied, but he will always remain inimitable. He
has succeeded in realising on paper by means of lithography, the pastels and
gouache drawings in which his admirable colourist’s fancy mixed the most
difficult shades. In Chéret can be found all the principles of Impressionism:
opposing lights, coloured shadows, complementary reflections, all
employed with masterly sureness and delightful charm. It is decorative
Impressionism, conceived in a superior way; and this simple poster-man,
despised by the painters, has proved himself equal to most. He has
transformed the street, in the open light, into a veritable Salon, where his
works have become famous. When this too modest artist decided to show
his pictures and drawings, they were a revelation. The most remarkable
pastellists of the period were astonished and admired his skill, his profound
knowledge of technique, his continual tours-de-force which he disguised
under a shimmering gracefulness. The State had the good sense to entrust
him with some large mural decorations, in which he unfolded the scale of
his sparkling colours, and affirmed his spirit, his fancy and his dreamy art.
Chéret’s harmonies remain secrets; he uses them for the representation of
characters from the Italian comedy, thrown with fiendish verve upon a
background of a sky, fiery with the Bengal lights of a fairy-like carnival,
and he strangely intermingles the reality of the movements with the most
arbitrary fancy. Chéret has also succeeded in proving his artistic descent by
a beautiful series of drawings in sanguine: he descends from Watteau,
Boucher and Fragonard; he is a Frenchman of pure blood; and when one
has done admiring the grace and the happy animation of his imagination,
one can only be surprised to see on what serious and sure a technique are
based these decorations which appear improvised. Chéret’s art is the smile
of Impressionism and the best demonstration of the decorative logic of this
art.
These are the four artists of great merit who have created the transition
between Impressionist painting and illustration. It would be fit to put aside
Toulouse-Lautrec, who was much younger, but his work is too directly
connected with that of Degas for one to take into account the difference of
age. He produced between 1887 and 1900 works which might well have
been ante-dated by fifteen years. We shall study in the next chapter his Neo-
Impressionist comrades, and we shall now speak of some illustrators more
advanced in years than he. The oldest in date is the engraver Henri Guérard,
who died three years ago. He had married Eva Gonzalès and was a friend of
Manet’s, many of whose works have been engraved by him. He was an
artist of decided and original talent, who also occupied himself successfully
with pyrogravure, and who was happily inspired by the Japanese colour-
prints. His etchings deserve a place of honour in the folios of expert
collectors; they are strong and broad. As to the engraver Félix Buhot, he
was a rather delicate colourist in black and white; his Paris scenes will
always be considered charming works. In spite of his Spanish origin, the
painter, aquarelliste, and draughtsman Daniel Vierge, should be added to
the list of the men connected with Impressionism. His illustrations are those
of a great artist — admirable in colour, movement and observation; all the
great principles of Impressionism are embodied in them. But there are four
more illustrators of the first rank: Steinlen, Louis Legrand, Paul Renouard
and Auguste Lepère.
Steinlen has been enormously productive: he is specially remarkable for
his illustrations. Those which he has designed for Aristide Bruant’s volume
of songs, Dans la rue, are masterpieces of their kind. They contain treasures
of bitter observation, quaintness and knowledge. The soul of the lower
classes is shown in them with intense truth, bitter revolt and comprehensive
philosophy. Steinlen has also designed some beautiful posters, pleasing
pastels, lithographs of incontestable technical merit, and beautifully
eloquent political drawings. It cannot be said that he is an Impressionist in
the strict sense of the word; he applied his colour in flat tints, more like an
engraver than a painter; but in him too can be felt the stamp of Degas, and
he is one of those who best demonstrate that, without Impressionism, they
could not have been what they are.
The same may be said of Louis Legrand, a pupil of Félicien Rops, an
admirably skilful etcher, a draughtsman of keen vision, and a painter of
curious character, who has in many ways forestalled the artists of to-day.
Louis Legrand also shows to what extent the example of Manet and Degas
has revolutionised the art of illustration, in freeing the painters from
obsolete laws, and guiding them towards truth and frank psychological
study. Legrand is full of them, without resembling them. We must not forget
that, besides the technical innovation (division of tones, study of
complementary colours), Impressionism has brought us novelty of
composition, realism of character and great liberty in the choice of subjects.
From this point of view Rops himself, in spite of his symbolist tendencies,
could not be classed with any other group, if it were not that any kind of
classification in art is useless and inaccurate. However that may be, Louis
Legrand has signed some volumes resplendent with the most seductive
qualities.
Paul Renouard has devoted himself to newspaper illustration, but with
what surprising prodigality of spirit and knowledge! The readers of the
“Graphic” will know. This masterly virtuoso of the pencil might give
drawing-lessons to many members of the Institute! The feeling for the life
of crowds, psychology of types, spirited and rapid notation, astonishing
ease in overcoming difficulties — these are his undeniable gifts. And again
we must recognise in Renouard the example of Degas and Manet. His
exceptional fecundity only helps to give more authority to his pencil.
Renouard’s drawings at the Exhibition of 1900 were, perhaps, more
beautiful than the rest of his work. There was notably a series of studies
