In London during the Franco-Prussian War, Monet admired the work of the English landscape painters, particularly Turner. On his return to France, he lived around Paris and painted the local environments. Several of the other avant-garde artists joined him, including Pissarro, Renoir, Manet, Sisley, and Caillebotte, and although by now the art dealer Durand-Ruel was promoting his work, he was still not receiving much positive recognition. In 1874, in an atmosphere of increasing hostility from official artistic circles, he and his friends formed their group, the Société Anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, et graveurs, and exhibited independently for the first time. Monet’s painting of Le Havre was ridiculed for its sketchy effect—the antithesis of respected academic paintings at that time. From then on, this group of artists—who all captured the fleeting effects of light—became known as Impressionists. Monet took part in five of the group’s eight exhibitions, displaying paintings diffused with atmospheric light. For years, he remained poor and unappreciated. Then, in the late 1880s, he began attracting positive attention and his work grew popular. Yet even when he was well-known and wealthy, he continued to paint all day as earnestly as when he first began.
Monet’s originality did not diminish. Whatever his theme, light was always his main subject and he painted with small brushstrokes and pure colors, always recording scenes with a fresh eye. In later life, he began painting several canvases of the same subject under different lighting conditions and at different times of day. In 1890, he bought a house at Giverny and built a magnificent garden with a huge lily pond. For the last 15 years of his life, he rarely left his home, painting every day and producing works of optical vibrancy that came close to abstraction. More than anyone, he kept faith with Impressionism, adhering to its ideals throughout his life.
Key Works
Terrace at Saint-Adresse 1867, METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, US
The Magpie c.1868–9, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Regatta at Argenteuil c.1872, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
Rouen Cathedral at Twilight 1894, MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON, MA, US
The Water Lily Pond; Pink Harmony 1900, MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
RODIN
1840-1917 • REALISM
The Thinker
MODEL 1880, CAST 1902 BRONZE
71.5 × 40 × 58 CM (28 × 15¾ × 23 IN)
MUSÉE RODIN, PARIS, FRANCE
Depicting a man thinking, this was originally named The Poet, and was part of the commission by the state to create a monumental door for a decorative arts museum. Rodin based his theme on “The Gates of Hell” from The Divine Comedy by Dante, and this was meant to depict Dante himself, contemplating his poem.
One of the most influential artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was not a painter. François-Auguste-René Rodin, generally considered the originator of modern sculpture, was also an excellent draftsman and innovator. Like Manet, he did not aim to shock, but his radical art was born out of a genuine desire to create something original and honest.
By the start of the 20th century, Rodin was the most celebrated sculptor since the Neoclassical period. He was born to a working-class family in Paris and at the age of 14 he entered a school of decorative arts. His drawing teacher, Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran (1802–97), believed that his pupils should develop their personalities so that they would emerge in their art as individuality. Rodin also studied sculpture with Jean Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–75). In 1857 he applied to the École des Beaux-Arts but was rejected on three occasions, so the following year he began working as an ornamental mason. In 1862, traumatized by the sudden death of his sister, Maria, he attempted to join a Christian order, but was dissuaded by the father superior, who recognized his talents and encouraged him to pursue a career in art.
So once again, Rodin followed his first desire and in 1864 he submitted a marble head called The Man with the Broken Nose to the Paris Salon. It was rejected, but when he renamed it “Portrait of a Roman” it was accepted. That year, he entered the studio of the Rococo-style sculptor, Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse (1824–87), and remained there for six years. During the Franco-Prussian War he and Carrier-Belleuse went to Brussels, where they began the sculptural decoration of the Bourse (Stock Exchange). The next year they quarreled and Carrier-Belleuse returned to Paris, while Rodin completed the work with another artist. In 1875 he traveled to Italy, and was enthrallled by the works of Donatello and Michelangelo.
On his return, now in his mid-30s, Rodin created The Age of Bronze, which was exhibited at the Salon in 1877. The realism of the figure caused a huge controversy. It was so lifelike, and different from conventional idealized works, that it was believed to have been cast from a living modeclass="underline" an illegal practice. Next, he was commissioned to create a monumental entrance for a planned Museum of Decorative Arts. Although he never finished the project, it provided the basis for some of his most influential and powerful work, including The Thinker and The Kiss.
Rodin’s depictions of the human form—including its natural movements and individual emotions—were powerfully realistic and encapsulated all the innovations of Modernism in three dimensions. His work was always about feelings and personality and despite the controversy it often caused, he refused to change his style and his reputation grew. By 1900, he was widely considered the greatest living sculptor and a pavilion was devoted to him at that year’s World Fair. As his career progressed, his work took on an abstract quality.
Key Works
The Man with the Broken Nose 1865, MUSÉE RODIN, PARIS, FRANCE
The Age of Bronze 1877, ALTE NATIONALGALERIE, BERLIN, GERMANY
The Burghers of Calais 1884–6, RODIN MUSEUM, PHILADELPHIA, PA, US
The Monument to Balzac 1898, MUSÉE RODIN, PARIS, FRANCE
The Kiss 1901–4, TATE MODERN, LONDON, UK
RENOIR
1841–1919 • IMPRESSIONISM
La Moulin de la Galette
1876 OIL ON CANVAS
131 × 175 CM (51½ × 68¾ IN)
MUSÉE D’ORSAY, PARIS, FRANCE
This was shown at the Impressionist exhibition of 1877. The Moulin de la Galette was a windmill converted into a popular dance hall. Renoir put up his easel in the garden and included some of his friends. His main aim was to convey the joyful atmosphere, the moving crowd and the natural and artificial light in small, flickering brushstrokes.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a leading Impressionist painter who celebrated beauty and charm in a diversity of subjects, but especially feminine sensuality. Of all the Impressionists, he was the most significant figure painter and he has been described as “the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”
Renoir was born in Limoges but grew up in Paris in a large working-class family. From the age of 13, he was apprenticed to a porcelain painter and consequently became skilled in the use of small brushes and applications of clear, bright paint. But, determined to become an artist, with the money he had saved from painting porcelain he entered Gleyre’s studio in 1862. Here he became friends with Monet, Sisley, and Bazille and soon also with Pissarro and Cézanne.