Artistic Impression

Moving on to ‘Painting Out of Doors’ at The National Gallery, the room is lined with panels by Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot depicting changing light through the trees and sky over the space of a day, with small figures for emphasis and perspective. The next room is ‘Manet, Monet and Impressionism’, and now we are into more familiar territory. We have Renoirs and Berthe Morisot’s Summer’s Day (1879) where two women relax in a boat on a river. Edouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian (1867-8) is a reconstructed canvas. It’s pretty big and shows the firing squad preparing for their mission – all we see of the victim himself is his hand.

Claude-Oscar Monet’s The Beach at Trouville (1870) proves his open-air style. In the sketch of his wife and a friend, grains of sand and shell are embedded in the paint surface. There is also one of his Gare St-Lazare (1877) paintings – of which there are twelve painted from the same spot, capturing the light at different times of the day.

A woman delivers beer to men watching a dancer on stage in Edouard Manet’s Corner of a Café-Concert (1877-80). Her attention is diverted by something off to the side of the canvas and she is looking in completely the opposite direction from everyone else – we wonder what has caught her eye.

Gustave Caillebotte’s A Man at His Bath (1884) is a fascinating study, as I realise there aren’t so many paintings of the male figure – it was considered not as acceptable as images of naked women. Interestingly, when I try to buy a postcard of this painting, there are none for sale. Plus ça change... The catalogue notes explain, ‘The male nude is a relatively infrequent subject in late nineteenth-century painting. The matter-of-fact presentation of the figure here, drying himself after emerging from the bath and leaving wet footprints on the floor of his Parisian apartment is particularly rare. Also unexpected is the painting’s larger-than-life scale.’

Monet’s work is still brilliant, whether his irises, poplars, Venice or Le Havre. The Snow Scene at Argenteuil (1875) evokes a cold winter atmosphere through a steely palette of blues, greys and occasional sharp accents of colour which give the painting depth. His water lilies and Japanese bridge are represented by paintings from 1924 and 1926 shortly before his death – his loss of eyesight led to thick foliage and strikingly bold greens where the ‘paint handling is particularly free’.

I like Alfred Sisley’s View of the Thames: Charring Cross Bridge (1874), with the boats on the water framed by the city sky-line, all rendered with his short stroke technique and ‘nervy brushwork’. Camille Pissarro’s Portrait of Felix Pissarro (1881) is a portrait of his third son when he was seven years old (the son, not the artist) wearing a red beret against a green background – it’s a great colour contrast.

We have now move on to ‘Beyond Impressionism’ apparently, with Pissarro, Seurat and others who adopted the pointillist style – notably Alfred William Finch who paints an austere scene in The Channel at Nieuport (1889) in which the water and sky meld almost imperceptibly into one to exude an atmosphere of emptiness and silence. Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Lake Keitele (1905) is a more naturalistic painting of a lake just north of Helsinki.

Theo van Rysselberghe uses simple colours to big effect in his pointillist homage, A Coastal Scene (1898). George Seurat’s Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp (1885) is a study of a promontory with birds and boats in the background. Even the borders are done in his dotty discipline.

I am reunited with Pierre Auguste Renoir’s At the Theatre (1876-7). I love this painting – the isolation of the young girl and her chaperone in the theatre box are the focus rather than the action on stage. Camille Pissarro’s shimmering brushwork and eclectic use of colour are evident in The Little Country Maid (1882) and The Pork Butcher (1883).

Paul Cezanne is also a master of colour and he broke away from the Impressionists with his use of colour rather than light to convey form. Examples include An Old Woman with a Rosary (1895-6); The Painter’s Father, Louis Auguste Cezanne (1862); The Store in the Studio (late 1860s) and Self Portrait (1880) in which he experiments with geometric structure and blocks of colour. Bathers (1888-1905) is outlined in blue to accentuate the serenity of the scene.

This room also contains work by Edouard Vuillard – The Earthenware Pot (1895) contains dots and dashes and such deep reds and bright flowers that the image of women sewing is like a lacquered vase itself.

Naturally Van Gogh is represented here, by Van Gogh’s Chair (1888) and Sunflowers (1888), but also by the less familiar Long Grass with Butterflies (1890), A Wheat Field with Cypresses (1889) and – a new favourite of mine – Two Crabs (1889).