made from the first platform of the Eiffel Tower, an accumulation of
wonders of perspectives framing scenes of such animation and caprice as to
take away one’s breath.
Finally, Auguste Lepère appears as the Debucourt of our time. As
painter, pastellist and wood-engraver he has produced since 1870, and has
won for himself the first place among French engravers. It would be
difficult to recount the volumes, albums and covers on which the fancy of
his burin has played; but it is particularly in wood-engraving that he stands
without rival. Not only has he produced masterpieces of it, but he has
passionately devoted himself to raising this admirable art, the glory of the
beautiful books of olden days, and to give back to it the lustre which had
been eclipsed by mechanical processes. Lepère has started some
publications for this purpose; he has had pupils of great merit, and he must
be considered the master of the whole generation of modern wood-
engravers, just as Chéret is the undisputed master of the poster. Lepère’s
ruling quality is strength. He seems to have rediscovered the mediaeval
limners’ secrets of cutting the wood, giving the necessary richness to the
ink, creating a whole scale of half-tones, and specially of adapting the
design to typographic printing, and making of it, so to say, an ornament and
a decorative extension for the type. Lepère is a wood-engraver with whom
none of his contemporaries can be compared; as regards his imagination, it
is that of an altogether curious artist. He excels in composing and
expressing the life, the animation, the soul of the streets and the picturesque
side of the populace. Herein he is much inspired by Manet and, if we go
back to the real tradition, by Guys, Debucourt, the younger Moreau and by
Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. He is decidedly a Realist of French lineage, who
owes nothing to the Academy and its formulas.
It would be evidently unreasonable to attach to Impressionism all that is
ante-academical, and between the two extremes there is room for a crowd
of interesting artists. We shall not succumb to the prejudice of the School by
declaring, in our turn, that there is no salvation outside Impressionism, and
we have been careful to state repeatedly that, if Impressionism has a certain
number of principles as kernel, its applications and its influence have a
radiation which it is difficult to limit. What can be absolutely demonstrated
is, that this movement has had the greatest influence on modern illustration,
sometimes through its colouring, sometimes simply through the great
freedom of its ideas. Some have found in it a direct lesson, others an
example to be followed. Some have met in it technical methods which
pleased them, others have only taken some suggestions from it. That is the
case, for instance, with Legrand, with Steinlen, and with Renouard; and it is
also the case with the lithographer Odilon Redon, who applies the values of
Manet and, in his strange pastels, the harmonies of Degas and Renoir,
placing them at the service of dreams and hallucinations and of a
symbolism which is absolutely removed from the realism of these painters.
It is, finally, the case with the water-colour painter Henri Rivière, who is
misjudged as to his merit, and who is one of the most perfect of those who
have applied Impressionist ideas to decorative engraving. He has realised
images in colours destined to decorate inexpensively the rooms of the
people and recalling the grand aspects of landscapes with a broad
simplification which is derived, curiously enough, from Puvis de
Chavannes’s large decorative landscapes and from the small and precise
colour prints of Japan. Rivière, who is a skilful and personal poetic
landscapist, is not exactly an Impressionist, in so far as he does not divide
the tones, but rather blends them in subtle mixtures in the manner of the
Japanese. Yet, seeing his work, one cannot help thinking of all the surprise
and freedom introduced into modern art by Impressionism.
Everybody, even the ignorant, can perceive, on looking through an
illustrated paper or a modern volume, that thirty years ago this manner of
placing the figures, of noting familiar gestures, and of seizing fugitive life
with spirit and clearness was unknown. This mass of engravings and of
sketches resembles in no way what had been seen formerly. They no longer
have the solemn air of classic composition, by which the drawings had been
affected. A current of bold spontaneity has passed through here. In modern
English illustration, it can be stated indisputably that nothing would be such
as it can now be seen, if Morris, Rossetti and Crane had not imposed their
vision, and yet many talented Englishmen resemble these initiators only
very remotely. It is exactly in this sense that we shall have credited
Impressionism with the talents who have drawn their inspiration less from
its principles, than from its vigorous protest against mechanical formulas,
and who have been able to find the energy, necessary for their success, in
the example it set by fighting during twenty years against the ideas of
routine which seemed indestructible. Even with the painters who are far
removed from the vision and the colouring of Manet and Degas, of Monet
and Renoir, one can find a very precise tendency: that of returning to the
subjects and the style of the real national tradition; and herein lies one of the
most serious benefits bestowed by Impressionism upon an art which had
stopped at the notion of a canonical beauty, until it had almost become
sterile in its timidity.
IX NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
GAUGUIN, DENIS, THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE — THE THEORY OF POINTILLISM —
SEURAT, SIGNAC AND THE THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC CHROMATISM — FAULTS AND
QUALITIES OF THE IMPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT, WHAT WE OWE TO IT, ITS PLACE IN
THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH SCHOOL — SOME WORDS ON ITS INFLUENCE ABROAD
The beginnings of the movement designated under the name of Neo-

