April 15, 1874
JUNE 16–SEPT 9 at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
PARIS GAZETTE quatre pages
THE PAINTERS’ PARIDISE
The Normandy coast only hours away by train offers rock arches, sea mists, sunrises & fashionable beach resorts to impress.
équité et équilibre cinq centimes
Scandalous!
MANET’S PAINTING RIDICULED AT SALON SHOW
incoherent… baffling… sketchy The man is as incorrigible as his art is incoherent! Having spent the past decade or more deriding good taste and hacking away at public decency, with his noxious scenes of banal inconsequence, M. Édouard Manet rewards with yet another. This time it is a young girl, the poor thing cobbled together from a fleeting assemblage of brushwork that appears as though it was executed through the window of a speeding train. What can we make of this? What we are given is not so much a painting, not even so much as a study. Indeed, before we see we rank a girl and a bench, we simply the genres see pigment—raw, unmolded, 1. Religious paint! Does M. Manet expect his audience to peer into his 2. Historical paintings as one would a forest 3. Portraiture at night, in a vain attempt to discern a path that leads to his 4. Landscapes confounding intention? Let me be neither the first nor the last to assure you, there is no path. He may have yet to identify with the Impressionists, that sad cadre of paint throwers that recently began waging war against optical sanity, but with a picture such as this M. Manet shows himself their kindred spirit.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The Vineyards at Cagnes, 1908. Oil on canvas. 46.4 x 55.2 cm. frame: 69.5 x 79.4 x 10.8 cm. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Colonel and Mrs. Edgar W. Garbisch. 51.219 Photo: Brooklyn Museum
They Call Themselves “Anonymous Society” We Call Them Absurd! The jury for the Salon de Paris exhibition fully understands the perfection demanded by the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The fine detail, the blended colours, the historical and religious themes. All of this has been abandoned by these Impressionists. Outraged art critic Louis Leroy writes “Impression! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished!” Critic Albert Wolff asks that the Impressionist understand that “trees are not violet, that sky is not the colour of fresh butter.” What we have
TWO MISGUIDED WOMEN Our esteemed colleague, Albert Wolff of Le Figaro, describes the show by these “Impressionists,” as preposterous! We are aghast that there are women among their number. Such audacity! We shall illuminate…
Berthe Morisot As is well known, women are denied entrance to the École des Beaux-Arts so Mlle Morisot sought numerous mentors, currently Édouard Manet. Mlle Morisot was first accepted in the prestigious Salon exhibit in 1864 and every subsequent year until now. Yet, she has abandoned the Salon and joined with the Impressionists. While her paintings have what has been described as “feminine charm,” a light touch that has enchanted some critics, she has made it known to one and all that even though she will become Mme Eugène
Manet, she will continue to sign her paintings Berthe Morisot. Mon Dieu!
Mary Cassatt Mlle Cassatt is Philadelphian, born in the United States and so we shall henceforth refer to her as Miss Cassatt. Miss Cassatt attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where at least they had the common sense to draw from casts instead of live models. Can you imagine? The more of her work we see, the more we are troubled. She purposely paints pictures of her younger sister at the theatre with no obvious chaperone in sight! In fact many of her works exhibit such disregard of the norm. She goes as far as to show women reading. Reading! What will they expect next? The vote? This is not acceptable behaviour.
are slapdash paintings with colour splotches and not a hint of detail. Their desire to preserve the moment is a horror to behold. If you must see these sketches passing as paintings, they are currently on display. Certainly there are well-known artists exhibiting—Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, PierreAuguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot. The question we must ask is WHY?
SOCIAL NOTES Morisot & Manet to Wed We are most pleased with the impending marriage of Mlle Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot to M. Eugène Manet, esteemed brother of M. Édouard Manet. Mlle Morisot comes from an upstanding family who schooled their daughters in all the womanly arts, including painting. To our surprise Mlle Morisot, who has been exhibiting in the prestigious Salon de Paris show in the past years, will now exhibit with the “Impressionists”! We must assume that after her nuptials she will abandon this painting fascination and Mme Manet will start raising a family with her husband, Eugène. We wish the happy couple all the joy in the world and look forward to a never-ending stream of petits Manets.