I hear people with their banal comments on art appreciation: ‘I just love pointillism; it’s so aggravating’; ‘She must have sat still for hours’; ‘Fantastico!’; ‘That’s amazing, but where would you put it in your house?’; Parent to child – ‘His paintings are worth millions.’ Child – ‘Really?’ Another parent to another child – ‘Can you see the sunflowers?’

In the ‘Degas and Art around 1900’ room there are (obviously) pastels by Degas of dancers, ballerinas and peasants. I particularly like Miss La La at the Cirque Fernando (1879) as she spins from her teeth, high in the air, unsupported by anything but a rope. We also have Klimt, more from Edouard Vuillard, and Surprised! (1891) by Henri Rousseau. By placing the trees along a diagonal axis he has conveyed a sense of wind in spite of the painting’s static and naive style. (‘See the tiger?’)

Impressionists Gardens

Impressionist Gardens
Royal Scottish Academy Building
31 July - 17 October 2010
  

The Impressionists were interested in the pleasure of the here and now, and to them gardens symbolised relaxation, recreation, innocence and light. They were inspired by Corot’s sun-dappled canvases, capturing the effect of light through the trees, the details of raindrops on roses in Simon Saint-Jean’s The Gardener Girl (1837) and Delacroix – his casually arranged arrays of dahlias and other cut blooms are the spiritual forebears of Monet’s and Gustave Caillebotte’s paintings of dahlias growing in their gardens at Argenteuil and Petit-Gennevilliers.

I love Spring (1804) by Jean-François Bony: the painting of spring flowers relegates the statue of a warrior goddess in the background to a secondary role. The focus is on the foreground lilacs, hollyhocks, roses, poppies, delphiniums, striped parrot tulips – the very flowers of my wedding bouquet.


Still life can be stylishly scruffy - Flowers in a Vase by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Gardens and flowers were not formal constructs. Pierre Auguste Renoir’s Flowers in a Vase (1866) is a reminder of a stroll in the fields – wild flowers (corn poppies; chamomile; ragwort; cornflowers; rampion; wild parsley and Spanish broom) are stuffed into an earthenware vase. More prosaic vegetables are admired in A Flemish Kitchen Garden (1864) by Henri de Braekeleer where giant cabbages provide colour and a subtle poetry in the harvesting in the kitchen garden.

Gardens were outdoor studios; places in which to capture the effects of sun, shade and seclusion. They could be the theatre of fashion or tranquil meditation. Thomas Couturés’ The Reading (1860) depicts a lady engrossed in a book and oblivious to her surroundings. Charles-François Daubigny was commissioned by Napoleon III to paint The Cascade at Saint-Cloud (1865) which is a grand, formal work but, once again, the historic monuments are relegated to the background. Similarly, John Singer Sargent takes a thoroughly Impressionist delight in the incidents of modern life in The Luxembourg Gardens at Twilight (1879) which features children sailing their boats despite the lateness of the hour, and a well-dressed couple strolling at the centre.

Contemplative colour in Frederick Childe Hassam's Geraniums

Gardens are for sewing, playing croquet, quiet contemplation and drinking tea. And there is always room for colour. Frederick Childe Hassam painted red geraniums, watering cans and his fair wife engaged in embroidery in Geraniums (1888-9). James Tissot tinged his autumn leaves around the reflective pool with sadness in Holyday (1876). Gustave Caillebotte kept flowers in dedicated beds in his garden (unlike Monet’s mixtures) allowing him to paint studies of nasturtiums and, my favourite, Daisies (1892). Edouard Manet’s The House at Rueil (1882) is also grouped in this collection.

Napoleon III’s ambitious programme of parks and gardens was continued by the Third Republic which came to power in 1871. The new and revamped gardens provided perfect opportunities for the Impressionists to paint ‘en plein air’ but Monet and the other Impressionists preferred the city’s old, historic gardens with spreading trees and natural features. Léon Frederic’s The Fragrant Air (1894) depicts an innocent child sniffing ephemeral blooms redolent of death and mortality.


Lotus Lillies by Charles Courtenay Curran - the object of his affections

Charles Courtney Curran’s Lotus Lillies (1888) is a sublime painting of his bride, Grace Winthrop, haloed by a green parasol as she floats in a boat across Lake Erie in Ohio. She is the finest of the lotus blossoms (symbols of purity and tranquillity) and the clear object of Curran’s veneration.