Impressionism can be traced back to about 1880. The movement is a direct
offshoot of the first Impressionism, originated by a group of young painters
who admired it and thought of pushing further still its chromatic principles.
The flourishing of Impressionism coincided, as a matter of fact, with certain
scientific labours concerning optics. Helmholtz had just published his works
on the perception of colours and sounds by means of waves. Chevreul had
continued on this path by establishing his beautiful theories on the analysis
of the solar spectrum. M. Charles Henry, an original and remarkable spirit,
occupied himself in his turn with these delicate problems by applying them
directly to aesthetics, which Helmholtz and Chevreul had not thought of
doing. M. Charles Henry had the idea of creating relations between this
branch of science and the laws of painting. As a friend of several young
painters he had a real influence over them, showing them that the new vision
due to the instinct of Monet and of Manet might perhaps be scientifically
verified, and might establish fixed principles in a sphere where hitherto the
laws of colouring had been the effects of individual conception. At that
moment the criticism which resulted from Taine’s theories tried to effect a
rapprochement of the artistic and scientific domains in criticism and in the
psychologic novel. The painters, too, gave way to this longing for precision
which seems to have been the great preoccupation of intellects from 1880 to
about 1889.
Their researches had a special bearing on the theory of complementary
colours and on the means of establishing some laws concerning the reaction
of tones in such manner as to draw up a kind of tabula. Georges Seurat and
Paul Signac were the promoters of this research. Seurat died very young, and
one cannot but regret this death of an artist who would have been very
interesting and capable of beautiful works. Those which he has left us bear
witness to a spirit very receptive to theories, and leaving nothing to chance.
The silhouettes are reduced to almost rigorously geometrical principles, the
tones are decomposed systematically. These canvases are more reasoned
examples than works of intuition and spontaneous vision. They show
Seurat’s curious desire to give a scientific and classic basis to
Impressionism. The same idea rules in all the work of Paul Signac, who has
painted some portraits and numerous landscapes. To these two painters is
due the method of Pointillism, i.e. the division of tones, not only by touches,
as in Monet’s pictures, but by very small touches of equal size, causing the
spheric shape to act equally upon the retina. The accumulation of these
luminous points is carried out over the entire surface of the canvas without
thick daubs of paint, and with regularity, whilst with Manet the paint is more
or less dense. The theory of complementary colours is systematically
applied. On a sketch, made from nature, the painter notes the principal
relations of tones, then systematises them on his picture and connects them
by different shades which should be their logical result. Neo-Impressionism
believes in obtaining thus a greater exactness than that which results from
the individual temperament of the painter who simply relies on his own
perception. And it is true, in theory, that such a conception is more exact.
But it reduces the picture to a kind of theorem, which excludes all that
constitutes the value and charm of an art, that is to say: caprice, fancy, and
the spontaneity of personal inspiration. The works of Seurat, Signac, and of
the few men who have strictly followed the rules of Pointillism are lacking
in life, in surprise, and make a somewhat tiring impression upon one’s eyes.
The uniformity of the points does not succeed in giving an impression of
cohesion, and even less a suggestion of different textures, even if the values
are correct. Manet seems to have attained perfection in using the method
which consists in directing the touches in accordance with each of the
planes, and this is evidently the most natural method. Scientific Chromatism
constitutes an ensemble of propositions, of which art will be able to make
use, though indirectly, as information useful for a better understanding of the
laws of light in presence of nature. What Pointillism has been able to give
us, is a method which would be very appreciable for decorative paintings
seen from a great distance — friezes or ceilings in spacious buildings. It
would in this case return to the principle of mosaic, which is the principle
par excellence of mural art.
The Pointillists have to-day almost abandoned this transitional theory
which, in spite of the undeniable talent of its adepts, has only produced
indifferent results as regards easel pictures. Besides Seurat and Signac,
mention should be made of Maurice Denis, Henri-Edmond Cross, Angrand,
and Théo Van Rysselberghe. But this last-named and Maurice Denis have
arrived at great talent by very different merits. M. Maurice Denis has
abandoned Pointillism a few years ago, in favour of returning to a very
strange conception which dates back to the Primitives, and even to Giotto.
He simplifies his drawing archaically, suppresses all but the indispensable
detail, and draws inspiration from Gothic stained glass and carvings, in order
to create decorative figures with clearly marked outlines which are filled
with broad, flat tints. He generally treats mystic subjects, for which this
special manner is suitable. One cannot love the parti pris of these works, but
one cannot deny M. Denis a great charm of naivete, an intense feeling for
decorative arrangements and colouring of a certain originality. He is almost a
French pre-Raphaelite, and his profound catholic faith inspires him nobly.
THÉO VAN RYSSELBERGHE — PORTRAITS OF MADAME VAN
RYSSELBERGHE AND HER DAUGHTER
M. Théo Van Rysselberghe continues to employ the Pointillist method. But
he is so strongly gifted, that one might almost say he succeeds in revealing
himself as a painter of great merit in spite of this dry and charmless method.
All his works are supported by broad and learned drawing and his colour is
naturally brilliant. M. Van Rysselberghe, a prolific and varied worker, has
painted nudes, large portraits, landscapes with figures, seascapes, interiors
and still-life, and in all this he evinces faculties of the first order. He is a
lover of light and understands how to make it vibrate over flesh and fabrics.
He is an artist who has the sense of style. He has signed a certain number of
portraits, whose beautiful carriage and serious psychology would suffice to
make him be considered as the most significant of the Neo-Impressionists. It
is really in him that one has to see the young and worthy heir of Monet, of
Sisley, and of Degas, and that is why we have insisted on adding here to the
works of these masters the reproduction of one of his. M. Van Rysselberghe
is also a very delicate etcher who has signed some fine works in this method,
and his seascapes, whether they revel in the pale greys of the German Ocean
or in the warm sapphire and gold harmonies of the Mediterranean, count
among the finest of the time; they are windows opened upon joyous
brightness.
To these painters who have never taken part at the Salons, and are only to
be seen at the exhibitions of the Indépendants (except M. Denis), must be
added M. Pierre Bonnard, who has given proof to his charm and fervour in
numerous small canvases of Japanese taste; and M. Edouard Vuillard, who is
a painter of intimate scenes of rare delicacy. This artist, who stands apart and
produces very little, has signed some interiors of melancholic distinction and
of a colouring which revels in low tones. He has the precision and skill of a
