Notions Archive - Page 3 of 44 - Art Explora Academy

Claude Monet, Maison de l’artiste à Argenteuil, 1873,

huile sur toile, 60 x 73 cm, Art Institute Chigago

Claude Monet, Le jardin de l’artiste à Vétheuil, 1880,

huile sur toile, 151 x 121 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.

Camille Pissarro, Dans le Jardin des Mathurins, Pontoise, 1877,

huile sur toile, 165 x 125 cm, collection particulière

Auguste Renoir, Gabrielle et Jean, 1895-1896,

huile sur toile, 65 x 54 cm, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. (C) GrandPalaisRmn (musée de l’Orangerie) / Hervé Lewandowski

The impressionist painters also capture childhood’s happy times! Such charming subjects please their customer because they’re fleeting, symbolising the brevity of existence at a time when infant mortality is still high.

Monet sometimes depicts his garden as a place of freedom where children can have fun and develop their imaginations, while sometimes it symbolises the adult world, too big for them.

In this painting by Pissarro, a little girl is depicted alone, under the watchful eye of an adult.

If getting a lively child to pose proves challenging, Renoir has a solution! He could rely on Gabrielle, the children’s nanny, to keep Jean entertained with toys while he painted them.

In all families, the birth of a child turns everyday life upside-down… If the parents are artists, it’s also reflected in their art!

The impressionist painters, including Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot, regularly depict their babies in their works, reflecting the joys and challenges of parenthood alike.

As for Berthe Morisot, she paints her sister watching over her daughter with tenderness and a touch of melancholy. She keeps this cherished painting all her life!

Auguste Renoir, Maternité, 1885,

huile sur toile, 92 x 72 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. (C) GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

Claude Monet, Jean Monet dans son berceau, 1867,

huile sur toile, 116 x 89 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Berthe Morisot, Le berceau, 1872,

huile sur toile, 56 x 46 cm, Musée d’Oryay, Paris. (C) GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay) / Michel Urtado

Claude Monet, In the Woods at Giverny (Suzanne lisant et Blanche peignant), 1887,

huile sur toile, 91 x 97 cm, Musée d’Art du comté de Los Angeles

Let’s go and meet some of the impressionists’ models! And to do so, let’s take a look at their family circles:

What with his two sons and six stepchildren, there’s always a whole swarm of kids frolicking in the garden in Giverny with Claude Monet and his second wife Alice Hoschedé! The artist has a slight preference for his stepdaughter Blanche, whom he’s teaching to paint.

Berthe Morisot, Eugène Manet and his daughter in the garden at Bougival, 1883,

huile sur toile, 60 x 73 cm, collection particulière

Married to Eugène Manet (the painter Édouard Manet’s brother), Berthe Morisot dotes on her only daughter Julie, whom she paints many times.

Camille Pissarro, Portrait of Lucien Pissarro, 1875,

huile sur toile, 28 x 23 cm, collection particulière

Camille Pissarro is a loving father who’s training his eight children to become accomplished artists! Sadly, he lost several daughters when they were very young.

Pierre Bonnard, Auguste and Jean Renoir, vers 1916,

épreuve au gélatino-bromure d’argent, 10,2 x 7,6 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. (C) GrandPalaisRmn (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

Auguste Renoir is the caring father of three sons, all of whom will make careers in art and cinema. He’s 60 years old when his youngest son, Claude, is born.

So who are the impressionists’ favourite models? They might be a sister-in-law who’s an artist herself, children playing, women with parasols…

As we’ve already seen, these modern artists stand against academic painting: it’s no longer about depicting historical heroes or ancient deities! On the contrary; impressionist works feature realistic, familiar, everyday subjects.

And as it’s easier (and cheaper) to get your own family to pose for you than hire professional models, it’s members of the painters’ circle (especially their children) who are enlisted. Let’s invade their privacy for a moment…

As regards Berthe Morisot, it’s a very different story! As a woman with a middle-class background, she isn’t expected to work. At the time, some people regard her as an amateur painter.

But the artist doesn’t give up! On the contrary, she seeks to exhibit and sell her work so as to be taken seriously, like her male colleagues. In the 1870s, her paintings are purchased at the same price as the other impressionists. But then their value starts to fall…

A victim of the period’s sexism who sold very few of her works, Morisot is now finally getting her revenge: her works are really starting to take off on the present-day market!

Berthe Morisot, Young Girl in a Ball Gown, 1879, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

This is Berthe Morisot best sale. In 1894, this painting is sold for 4,500 francs.

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1894, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

On average, Claude Monet’s paintings are sold for around 14,000 francs.

That’s not all: thanks to Durand-Ruel, Monet and his colleagues expand their clientele… by setting off to conquer America! The country’s new industrial tycoons are hungry for French art, enabling the artists to do good business with such patrons of the arts as Louisine Elder Havemeyer.

Two women artists also play a key role in this opening up to the world:

Sarah Tyson Hallowell, curator and art advisor to wealthy families in Chicago.
Mary Cassatt, an impressionist artist living in Paris, who places her colleagues’ paintings with her friends and relations living in Philadelphia and New York.

Mission accomplished: in 1895, there are already 300 of Monet’s canvases on the other side of the Atlantic!

Monet benefits from Durand-Ruel’s strategy… but he’s also very crafty on his own account!

From the 1890s onwards, he makes money by:

Getting dealers to compete with each other. He terminates his exclusivity deal with Durand-Ruel and goes to work with the Georges Petit gallery, which has a more varied clientele.
Setting his prices and negotiating high percentages on sales of his works.
Painting series. He produces dozens of paintings on the same subject in order to study variations of light. Enough to meet the needs of all his collectors!

Claude Monet painting the Water Lilies, circa 1922,

Claude Monet, Poplars (Wind effect), from the Poplars series (Peuplier, effet de vent), 1891,

oil on canvas, 100 x 74 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. (C) Musée d’Orsay, Dist. GrandPalaisRmn / Patrice Schmidt

Claude Monet, Poplars at the River Epte (Peuplier sur l’Epte), from the Poplars series, 1891,

oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, Tate Museum, Londres. Photo : Tate, CC BY 4.0

Claude Monet, The Four Trees, from the Poplars series (Peupliers, les quatre arbres), 1891,

oil on canvas, 82 x 81 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paris

Claude Monet makes a lot of money from Durand-Ruel’s efforts. The proof:

In the 1870s, Monet sells his canvases for a few hundred francs. Although he’s not as poor as he was to start with, his situation is still precarious.

In 1912, his paintings earn him 369,000 francs, the equivalent of 12 million dollars today!

But not all the impressionists have the same good fortune. Although their careers take time to get going, Renoir and Degas end up making similar sums. However, Cézanne sells very few paintings, while Sisley dies in abject poverty in 1899.

Yes, the impressionists are lucky: they can count on the unconditional support of an art dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel! He develops a formidable strategy for assisting and promoting his artists:

Exclusivity: Durand-Ruel purchases batches of major works from his artists, sometimes their entire output. Such purchases provide the still largely unknown artists with a sort of “salary” and consequent security. He even goes as far as paying their rents directly!
Promotion: he disseminates their creations via engravings, magazines and a variety of meticulously organised exhibitions.
International expansion: he opens galleries in Brussels, London and New York, and sells to an international clientele.

And it works: by the beginning of the 20^th century, impressionist works are going for astronomical sums! As for Durand-Ruel, he’s become the model for the modern art dealer.