Skaters in Frederiksberg Gardens - Paul Gaughin

Also included here is Paul Gauguin’s Skaters in Frederksberg Gardens (1884) – a striking action portrait in which the vivid reds and greens of the fallen leaves emphasise the coldness of the ice, in stark contrast to his more familiar sun-drenched views of Tahiti.

James Ensor’s The Garden of the Rousseau Family (1885) and Charles François Daubigny’s Orchard in Blossom (1874) highlight kitchen and vegetable gardens with no ostensible aesthetic purpose, but the abstract design of flat zones of green bisected by paths and walls offers visual impact. Arthur Melville’s A Cabbage Garden (1877) and Alfred Sisley’s The Fields (1874) share the same theme – the latter’s market gardens full of rows of vegetable crops mature with the seasons, while the old spreading tree in the corner indicates continuity.

The Artist’s Garden at Eagny (1898) by Camille Pissarro shows his wife planting seeds. The leaves and flowers shine like jewels while the house behind implies the family for whom she is preparing this food. The Portrait of Karl Nordstrein (1882) by Christian Krohg of a pointed-bearded gentleman standing at a window looking out at a market garden draws our gaze from across the room. We want to see what he’s looking at.


The Cote des Boeufs at L'Hermitage by Camille Pissarro

Is winter the hardest season to paint, with its suggestion of bleak hibernation? Alfred Sisley’s subtle harmony of restrained colouring integrates the snow into the scene as a natural part of the design in Winter at Louveciennes (1867). The scudding clouds, fresh breeze and tall poplars enhance the motionless figures of The Côte des Boeufs at L’Hermitage (1877) by Camille Pissarro.

Apparently Impressionism begins again with a completely new phase in the 1890s. Henri Martin offers Garden in the Sun (1913) in which sunlight from outside floods in like a powerful unrestrained tide of pink, yellow and cream. In The Pergola (1912-13) shows the last fruits of summer as Marie Enger adds a hint of autumn chill through grapes and red and golden gourds surrounded by withering vine leaves.

Bright colours return to the fore with Theo van Rysselberghe’s Fountain in the Park of Sans Souci near Postdam (1903). Clearly heavily influenced by Seurat’s pointillism, the technique of contrasted dots or flecks of colour display the refraction of a fountain into rainbow droplets by the afternoon sun. In The Rainbow (1896) we are invited to see a pristine garden through the eyes of his wife and son. Spring bulbs, reddish-brown flower pots, shimmering perblossom, red and blue outfits, and the red roof and blue sky combine to echo the colours of the rainbow, creating a larger harmony.

Gustav Klimt's Italian Garden Landscape illuminates the room

In the final room it is as though the best have been saved until last. Gustav Klimt’s Rosebushes Under Trees (1904) and Italian Garden Landscape (1913) are sumptuously rich and decorative with varied textual brushwork that illuminates the room. Vincent Van Gogh is represented by The Garden with Path (1888) and Undergrowth (1889).

The Garden with Path - Vincent Van Gogh

The first is a rich variety of jabs, zigzags and short stabbing strokes to evoke the flowers, vegetables and olive trees as they shimmer in the hot southern sun. The second was painted in the grounds of the sanatorium to which he admitted himself. The grasp of the ivy on the oak represents the grip of mental illness on his mind, but the glimpses of sunlight between the shadows suggest hopes of better health.

Naturally, there couldn’t be an exhibition of Impressionist Gardens without the inclusion of Monet’s water lily pond, and there is a shining section of wall that displays some stunning examples. Him Outdoors sighs, ‘He really was the master, wasn’t he?’


Saving the best until last - Claude Monet's The Water Lily Pond, 1904

The largest retrospective of Monet's art since 1980 opens in his home country with an exhibition in Paris this month - expected to break all gallery attendence records. With the excessive wishy-washy reproductions it is sometimes easy to overlook the man's artistic genius (a sentiment felt especially by the French who until now have regarded arguably their most famous painter as one who created daubs for American tourists); until you stand in front of one of his canvases and feel overwhelmed by light and colour.

Displays of art can often leave you satiated as you emerge from some stuffy museum, but this invigorating exhibition is like a breath of fresh air.