master. There is in him, one might say, a reflection of Chardin’s soul.
Unfortunately his works are confined to a few collections and have not
become known to the public. To the same group belong M. Ranson, who has
devoted himself to purely decorative art, tapestry, wall papers and
embroideries; M. Georges de Feure, a strange, symbolist water-colour
painter, who has become one of the best designers of the New Art in France;
M. Félix Vallotton, painter and lithographer, who is somewhat heavy, but
gifted with serious qualities. It is true that M. de Feure is Dutch, M.
Vallotton Swiss, and M. Van Rysselberghe Belgian; but they have settled
down in France, and are sufficiently closely allied to the Neo-Impressionist
movement so that the question of nationality need not prevent us from
mentioning them here. Finally it is impossible not to say a few words about
two pupils of Gustave Moreau’s, who have both become noteworthy
followers of Impressionism of very personal individuality. M. Eugène Martel
bids fair to be one of the best painters of interiors of his generation. He has
the feeling of mystical life and paints the peasantry with astonishing
psychologic power. His vigorous colouring links him to Monticelli, and his
drawing to Degas. As to M. Simon Bussy who, following Alphonse Legros’s
example, is about to make an enviable position for himself in England, he is
an artist of pure blood. His landscapes and his figures have the distinction
and rare tone of M. Whistler, besides the characteristic acuteness of Degas.
His harmonies are subtle, his vision novel, and he will certainly develop into
an important painter. Together with Henri le Sidaner and Jacques Blanche,
Simon Bussy is decidedly the most personal of that young generation of
“Intimists” who seem to have retained the best principles of the
Impressionist masters to employ them for the expression of a psychologic
ideal which is very different from Realism.
Outside this group there are still a few isolated painters who are difficult
to classify. The very young artists Laprade and Charles Guérin have shown
for the last three years, at the exhibition of the Indépendants, some works
which are the worthy result of Manet’s and Renoir’s influence. They, too,
justify great expectations. The landscapists Paul Vogler and Maxime Maufra,
more advanced in years, have made themselves known by some solid series
of vigorously presented landscapes. To them must be added M. Henry
Moret, M. Albert André and M. Georges d’Espagnet, who equally deserve
the success which has commenced to be their share. But there are some older
ones. It is only his due, that place should be given to a painter who
committed suicide after an unhappy life, and who evinced splendid gifts.
Vincent Van Gogh, a Dutchman, who, however, had always worked in
France, has left to the world some violent and strange works, in which
Impressionism appears to have reached the limits of its audacity. Their value
lies in their naïve frankness and in the undauntable determination which tried
to fix without trickery the sincerest feelings. Amidst many faulty and clumsy
works, Van Gogh has also left some really beautiful canvases. There is a
deep affinity between him and Cézanne. A very real affinity exists, too,
between Paul Gauguin, who was a friend and to a certain extent the master
of Van Gogh, and Cézanne and Renoir. Paul Gauguin’s robust talent found
its first motives in Breton landscapes, in which the method of colour-spots
can be found employed with delicacy and placed at the service of a rather
heavy, but very interesting harmony. Then the artist spent a long time in
Tahiti, whence he returned with a completely transformed manner. He has
brought back from these regions some landscapes with figures treated in
intentionally clumsy and almost wild fashion. The figures are outlined in
firm strokes and painted in broad, flat tints on canvas which has the texture
almost of tapestry. Many of these works are made repulsive by their aspect
of multi-coloured, crude and barbarous imagery. Yet one cannot but
acknowledge the fundamental qualities, the beautiful values, the ornamental
taste, and the impression of primitive animalism. On the whole, Paul
Gauguin has a beautiful, artistic temperament which, in its aversion to
virtuosoship, has perhaps not sufficiently understood that the fear of
formulas, if exaggerated, may lead to other formulas, to a false ignorance
which is as dangerous as false knowledge. Gauguin’s symbolical intentions,
like those of his pupil Emile Bernard, are sincere, but are badly served by
minds which do not agree with their technical qualities, and both Gauguin
and Emile Bernard are most happily inspired when they are painters pure
and simple.
Next to Gauguin, among the seniors of the present generation and the
successors of Impressionism, should be placed the landscapist Armand
Guillaumin who, without possessing Sisley’s delicate qualities, has painted
some canvases worthy of notice; and we must, finally, terminate this far too
summary enumeration by referring to one of the most gifted painters of the
French School of the day, M. Louis Anquetin. His is a most varied talent
whose power is unquestionable. He made his début among the Neo-
Impressionists and revealed the influence upon him of the Japanese and of
Degas. It may be seen that these two influences predominate in the whole
group. Then M. Anquetin became fascinated by the breadth and superb
freedom of Manet’s works, and signed a series of portraits and sketches,
some of which are not far below so great a master’s. They are works which
will surprise the critics, when our contemporary painting will be examined
with calm impartiality. After these works, M. Anquetin gave way to his
impetuous nature which led him to decorative painting, and he became
influenced by Rubens, Jordaens, and the Fontainebleau School. He painted
theatre curtains and mythological scenes, in which he gave free rein to his
sensual imagination. In spite of some admirable qualities, it seems as though
the artist had strayed from his true path in painting these brilliant, but
somewhat declamatory works, and he has since returned to a more modern
and more direct painting. In all his changed conditions Anquetin has shown a
considerable talent, pleasing in its fine vigour, impetuosity, brilliancy and
sincerity. His inequality is perhaps the cause of his relative want of success;
it has put the public off, but nevertheless in certain of this brave and serious
painter’s canvases can be seen the happy influence of Manet.
It seems to us only right to sum up our impartial opinion of Neo-
Impressionism by saying that it has lacked cohesion, that Pointillism in
particular has led painting into an aimless path. It has been wrong to see in
Impressionism too exclusive a pretext for technical researches, and a happy
reaction has set in, which leads us back to-day, after diverse tentative efforts
(amongst others some unfortunate attempts at symbolist painting), to the
fine, recent school of the “Intimists” and to the novel conception which a
great and glorious painter, Besnard, imposes upon the Salons, where the
elect draw inspiration from him. We can here only indicate with a few words
the considerable part played by Besnard: his clever work has proved that the
scientific colour principles of Impressionism may be applied, not to realism,
but to the highest thoughts, to ideologic painting most nobly inspired by the
modern intellectual preoccupations. He is the transition between
Impressionism and the art of to-morrow. Of pure French lineage by his
portraits and his nudes, which descend directly from Largillière and Ingres,
