Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890, The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown

Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890
The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown
June 17 - September 9, 2001

Spontaneous, "unfinished," and seemingly painted before a fleeting scene, the works of the Impressionists were originally hailed and condemned as a radical challenge to art. The revolutionary import of these now-familiar paintings might be summed up by the title of the work that gave the movement its name-Impression: Sunrise by Claude Monet, shown in 1874 at what became known as the first Impressionist exhibition. Since then, hundreds (if not thousands) of exhibitions have been devoted to Impressionism and its principal figures--yet none has brought together the various paintings that might be called "Impressions."

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has assembled just these works--and taken a closer look at what was most daring about a revolutionary art movement--in the exhibition Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890. The exhibition presents 77 paintings by the artists most closely associated with Impressionism (Monet, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley); by notable precursors (Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny, Honoré Daumier, Théodore Rousseau); and by a major successor, Vincent van Gogh.

Organized by the Clark Art Institute in association with the National Gallery, London, and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, Impression has already been hailed as "a highly important show" by the International Herald Tribune. The exhibition is curated by Richard R. Brettell, a leading international scholar of early modern art, who is Professor of Aesthetic Studies in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Texas at Dallas. Brettell conceived the exhibition, wrote the catalogue (published by Yale University Press) and selected the works, which are drawn from more than fifty public and private collections in Europe and the United States, including the Clark's own renowned holdings.

"We have seen so many Impressionist paintings so many times that we have all but forgotten the risks that their makers took," notes Richard R. Brettell. "This exhibition proposes an experiment in looking, which focuses on the most radical but least-understood aspect of Impressionism: the evidence of the painter's hand, as seen in works that appear to be rapid transcriptions of shifting subjects. We bring together these works in the belief that the most benignly attractive movement in western painting deserves to retrieve a little of the oomph that it had in the 19th century."

"This exhibition includes many of the most beautiful and evocative 'Impressions' painted in France over three decades of the late 19th century," states Michael Conforti, Director of the Clark Art Institute. "But, more to the point, it returns our attention to the qualities in these paintings that were most vital, and to some most threatening. By re-examining these works in their technical as well as thematic dimensions, the exhibition recaptures an essential characteristic of Impressionist painting--the seductive charm of speed--and makes a fundamental new contribution to the study of this crucial movement."

What Is an "Impression"?

The "Impression," as defined by Brettell, was not necessarily painted quickly, but it was done in such a way as to look quick. Painted directly--worked on the canvas without preparatory processes or intermediate steps--these pictures boasted of the artist's spontaneity. They also suggested an accord between the time span represented in the picture and the time that the artist had spent painting. Among the most celebrated examples--on loan from The Art Institute of Chicago--is Manet's 1864 The Races at Longchamps, in which the rapid gestures of the painter's hand portray a horse race that rushes headlong at the viewer, and is finished in an instant.

As Richard R. Brettell points out, Manet courted "an aesthetic of beautiful gestures and elegant construction," which had its roots in the art of Titian, Velázquez, Rubens, van Dyck, Hals, Fragonard, and Delacroix. His canvases boast of a masterful fluency of hand. By contrast, the Impressionists who were Manet's followers were derided in their own time for the seeming awkwardness of their work. They "made paintings that strain to hold together in the midst of a virtual chaos of gestures," Richard R.Brettell says. "For Monet, Sisley, Morisot, and Renoir, the beauty of the painted mark was not of primary importance. Rather, the urgency and sheer energy of its application were more important than elegance." This "aesthetic of the Impression" was soon taken up in extreme form by van Gogh, whose works have had "a unique ability to engender other powerful vanguard forms of action painting," from Fauvism to German Expressionism to the works of the New York School.

Tour and Catalogue

Impression: Painting Quickly in France, 1860-1890 was first exhibited at the National Gallery, London (November 2000-January 2001) and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (March-May 2001). The exhibition is presented in North America only at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute.

When first shown at the National Gallery, Impression was hailed by Richard Dorment of The Daily Telegraph as "the show of the year." Philip Hensher, writing in The Mail on Sunday, described Impression as "sublime," saying "it looks to me very much like the best Impressionist exhibition I have ever seen;" and Souren Melikian of The International Herald Tribune found Impression to be a "highly important show," offering a "drastically new approach to the understanding of Impressionism."

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue of the same title, published by Yale University Press in association with the Clark Art Institute. The 240-page book, illustrated by 115 images in color and 65 in black-and-white, features a text by Richard R. Brettell with individual chapters on the Impression in 1874; performative painting and the intellectual origins of the Impression; Manet and performative painting; Monet and the development of the Impression; Morisot, Renoir and the sketch aesthetic; Sisley and graphism; Degas and the Impression; Caillebotte and Pissarro; and van Gogh.

Impression and the Clark Art Institute

Richard R. Brettell developed the exhibition Impression and wrote the catalogue during a residency at the Clark Art Institute. As one of the first participants in the Clark's Visiting Scholars program (now called the Clark Fellows), he was at the Clark in summer 1997, giving a seminar on "Reading Individual Works of Art" and completing his work on the Oxford History of Modern Art. He has been a frequent participant in research and academic programs at the Clark.

The Clark Art Institute has drawn on both its strengths, as a museum and a research center, in organizing Impression. Over the past decade, the Clark has earned a reputation for developing exhibitions with both broad public appeal and a basis in challenging and original scholarship. Among them have been Uncanny Spectacle: The Public Career of the Young John Singer Sargent; Drawn Into the Light: Jean-François Millet; Degas and the Little Dancer; and Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, 1870-1930. Many of these exhibitions, like Impression, incorporate important works from the Clark's renowned collection.

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