In 1859, Degas mainly produced history paintings and portraits. They reveal his admiration of the great masters of the past, including van Dyck, Holbein, Velázquez and Goya. Although quite reclusive, he became friends with Manet, who introduced him to the circle of artists who met at the Café Guerbois. In the late 1860s, he turned to contemporary themes, including racecourses, women at work, interiors, ballet and theater, clearly inspired by photographic compositions and Japanese prints. As his subject matter changed, so too did his technique. Unlike the other Impressionists, he never applied small, variegated brushstrokes but he began using slashing strokes and bright colors, capturing passing moments like snapshots. With their academically structured contours, some of his paintings were accepted by the official Salon from 1865 until 1870. He served in the artillery during the Franco-Prussian War and then traveled to New Orleans to stay with his brother René, producing several works before returning to Paris in 1873.
The following year, Degas helped to organize the first Impressionist exhibition and over the next 12 years, he participated in seven of the eight subsequent Impressionist exhibitions. He was one of the first artists to take up photography, both for enjoyment, and in order to accurately capture action and unusual compositions for painting. From the early 1870s, he began painting ballet dancers regularly, fascinated by their movements and physical discipline. His viewpoints and angles are often oblique and unexpected, as in photography. Making many sketches from life, he observed, analyzed and recorded with great care before beginning a final work. In this way, he depicted both the movement and atmosphere of his subjects. At the age of 50, Degas’s eyesight started to fail and he turned to pastel and sculpture, where he followed his fascination for capturing snatched moments.
Key Works
Horses Before the Stands 1866–8, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Portraits in a New Orleans Cotton Office 1873, MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS, PAU, FRANCE
Mlle. La La at the Circus Fernando 1879, NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer 1879–81, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, US
The Tub 1886, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
WHISTLER
1834–1903 • REALISM, AESTHETICISM, ART NOUVEAU, TONALISM
Arrangement in Gray and Black, No 1 or The Artist’s Mother
1871 OIL ON CANVAS
144.3 × 162.4 CM (56¾ × 63¾ IN)
MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
“Art for art’s sake” was Whistler’s motto and his paintings are vehicles for the creation of perfect compositions, each one made up of delicate gradations of tones. This portrait of his mother, to whom he was deeply attached, is intensely personal and atmospheric, but overall the painting is primarily an arrangement of colors and shapes. His admiration of Japanese art led him to simplify lines and refine harmonies of tones.
A truly international artist, James Abbott McNeill Whistler was born in America, spent much of his childhood in Russia, most of his life in England and studied art in France. A fan of Japanese art and decoration, he was original and intelligent. He pioneered ideas about non-representational painting and became internationally influential.
Although his early work derives from Realism, Whistler pioneered a new style of painting that emphasized harmony and design, as well as the drama of fleeting moments. Born in Massachusetts in the US, at the age of nine he moved with his family to St. Petersburg in Russia, where his father was employed in the building of the St. Petersburg–Moscow railway. When he was 11, he enrolled at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg and also learned French, but on the sudden death of his father in 1849, his mother took her children to Connecticut in the US. Two years later, Whistler entered West Point Military Academy, but after three years he was expelled for failing an exam.
In 1855, after a brief period of employment with a cartographer, Whistler traveled to Paris, intending to study for a career as an artist. After a short period at the École Impériale et Spéciale de Dessin, he enrolled at the studio of Charles-Gabriel Gleyre (1806–74). There he joined a group of young English artists that included Edward Poynter (1836–1919), Thomas Armstrong (1832–1911), Thomas Lamont (1826–98) and George du Maurier (1834–96). He also studied and copied paintings at the Louvre and socialized with Delacroix, Courbet, Manet, Degas and the poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–67).
In 1859, Whistler moved to London, although he often returned to Paris. He immediately became a well-known figure. His paintings and prints were either heavily praised or condemned, and his dandified appearance and the fashionable circles in which he mingled (he was a close friend of both Oscar Wilde and Rossetti) were frequently written about in the press. Famous as much for his biting wit and fashionable dress as for his art, he was always a controversial figure, the center of public quarrels and a famous libel case involving the art critic, John Ruskin. Despite winning it, the libel case led to his bankruptcy and the acceptance of a commission to etch in Venice, where he recovered his reputation and financial losses.
Whistler’s art broke new ground with its soft suggestions of elements and firm, yet minimal design aspects and reduced palette. During the 1870s, his strong sense of design became even more apparent and the parallels he drew between art and music led him to call many works “arrangements,” “harmonies” and “nocturnes,” rather than following the contemporary assumption that paintings should tell stories. Always fascinated by Japanese art, he adapted his signature into the shape of a butterfly and created Japanese-inspired interior designs. In 1886 he became president of the Society of British Artists.
Key Works
The Last of Old Westminster 1862, THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, MA, US
Rose and Silver: The Princess from the Land of Porcelain 1864, FREER GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, DC, US
Nocturne: Blue and Silver—Cremorne Lights 1872, TATE GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket 1874–7, THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS, DETROIT, MI, US
Harmony in Red: Lamplight 1886, HUNTERIAN ART GALLERY, GLASGOW, UK
HOMER
1836–1910 • GENRE PAINTING, INFLUENCE OF REALISM AND IMPRESSIONISM
The Gulf Stream
1899 OIL ON CANVAS
71.5 × 124.8 CM (28 × 49 IN)
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, US
This was based on studies made during two winter trips to the Bahamas. A man lies helpless on the deck of a small boat that has been seriously damaged by a hurricane. Around him, the turbulent sea and circling sharks are closing in, yet on the horizon, a rigger can just be seen, indicating hope for the future.
The greatest painter of New England country life, Winslow Homer was one of the leading figures in 19th-century American art. A thoughtful artist, his expressive landscapes, marine and genre paintings explored the relationship between man and nature, independent from artistic conventions. Homer’s primary aim was to accurately portray nature and the times in which he lived.
Homer was born in Boston, Massachusetts and his mother, a gifted amateur watercolorist, gave him his first art lessons. He became apprenticed to a commercial lithographer in Boston when he was 19 and within four years he had moved to New York, where he produced illustrations for the magazine Harper’s Weekly. When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, Harper’s Weekly sent him to illustrate the fighting. With his powerful record of the horrors of the war, he developed a reputation for realism.