he might have restricted himself to being placed among the most learned
Impressionists. His studies of reflections and of complementary colours
speak for this. But he has passed this phase and has, with his decorations,
returned to the psychical domain of his strangely beautiful art. The
“Intimists,” C. Cottet, Simon, Blanche, Ménard, Bussy, Lobre, Le Sidaner,
Wéry, Prinet, and Ernest Laurent, have proved that they have profited by
Impressionism, but have proceeded in quite a different direction in trying to
translate their real perceptions. Some isolated artists, like the decorative
painter Henri Martin, who has enormous talent, have applied the
Impressionist technique to the expression of grand allegories, rather in the
manner of Puvis de Chavannes. The effort at getting away from mere
cleverness and escaping a too exclusive preoccupation with technique, and at
the same time acquiring serious knowledge, betrays itself in the whole
position of the young French School; and this will furnish us with a perfectly
natural conclusion, of which the following are the principal points: —
What we shall have to thank Impressionism for, will be moral and
material advantages of considerable importance. Morally it has rendered an
immense service to all art, because it has boldly attacked routine and proved
by the whole of its work that a combination of independent producers could
renew the aesthetic code of a country, without owing anything to official
encouragement. It has succeeded where important but isolated creators have
succumbed, because it has had the good fortune of uniting a group of gifted
men, four of whom will count among the greatest French artists since the
origin of national art. It has had the qualities which overcome the hardest
resistance: fecundity, courage and sure originality. It has known how to find
its strength by referring to the true traditions of the national genius, which
have happily enlightened it and saved it from fundamental errors. It has, last,
but not least, inflicted an irremediable blow on academic convention and has
wrested from it the prestige of teaching which ruled tyrannically for
centuries past over the young artists. It has laid a violent hand upon a
tenacious and dangerous prejudice, upon a series of conventional notions
which were transmitted without consideration for the evolution of modern
life and intelligence. It has dared freely to protest against a degenerated ideal
which vainly parodied the old masters, pretending to honour them. It has
removed from the artistic soul of France a whole order of pseudo-classic
elements which worked against its blossoming, and the School will never
recover from this bold contradiction which has rallied to it all the youthful.
The moral principle of Impressionism has been absolutely logical and sane,
and that is why nothing has been able to prevent its triumph.
Technically Impressionism has brought a complete renewal of pictorial
vision, substituting the beauty of character for the beauty of proportions and
finding adequate expression for the ideas and feelings of its time, which
constitutes the secret of all beautiful works. It has taken up again a tradition
and added to it a contemporary page. It will have to be thanked for an
important series of observations as regards the analysis of light, and for an
absolutely original conception of drawing. Some years have been wasted by
painters of little worth in imitating it, and the Salons, formerly encumbered
with academic pastiches, have been encumbered with Impressionist
pastiches. It would be unfair to blame the Impressionists for it. They have
shown by their very career that they hated teaching and would never pretend
to teach. Impressionism is based upon irrefutable optic laws, but it is neither
a style, nor a method, likely ever to become a formula in its turn. One may
call upon this art for examples, but not for receipts. On the contrary, its best
teaching has been to encourage artists to become absolutely independent and
to search ardently for their own individuality. It marks the decline of the
School, and will not create a new one which would soon become as
fastidious as the other. It will only appear, to those who will thoroughly
understand it, as a precious repertory of notes, and the young generation
honours it intelligently by not imitating it with servility.
Not that it is without its faults! It has been said, to belittle it, that it only
had the value of an interesting attempt, having only been able to indicate
some excellent intentions, without creating anything perfect. This is inexact.
It is absolutely evident, that Manet, Monet, Renoir and Degas have signed
some masterpieces which did not lose by comparison with those in the
Louvre, and the same might even be said of their less illustrious friends. But
it is also evident that the time spent on research as well as on agitation and
enervating controversies pursued during twenty-five years, has been taken
from men who could otherwise have done better still. There has been a
disparity between Realism and the technique of Impressionism. Its realistic
origin has sometimes made it vulgar. It has often treated indifferent subjects
in a grand style, and it has too easily beheld life from the anecdotal side. It
has lacked psychologic synthesis (if we except Degas). It has too willingly
denied all that exists hidden under the apparent reality of the universe and
has affected to separate painting from the ideologic faculties which rule over
all art. Hatred of academic allegory, defiance of symbolism, abstraction and
romantic scenes, has led it to refuse to occupy itself with a whole order of
ideas, and it has had the tendency of making the painter beyond all a
workman. It was necessary at the moment of its arrival, but it is no longer
necessary now, and the painters understand this themselves. Finally it has too
often been superficial even in obtaining effects; it has given way to the wish
to surprise the eyes, of playing with tones merely for love of cleverness. It
often causes one regret to see symphonies of magnificent colour wasted here
in pictures of boating men; and there, in pictures of café corners; and we
have arrived at a degree of complex intellectuality which is no longer
satisfied with these rudimentary themes. It has indulged in useless
exaggerations, faults of composition and of harmony, and all this cannot be
denied.
But it still remains fascinating and splendid for its gifts which will always
rouse enthusiasm: freedom, impetuousness, youth, brilliancy, fervour, the joy
of painting and the passion for beautiful light. It is, on the whole, the greatest
pictorial movement that France has beheld since Delacroix, and it brings to a
finish gloriously the nineteenth century, inaugurating the present. It has
accomplished the great deed of having brought us again into the presence of
our true national lineage, far more so than Romanticism, which was mixed
with foreign elements. We have here painting of a kind which could only
have been conceived in France, and we have to go right back to Watteau in
order to receive again the same impression. Impressionism has brought us an
almost unhoped-for renaissance, and this constitutes its most undeniable
claim upon the gratitude of the race.
It has exercised a very appreciable influence upon foreign painting.
Among the principal painters attracted by its ideas and research, we must
mention, in Germany, Max Liebermann and Kuehl; in Norway, Thaulow; in
Denmark, Kroyer; in Belgium, Théo Van Rysselberghe, Emile Claus,
Verheyden, Heymans, Verstraete, and Baertson; in Italy, Boldini, Segantini,
and Michetti; in Spain, Zuloaga, Sorolla y Bastida, Dario de Regoyos and
Rusiñol; in America, Alexander, Harrison, Sargent; and in England, the