REVOLUTIONARY! Now you have the choice, mix your own paints or buy them prepared in tubes! Tubes are easy to use & easy to carry!
L'ARTISTE
3, Quai Voltaire, 3 - Paris
MEET THE ARTISTS • SEE THE ART
CLAUDE MONETis among the leaders of the “Impressionists.”
Indeed, it was Monet’s early masterwork, Impression, Sunrise, that gave the critics a name for this avant-garde circle of painters. The painting above is one of a series created during a visit to the Normandy Coast and shows his ongoing fascination with the mixture of colour and a sense of the moment. Claude Monet. Rising Tide at Pourville, 1882. Oil on canvas. 66 x 81.3cm, frame: 88.9 x 104.8 x 10.2 cm. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Mrs. Horace O. Havemeyer, 41.1260. Photo: Brooklyn Museum
BERTHE MORISOT
Too many artists to speak of, but here are a few to get you in the know.
´ LOUIS BOUDIN grew up in Le Havre where he worked EUGENE
with his father who had a stationery and frame shop. This brought him into contact with local artists who encouraged him to paint. At the age of 22 he started painting full time and, influenced by others began painting en plein air (outdoors). He mentored a young Monet and taught him about the play of light on water and the bright hues of the coast. Monet calls Boudin a guiding light in his work. Eugène Louis Boudin. The Beach at Trouville (detail), c. 1887-1896. Oil on canvas. 36.5 x 58.4 cm, frame: 54.6 x 76.5 x 7.9 cm. Brooklyn Museum; Bequest of Robert B. Woodward, 15.314. Photo: Brooklyn Museum
MARY CASSATT
is one of the leading figures in the Impressionist movement. Though her talent was recognized at an early age, and she is one of few women to have her work accepted into the Salon de Paris, she chooses to exhibit with the Impressionists. Her subjects focus on scenes close to home: this portrait is of Morisot’s cousin and her daughter.
had work displayed at the Salon de Paris and was well received by critics. After a subsequent rejection by the Salon, she has accepted Edgar Degas’ invitation to join the Impressionists, becoming the first American in their ranks. Her subject matter centers on women and their everyday life, portrayed as “subjects, not objects” for spectacle.
Berthe Morisot. Portrait of Mme Boursier and Her Daughter (detail), c. 1873. Oil on canvas. 74.5 x 56.8 cm, frame: 93.3 x 76.2 x 6.4 cm. Brooklyn Museum; Museum Collection Fund, 29.30.
Mary Cassatt. The Letter (detail), 1890-1891. Drypoint and aquatint in colour on laid paper. 40.4 x 27.6 cm; plate: 34.7 x 22.5 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1139. Photo: NGC
TOULOUSE-LAUTREC
is one of France’s most prolific and successful printmakers. The artist specializes in untraditional scenes of dance halls, circuses, café-concerts, and even brothels around Montmartre in Paris. One can see his prints on the streets of Paris as posters for an upcoming performance. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. At the Concert (detail), 1896. Brush and crachis zincograph, with scraper. 38.3 x 31.2 cm. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Gift of the American Friends of Canada Committee, Inc., 1994, through the generosity of David Rockefeller, 37216. Photo: NGC
´ PAUL CEZANNE 's submissions were
routinely rejected by the Salon every year from 1864 to 1869. Forming a friendship with Camille Pissarro, Cézanne has started working on landscapes, and has decided to exhibit with the Impressionists. His work is driven by geometric essentials and ways of seeing. Paul Cézanne. The Village of Gardanne (detail), 1885-1886. Oil and conté crayon on canvas. 92.1 x 73.2 cm, frame: 7.3 x 118.1 x 100.6 cm. Brooklyn Museum; Ella C. Woodward Memorial Fund and Alfred T. White Fund, 23.105. Photo: Brooklyn Museum
EDGAR DEGAS, like his fellow
Impressionists, is devoted to casual scenes of everyday life. The artist has become a specialist painter of ballet dancers practicing at the Paris Opéra. This particular sculpture was not created for exhibition or sale, but as a study of the female form and its movement. Edgar Degas. Dancer at Rest, Hands Behind Her Back, Right Leg Forward, modeled 1882-1895. Bronze. 45.4 x 15.2 x 24.1 cm. Brooklyn Museum; Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Rodgers, 70.176.5. Photo: Brooklyn Museum
Monsieur Science
Editorial
Monsieur Director, L’Académie Royale (aka Winnipeg Art Gallery)
Stephen Borys
TWO STROKES THAT CHANGED THE WORLD While my readers are accustomed to my column discussing advances in science such as my recent article about Dugald Clerk’s pioneering work in the development of the two-stroke engine, today I look at the science of Impressionism. I will leave it to the art critics to debate the merits of the artistic movement, I am, admittedly, enthralled with the science.
