Gallery 10 - French Impressions

French Impressions

From the late 19^th to the early 20^th century, Paris and its surroundings were at the centre of the art world. Held in 1874, the first exhibition of the artists who became known as the Impressionists shocked critics and public alike with its vibrant, sketch-like paintings.

In the preceding years, French artists had begun to paint en plein air (out of doors). Painting in the open air, in an attempt to capture the transitory quality of light, was a huge departure from studio painting which tended to be dark and stilted. The area around Barbizon, south-east of Paris, was the focus of these experiments and the artists who worked there paved the way for the Impressionists.

To demonstrate the far-reaching influence of French art from this time we have paired French paintings with British examples. We explore three key strands of this French influence: technique, painting directly from nature and portraying real people engaged in everyday tasks.

Painting Real Life

In the early 1800s, artists concentrated on subjects drawn from history, often adapted from classical literature. Following the revolution of 1848 in France, a group of realist artists became interested in depicting ordinary workers.

Rather than look to history and legend for their subject matter, artists working in the Barbizon Forest began to paint farm labourers. They did not look down on these peasants but presented them as noble and heroic, with honest work becoming a subject in its own right. This Realist showing everyday life also influenced the Impressionists.

The French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage was a particular influence on Scottish artists who saw his work exhibited in Glasgow during the 1880s. Aspiring British artists also travelled to France, working in the Paris studios and surrounding rural areas, which resulted in much cross-fertilisation between the two cultures.

Light Touch

Painting in the open air and depicting real life culminated in the art movement known as Impressionism. Rejecting traditional styles, these artists painted with loose, rapid brushstrokes and aimed to capture fleeting moments in time.

Monet’s painting, Impression: Sunrise, Le Havre 1872, inadvertently game the Impressionists their name. Due to its hazy, unfinished qualities, the art critic Louis Leroy remarked that ‘Wallpaper it its embryonic state is more laboured than this seascape!’

The spontaneous brushwork and vibrant colour favoured by the Impressionists and their followers had a strong influence on the art of the four Scottish Colourists. Peploe, Fergusson, Hunter and Cadell made frequent trips to France and also exhibited there.

Members of the Camden Town Group (named after a district of London where they met) looked for ways to show the realities of a rapidly changing world. Much of their inspiration was drawn from gritty, Realist subject matter and painting techniques pioneered in France.

Sculpture

Auguste Rodin, the outstanding French sculptor of the late 19^th century transformed the discipline of sculpture from the sedate and highly finished representations of previous decades to a more spontaneous, energetic style.

Like the Impressionists, Rodin believed that art should be true to nature. Although he was inspired by classical sculpture, he rejected the idea of the perfectly proportioned human body and preferred to model his figures as they appeared in real life. His work has a lively, unfinished appearance and the manner in which he physically handled the material is apparent in the final sculpture. This rougher texture gives a sense of movement and excitement to his modelling.

This sculpture display shows show Rodin influenced other artists of his generation and beyond. His influence extended to Scotland and may be seen in Pittendrigh Macgillivray’s manipulation of clay before the final work was cast in bronze.