painters of the Glasgow School, Lavery, Guthrie and the late John Lewis
Brown. All these men come within the active extension of the French
movement, and one may say that the honour of having first recognised the
truly national movement of this art must be given to those foreign countries
which have enriched their collections and museums with works that were
despised in the land which had witnessed their birth. At the present moment
the effects of this new vision are felt all over the world, down to the very
bosom of the academies; and at the Salons, from which the Impressionists
are still excluded, can be witnessed an invasion of pictures inspired by them,
which the most retrograde juries dare not reject. In whatever measure the
recent painters accept Impressionism, they remain preoccupied with it, and
even those who love it not are forced to take it into account.
The Impressionist movement can therefore now be considered, apart from
all controversies, without vain attacks or exaggerated praise, as an artistic
manifestation which has entered the domain of history, and it can be studied
with the impartial application of the methods of critical analysis which is
usually employed in the study of the former art movements. We shall not
pretend to have given in these pages a complete and faultless history; but we
shall consider ourselves well rewarded for this work, which is intended to
reach the great public, if we have roused their curiosity and sympathy with a
group of artists whom we consider admirable; and if we have rectified, in the
eyes of the readers of a foreign nation, the errors, the slanders, the
undeserved reproaches, with which Frenchmen have been pleased to
overwhelm sincere creators who thought with faith and love of the pure
tradition of the national genius, and who have for that reason been vilified as
much as if they had in an access of anarchical folly risen against the very
common sense, taste, reason and clearness, which will remain the eternal
merits of their soil. This small, imperfect volume will perhaps find its best
excuse in its intention of repairing an old injustice and of affirming a useful
and permanent truth: that of the authenticity of the classicism of
Impressionism, in the face of the false classicism of the academic world
which official honours have made the guardian of a French heritage, whose
soul it denied and whose spirit it deceived with its narrow and cold formulas.
Giverny Church Cemetery — Monet’s final resting place
The Delphi Classics Catalogue
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Series Contents
Series One
Anton Chekhov
Charles Dickens
D.H. Lawrence
Dickensiana Volume I
Edgar Allan Poe
Elizabeth Gaskell
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
George Eliot
H. G. Wells
Henry James
Ivan Turgenev
Jack London
James Joyce
Jane Austen
Joseph Conrad
Leo Tolstoy
Louisa May Alcott
Mark Twain
Oscar Wilde
Robert Louis Stevenson
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Walter Scott
The Brontës
Thomas Hardy
Virginia Woolf
Wilkie Collins
William Makepeace Thackeray
Series Two
Alexander Pushkin
Alexandre Dumas (English)
Andrew Lang
Anthony Trollope
Bram Stoker
Christopher Marlowe
Daniel Defoe
Edith Wharton
F. Scott Fitzgerald
G. K. Chesterton
Gustave Flaubert (English)
H. Rider Haggard
Herman Melville
Honoré de Balzac (English)
J. W. von Goethe (English)
Jules Verne
L. Frank Baum
Lewis Carroll
Marcel Proust (English)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Nikolai Gogol
O. Henry
Rudyard Kipling
Tobias Smollett
Victor Hugo
William Shakespeare
Series Three
Ambrose Bierce
Ann Radcliffe
Ben Jonson
Charles Lever
Émile Zola
Ford Madox Ford
Geoffrey Chaucer
George Gissing
George Orwell
Guy de Maupassant
H. P. Lovecraft
Henrik Ibsen
Henry David Thoreau
Henry Fielding
J. M. Barrie
James Fenimore Cooper
John Buchan
John Galsworthy
Jonathan Swift
Kate Chopin
Katherine Mansfield
L. M. Montgomery
Laurence Sterne
Mary Shelley
Sheridan Le Fanu
Washington Irving
Series Four
Arnold Bennett
Arthur Machen
Beatrix Potter
Bret Harte
Captain Frederick Marryat
Charles Kingsley
Charles Reade
G. A. Henty
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Wallace
E. M. Forster
E. Nesbit
George Meredith
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Jerome K. Jerome
John Ruskin
Maria Edgeworth
M. E. Braddon
Miguel de Cervantes
M. R. James
R. M. Ballantyne
Robert E. Howard
Samuel Johnson
Stendhal
Stephen Crane
Zane Grey
Series Five
Algernon Blackwood
Anatole France
Beaumont and Fletcher
Charles Darwin
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Gibbon
E. F. Benson
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Friedrich Nietzsche
George Bernard Shaw
George MacDonald
Hilaire Belloc
John Bunyan
John Webster
Margaret Oliphant
Maxim Gorky
Oliver Goldsmith
Radclyffe Hall
Robert W. Chambers
Samuel Butler
Samuel Richardson
Sir Thomas Malory
Thomas Carlyle
William Harrison Ainsworth
William Dean Howells
William Morris
Series Six
Anthony Hope
Aphra Behn
Arthur Morrison
Baroness Emma Orczy
Captain Mayne Reid
Charlotte M. Yonge
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
E. W. Hornung
Ellen Wood
Frances Burney
Frank Norris
Frank R. Stockton
Hall Caine
Horace Walpole
One Thousand and One Nights
R. Austin Freeman
Rafael Sabatini
Saki
Samuel Pepys
Sir Issac Newton
Stanley J. Weyman
Thomas De Quincey
Thomas Middleton
Voltaire
William Hazlitt
William Hope Hodgson
Series Seven
Adam Smith
Benjamin Disraeli
Confucius
David Hume
E. M. Delafield
E. Phillips Oppenheim
Edmund Burke
Ernest Hemingway
Frances Trollope
Galileo Galilei
Guy Boothby
Hans Christian Andersen
Ian Fleming
Immanuel Kant
Karl Marx
Kenneth Grahame
Lytton Strachey
Mary Wollstonecraft
Michel de Montaigne
René Descartes
Richard Marsh
Sax Rohmer
Sir Richard Burton
Talbot Mundy
Thomas Babington Macaulay
W. W. Jacobs
Series Eight
Anna Katharine Green
Arthur Schopenhauer
The Brothers Grimm
C. S. Lewis
Charles and Mary Lamb
Elizabeth von Arnim
Ernest Bramah
Francis Bacon
Gilbert and Sullivan
Grant Allen
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Hugh Walpole
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Locke
John Muir
Joseph Addison
Lafcadio Hearn
Lord Dunsany
Marie Corelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
Ouida
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Sigmund Freud
Theodore Dreiser
Walter Pater
W. Somerset Maugham
Series Nine
Aldous Huxley
August Strindberg
Booth Tarkington
C. S. Forester
Erasmus
Eugene Sue
Fergus Hume
Franz Kafka
Gertrude Stein
Giovanni Boccaccio
Izaak Walton
J. M. Synge
Johanna Spyri
John Galt
Maurice Leblanc
Max Brand
Molière
Norse Sagas
R. D. Blackmore
R. S. Surtees
Sir Thomas More
Stephen Leacock
The Harvard Classics
Thomas Love Peacock
Thomas Paine
William James
Ancient Classics
Achilles Tatius
Aeschylus
Ammianus Marcellinus
Apollodorus
Appian
Apuleius
Apollonius of Rhodes
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Arrian
Athenaeus
Augustine
Aulus Gellius
Bede
Cassius Dio
Cato
Catullus
Cicero
Claudian
Clement of Alexandria
Cornelius Nepos
Demosthenes
Dio Chrysostom
Diodorus Siculus
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Diogenes Laërtius
Euripides
Frontius
Herodotus
Hesiod
Hippocrates
Homer
Horace
Isocrates
Josephus
Julian
Julius Caesar
Juvenal
Livy
Longus
Lucan
Lucian
Lucretius
Marcus Aurelius
Martial
Nonnus
Ovid
Pausanias
Petronius
Pindar
Plato
Plautus
Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Younger
Plotinus
Plutarch
Polybius
Procopius
Propertius
Quintus Curtius Rufus
Quintus Smyrnaeus
Sallust
Sappho
Seneca the Younger
Septuagint
Sextus Empiricus
Sidonius
Sophocles
Statius
Strabo
Suetonius
Tacitus
Terence
Theocritus
Thucydides
Tibullus
Varro
Virgil
Xenophon
Delphi Poets Series

