ART & CULTURE
THE IMPRESSIONISTS IN PARIS by Adam Jacot
W
ho could have imagined then that such a group of
other artists such as Pissarro, Manet, Degas and Cézanne.
impoverished artists now command the highest
They met typically on Thursday nights at the Café Guerbois,
prices in the world’s leading auction houses? Al-
an artists’ hang out on Avenue de Clichy and were led by
most uniquely in the history of art has such popularity been
Édouard Manet, whom the younger artists greatly looked up
sustained for any one movement a hundred years on from
to. The Café de la Nouvelle Athènes in Place Pigalle was also
its origins.
a favourite spot.
The French Revolution, with its consequent political and
In the middle of the 19th century the Académie des Beaux-
social change, had a profound influence on art in Paris. In a
Arts dominated French art and was the preserver of tradi-
subtle and gradual way the role of the artist began to change.
tional French painting standards of content and style. The
The arrival of photography made painting superfluous as a
Académie preferred carefully finished images that looked
record of important national and historical events. The cam-
realistic with precise brush strokes and restrained colours.
era was far more instant and effective as a reporter than as
It held an annual exhibition, the ‘Salon de Paris’, to which
a labour of many months with oil and canvas could ever be.
artists would submit their work.
The artist could no longer rely on large official commissions
By 1869 Renoir and Monet worked together at La Gre-
from the state or monarch. And so painting began to be chief-
nouillere, a café on the banks of the Seine. They were so poor
ly a means of decoration or social comment and a more per-
they couldn’t even afford to buy paints. It was then that they
sonal statement by the artist.
evolved the Impressionist technique of painting with rapid
Claude Monet went to the Ecole des Beaux Arts to study
brushstrokes and dabs of colour, shunning the use of black
under Gleyre along with Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sis-
and brown and achieved tones, lights and darks by juxtapos-
ley and Frédéric Bazille. When Gleyre’s studio closed in
ing pure colour. This was particularly effective when painting
1864 the four of them would set off into the countryside
water and its shimmering surface. They recreated the sensa-
together.
tion in the eye that views the subject, rather than delineating
During this period the four made regular contact with
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the details of the subject.
