Art Talk: NGA French Impressionism Tour

Hello and welcome to another Tour of the National Gallery of Art in DC. Today we will be seeing some amazing art by French Impressionists.

I originally gave this tour in 2002 to friend while living in DC. We started at my apartment with some French Toast with strawberries and whip cream and then took the metro into the city to the National Gallery of Art for the tour. It was one of my more popular tours and I gave it a few times.

Now you get it virtually almost 20 years later! Grab your favorite French snack and join me for this 10 minute tour.

The tour will introduce you to six of the main artist that showed in the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874 from oldest to youngest and then a two more French artists that I adore. They didn't show in the first exhibition but were friends with those that did..

Showed in first Impressionist Show
Camille Pissaro, 44 years old
Edgar Degas, 40 years old
Alfred Sisley, 35 years old
Claude Monet, 34 years old
Auguste Renior, 33 years old
Berthe Morisot, 33 years old

Contemporaries and friends
Frederic Bazille
Edward Manet

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Camille Pissaro

Let's start with the patriarch and teacher of the group---Camille Pissaro

Camille Pissaro
Boulevard des Italiens, Morning, Sunlight, 1897

Edgar Degas

Now we move to a name that is probably more familiar to most of you. He is known for the movement in his paintings. He painted horses and ballerinas and portraiture of family and friends. Edgar was born in Paris, France in 1834. He was born into an upper middle class family. He traveled to Italy for 5 years where he studied the work of the Renaissance artists. He also traveled New Orleans, Louisiana for 5 months. He showed in seven of the eight impressionist shows.

He served in the French National Guard during the Franco Prussian war. One of the most interesting things to me is what these artists did during the war. He started loosing his vision in the early 1870s and was almost totally blind by the end of his life. He was a painter, sculpture, and photographer. He died in Paris in 1817 at the age of 83.

Edgar Degas
Four Dancers, 1899

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Alfred Sisley

Alfred was born in Paris in 1839. He had English parents and was sent to London for a business career. He was friends with Renior, Monet, Bazille, Pissaro. They were all studying at Gleyere's studio at the same time. Alfred spend time in London during the Franco Prussian War and turned from ameture to professional painter after his father's death.

He exhibited in four of the Impressionist shows and is mainly a landscape painter. He died in 1899 at the age of 60 of throat cancer.

Alfred Sisley
Meadow, 1875

Claude Monet

Monet is perhaps the most famous of the Impressionist painters and it is from his painting Impression Sunrise that was shown at the first show that the group got it's name.

He was born in 1841 in Paris, France. He was influenced by Boudin a landscape painter that introduced him to outdoor painting. He did a lot of outdoor or "en plain air" paintings, capturing the elements as he saw them right at the time. He went to London during the Franco Prussian War with Pissaro. He lived in Argenteuil for six years and Giverny for 43 years.

Claude Monet
*The Japanese Footbridge, 1899

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At the beginning of 2019 I did a post Art Talk: Woman with a Parasol- Madame Monet and Her Son

He created about 2,500 works of art and died at the age of 85 in 1926 was was nearly blind.

Claude Monet
Banks of Seine, Vetheuil, 1880

This painting holds a special place in my heart as it is one of the paintings my parents had in their home and it hung in the bedroom that I slept in when I went to visit them.

Auguste Renoir

Another familiar name to most. He was born in Limoges, France in 1841. He started his artistic career as a porcelain plate painter. He also was good at music and loved Bach. (I love Bach too!)

Auguste showed three paintings at the first Impressionist show including the one below, The Dancer. He did a lot of figure paintings, nudes, and landscapes. He developed rheumatoid arthritis. He tied a brush to his crippled hand and continued to paint. He also took up sculpture. He was world famous by 1903 when he was 62 years old.

In 1919 France purchased his portrait Madame Georges Charpentier and he traveled to Paris to see it hanging in the Lourve. He died in 1919 at the age of 78.

Berthe Morisot

Berthe was born in Bourges, France in 1842 to a family of wealth and culture. Her father was a high ranking official and grandfather was the famous Rococo painter Jean-Honore Fragonard. Her and her sister received lessons in drawing and painting and she studied with Camille Corot, a family friend.

She showed eight paintings at the first Impressionist show including the one on the left. She also participated in seven of the eight shows, and the one she missed was the year her daughter Julie was born.

She is well known for her portraits, many of her sister, landscapes and domestic scenes. She married Eugene Manet, Edouard Manet's brother.

She had her first solo exhibition in 1892, when she was 51 years old. She died in 1895 at the age of 54 of pneumonia. After her death Renoir and Degas organized a retrospective of her work.

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Now a quick look at two great artist of the time that were friends of the artists that showed in the first Impressionist show.

Frederic Bazille
Young Woman With Peonies, 1870

This painting by Fredric Bazille is one of my favorites in the whole museum. I am drawn to it again and again. It was a painted the same year that the Fraco Prussian war broke out and the year Bazille was killed in battle.

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Both of these paintings by Edouard Manet are favorites of mine and I go see them each time I go to the National Gallery of Art and want to show them to you on this virtual tour.

The one on the right is especially great because it is the bottom half of a painting and the top half is at the Frick Gallery in New York City. Henry Clay Frick and Andrew Mellon were contemporaries and were collecting art at the same time and there are part of this painting by Edourad Manet in both galleries.

Thanks for joining this Impressionist Tour of the National Gallery of Art. I would love to hear your thoughts about the art or artists.

Art Talk Series Highlights

2020
Art Talk: Recycled Plastic Art Movement
Art Talk: Gates of Paradise

Italian Renaissance
Art Talk: NGA Italian Renaissance Tour
Art Talk: Raphael
Art Talk: Venus
Art Talk: Egg Tempera
Art Talk: Guest Blogger, @laurabellamy