A. E. Housman
Alexander Pope
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Andrew Marvell
Beowulf
Charlotte Smith
Christina Rossetti
D. H Lawrence (poetry)
Dante Alighieri (English)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Delphi Poetry Anthology
Edgar Allan Poe (poetry)
Edmund Spenser
Edward Lear
Edward Thomas
Edwin Arlington Robinson
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Emily Dickinson
Epic of Gilgamesh
Ezra Pound
Friedrich Schiller (English)
George Chapman
George Herbert
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gertrude Stein
Hafez
Heinrich Heine
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Isaac Rosenberg
James Russell Lowell
Johan Ludvig Runeberg
John Clare
John Donne
John Dryden
John Gower
John Keats
John Milton
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Joseph Addison
Kahlil Gibran
Leigh Hunt
Lord Byron
Ludovico Ariosto
Luís de Camões
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Prior
Michael Drayton
Nikolai Nekrasov
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Petrarch
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Robert Browning
Robert Burns
Robert Frost
Robert Southey
Rumi
Rupert Brooke
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Sir Philip Sidney
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Walter Raleigh
Thomas Chatterton
Thomas Gray
Thomas Hardy (poetry)
Thomas Hood
Thomas Moore
Torquato Tasso
T. S. Eliot
W. B. Yeats
Walter Savage Landor
Walt Whitman
Wilfred Owen
William Blake
William Cowper
William Wordsworth
Masters of Art
Albrecht Dürer
Amedeo Modigliani
Artemisia Gentileschi
Camille Pissarro
Canaletto
Caravaggio
Caspar David Friedrich
Claude Lorrain
Claude Monet
Diego Velázquez
Donatello
Edgar Degas
Édouard Manet
Edvard Munch
El Greco
Eugène Delacroix
Francisco Goya
Giotto
Giovanni Bellini
Gustave Courbet
Gustav Klimt
Hieronymus Bosch
Jacques-Louis David
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
J. M. W. Turner
Johannes Vermeer
John Constable
Leonardo da Vinci
Michelangelo
Paul Cézanne
Paul Gauguin
Paul Klee
Peter Paul Rubens
Piero della Francesca
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Sandro Botticelli
Raphael
Rembrandt van Rijn
Thomas Gainsborough
Tintoretto
Titian
Vincent van Gogh
Wassily Kandinsky
Great Composers
Antonín Dvořák
Franz Schubert
Johann Sebastian Bach
Joseph Haydn
Ludwig van Beethoven
Piotr Illitch Tchaïkovsky
Richard Wagner
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Alphabetical List of Titles
A. E. Housman
Achilles Tatius
Adam Smith
Aeschylus
Albrecht Dürer
Aldous Huxley
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pushkin
Alexandre Dumas (English)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Algernon Blackwood
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Ambrose Bierce
Amedeo Modigliani
Ammianus Marcellinus
Anatole France
Andrew Lang
Andrew Marvell
Ann Radcliffe
Anna Katharine Green
Anthony Hope
Anthony Trollope
Anton Chekhov
Antonín Dvořák
Aphra Behn
Apollodorus
Apollonius of Rhodes
Appian
Apuleius
Aristophanes
Aristotle
Arnold Bennett
Arrian
Artemisia Gentileschi
Arthur Machen
Arthur Morrison
Arthur Schopenhauer
Athenaeus
August Strindberg
Augustine
Aulus Gellius
Baroness Emma Orczy
Beatrix Potter
Beaumont and Fletcher
Bede
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Disraeli
Beowulf
Booth Tarkington
Bram Stoker
Bret Harte
C. S. Forester
C. S. Lewis
Camille Pissarro
Canaletto
Captain Frederick Marryat
Captain Mayne Reid
Caravaggio
Caspar David Friedrich
Cassius Dio
Cato
Catullus
Charles and Mary Lamb
Charles Darwin
Charles Dickens
Charles Kingsley
Charles Lever
Charles Reade
Charlotte M. Yonge
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Smith
Christina Rossetti
Christopher Marlowe
Cicero
Claude Lorrain
Claude Monet
Claudian
Clement of Alexandria
Confucius
Cornelius Nepos
D. H Lawrence (poetry)
D.H. Lawrence
Daniel Defoe
Dante Alighieri (English)
David Hume
Delphi Poetry Anthology
Demosthenes
Dickensiana Volume I
Diego Velázquez
Dio Chrysostom
Diodorus Siculus
Diogenes Laërtius
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Donatello
E. F. Benson
E. M. Delafield
E. M. Forster
E. Nesbit
E. Phillips Oppenheim
E. W. Hornung
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (poetry)
Edgar Degas
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Edgar Wallace
Edith Wharton
Edmund Burke
Edmund Spenser
Édouard Manet
Edvard Munch
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Gibbon
Edward Lear
Edward Thomas
Edwin Arlington Robinson
El Greco
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Gaskell
Elizabeth von Arnim
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Ellen Wood
Émile Zola
Emily Dickinson
Epic of Gilgamesh
Erasmus
Ernest Bramah
Ernest Hemingway
Eugène Delacroix
Eugene Sue
Euripides
Ezra Pound
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Fergus Hume
Ford Madox Ford
Frances Burney
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Frances Trollope
Francis Bacon
Francisco Goya
Frank Norris
Frank R. Stockton
Franz Kafka
Franz Schubert
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Schiller (English)
Frontius
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
G. A. Henty
G. K. Chesterton
Galileo Galilei
Geoffrey Chaucer
George Bernard Shaw
George Chapman
George Eliot
George Gissing
George Herbert
George MacDonald
George Meredith
George Orwell
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gilbert and Sullivan
Giotto
Giovanni Bellini
Giovanni Boccaccio
Grant Allen
Gustav Klimt
Gustave Courbet
Gustave Flaubert (English)
Guy Boothby
Guy de Maupassant
H. G. Wells
H. P. Lovecraft
H. Rider Haggard
Hafez
Hall Caine
Hans Christian Andersen
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Heinrich Heine
Henrik Ibsen
Henry David Thoreau
Henry Fielding
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Henry James
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Herman Melville
Herodotus
Hesiod
Hieronymus Bosch
Hilaire Belloc
Hippocrates
Homer
Honoré de Balzac (English)
Horace
Horace Walpole
Hugh Walpole
Ian Fleming
Immanuel Kant
Isaac Rosenberg
Isocrates
Ivan Turgenev
Izaak Walton
J. M. Barrie
J. M. Synge
J. M. W. Turner
J. W. von Goethe (English)
Jack London
Jacques-Louis David
James Abbott McNeill Whistler
James Fenimore Cooper
James Joyce
James Russell Lowell
Jane Austen
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jerome K. Jerome
Johan Ludvig Runeberg
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johanna Spyri
Johannes Vermeer
John Buchan
John Bunyan
John Clare
John Constable
John Donne
John Dryden
John Galsworthy
John Galt
John Gower
John Keats
John Locke
John Milton
John Muir
John Ruskin
John Webster
John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
Jonathan Swift
Joseph Addison
Joseph Addison
Joseph Conrad
Joseph Haydn
Josephus
Jules Verne
Julian
Julius Caesar
Juvenal
Kahlil Gibran
Karl Marx
Kate Chopin
Katherine Mansfield
Kenneth Grahame
L. Frank Baum
L. M. Montgomery
Lafcadio Hearn
Laurence Sterne
Leigh Hunt
Leo Tolstoy
Leonardo da Vinci
Lewis Carroll
Livy
Longus
Lord Byron
Lord Dunsany
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Monet’s grave

