Art Thoughts: How to Identify an Impressionist Painting
Why is it that the French painters Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) and Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) are both considered Impressionists when their paintings look so different? What could they possibly have in common? Renoir’s thick daubs and swipes of painting applied with seeming haste and the commotion of the crowded setting couldn’t diverge more from the brushless precision of Caillebotte, whose elegant strollers move with grace and dignity.
It’s because what defined Impressionism in the 1870s, when it was established, was not the style or technique of painting the artist employed, but rather their commitment to representing the modern world from a personal point of view. That entailed, first of all, depicting scenes from their individual, everyday lives. For Renoir, that meant — in addition to painting the portraits that constituted his main source of income — representing the lives of the working class. For Caillebotte, the scion of a wealthy merchant family who didn’t have to work at all, it meant recording the enviable lives of the upper classes. Secondly, it entailed painting in a manner that the artist felt best conveyed to viewers the rapid pace of modern life. And that explains the diversity in painting technique among the Impressionists.
In Dance at the Moulin de la Galette (literally, ‘pancake mill’) painted in 1876, Renoir shows a Sunday afternoon dance in the garden of a popular café-restaurant in Montmartre, a working-class neighborhood. There used to be many mills on the Montmartre hill because its elevation enabled the sails of the blades to easily catch the wind. Today, only two remain, and they no longer serve their original function. The mill and garden Renoir painted is still there, on rue Lepic, the steep street leading up to the basilica of Sacré Coeur. It no longer offers entertainment and the menu is now pricey, since the venue now caters to well-heeled tourists hoping to capture a bit of Impressionist ambiance.
Sunday was the only day of rest for the working class, who otherwise toiled 12–16 hours per day. Renoir depicted the lively singles scene — no grey heads in this crowd — of young men and women in their clubbing clothes. The working-class men wear straw boaters or rounded derby hats, but we also see in the crowd upper class men wearing silk top hats, undoubtedly on the prowl for flings or mistresses. Young women attend on their own, something ‘proper’ middle class young women would never do — it would tarnish their reputation. Women didn’t have much autonomy in the late nineteenth century since they were considered fragile and childlike. The women join a large and exuberant crowd that dances, drinks, chats, and perspires in the dappled sunlight of a summer afternoon.
Caillebotte, in contrast, represented the newly fashionable 8th arrondissement, where his father had recently built an entire apartment building for private family use — Caillebotte and his brother each had their own full-floor apartment. He showed streets near Gare St. Lazare, the train station linking central Paris to the trendy resorts of the Normandy coast, where the wealthy, including the family of Claude Monet (1840–1926), had their second homes. The firm contours with which Caillebotte described the isolated individuals or pairs inhabiting this yawning space evoke the restrained comportment - stuffiness really - of the ruling class. Fur, silk, gold-studded shirts, and pearl earrings contrast with the cotton fabrics and velvet chokers of the Moulin crowd.
The Impressionists were an egalitarian group formed by artists painting subject matter and often (but not always) using experimental techniques frowned upon by the establishment. As a result, they had trouble getting their paintings accepted in shows, especially the prestigious, annual Salon exhibitions held at the Louvre. This inspired them to form their own exhibiting group — The Anonymous Society. The artists themselves decided which of their paintings they’d present to the public. They held eight exhibitions in Paris between 1874 and 1886, most of which were funded by the richest members — Caillebotte and Edgar Degas (1834–1917) — who paid the rental fees for exhibition spaces and the printing cost of catalogues. They welcomed a diverse range of members, including women and the now-famous Neo-Impressionist Georges Seurat (1859–1891), whose pointillist technique shocked critics and viewers at the final Impressionist exhibition.
In keeping with the socially progressive ethos of France’s Third Republic, established in 1871, the Impressionists embraced its democratic values of equality, individual freedom, mutual respect, and solidarity for all artists committed to documenting conscientiously and authentically the varied aspects of the rapidly changing world in which they lived.