Claude Monet

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Claude Monet

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Claude Monet

© Delphi Classics 2014

By Delphi Classics, 2014

Masters of Art - Claude Monet

ISBN: 978 1 90890 992 3

Completed by 1867, this painting is now housed in Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Housed as part of the Potter Palmer Collection in The Art Institute of

Now housed at the Musee d’Orsay, this is one of several paintings by

Impression, Sunrise was displayed in 1874 during the first independent

This painting was completed in 1904 and is now housed in Musée

Monet’s series of Water Lilies is composed of approximately 250 oil

Painted in 1908, this painting is one Monet’s most accomplished works to

This painting was completed in 1915 and is housed in Neue Pinakothek,

Monet’s water lily garden in Giverny

MANET — IN THE SQUARE

DEGAS — CARRIAGES AT THE RACES

CLAUDE MONET — THE PINES

CLAUDE MONET — CHURCH AT VERNON

MANET — THE BAR AT THE FOLIES-BERGÈRE

MANET — THE HOTHOUSE

DEGAS — HORSES IN THE MEADOWS

CLAUDE MONET — AN INTERIOR, AFTER DINNER

With Claude Monet we enter upon Impressionism in its most significant

CLAUDE MONET — THE BRIDGE AT ARGENTEUIL

The work of Auguste Renoir extends without interruption over a period of

RENOIR — IN THE BOX

SISLEY — SNOW EFFECT

BERTHE MORISOT — MELANCHOLY

The beginnings of the movement designated under the name of Neo-

Delphi Poets Series

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