The opinions of M. Borys are his alone and do not necessarily represent the views of the Paris Gazette. For more than a century the state run Académie des Beaux-Arts and our annual juried exhibition, the Salon de Paris, has given the public the opportunity to see art of the highest quality. We pride ourselves on presenting classical paintings of a religious, mythological, or historical nature. Unfortunately we must reject paintings that don’t meet our standard. Lately some of these rejected artists have been causing quite an uproar, so much so that Emperor Napoléon III created the “Salon des Refusés” to show said paintings. Mary Cassatt,
Artists have traditionally blended colours that revealed no brush strokes even with close examination. The Impressionists, in their desire to capture the moment, will use pure colour side-by-side with little mixing allowing the viewer’s brain to mix the colours together to form a new colour. Amazing! Moreover, Impressionists achieve Robert Delaunay. In the Garden, 1904. Oil striking visuals when they on canvas, 71.8 x 56.4 cm. Brooklyn Museum, pair complementary co- Gift of Iris and B. Gerald Cantor. 86.28. photo: Brooklyn Museum lours (opposites on the colour wheel). Claude Monet says: Colour makes its impact from contrasts rather than from its inherent qualities....the primary colours seem more brilliant when they are in contrast with their complementary colours. And yet there is more. Using a concept known as illusionary conjunction combined with an understanding of our peripheral vision, the artists can create the impression of objects. These items are slightly blurred, influenced by the new advances in photography, and the mind takes a brush stroke and believes it is a flag or a face or a tree. Look at one of the Impressionist paintings up close and then step back and watch their magic happen.
OUTRAGEOUS SHOW ACROSS THE POND Our overseas correspondent for the Paris Gazette was recently shocked to discover that a collection of women artists, upstarts of the fairer sex as some might call them, have the braggadocio to exhibit their paintings at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in the Canadian city of the same name. M. Henry Pringle took the train to that very locale to review the show called Defying Convention: Women Artists in Canada, 1900-1960 (quelle nom!), and sent his comments to the Gazette. Here are his impressions:
Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir—these are some of these “Impressionist” artists of whom we speak. We live in a period of great change in Paris. We are the largest city in Europe and a leading centre for business, fashion, and the arts. We continue to be plagued by wars and revolts, but despite the turmoil, advancements continue all around us, such as the new boulevards and parks, theaters, markets, and monuments following Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s civic plan. New railway lines make travel more convenient. Are these Impressionists just wasting our time or do they have something the public wants? You can go see them at the Winnipeg Art Gallery and decide for yourself!
What I love most about my Paris By Georges-Eugène Haussmann
My most beloved facet of Paris is my grand boulevards, which demolish and pave over most of the medieval streets of the city, where artists and poets gather. While some Impressionists call them destructive or isolating, the grand boulevards of Paris, in fact, provide important civic spaces where leaders meet, do business, and exchange ideas. What I am unable to understand is why non-Parisians have the audacity to use the name “boulevard” without paying any attention to the design elements that make a street deserving of this lofty moniker, completely disregarding its origins and intentions. Additionally, these same people have the propensity to misname “planting strips” as “tree boulevards” which is particularly offensive to city planners. If you would like to use the word “boulevard” at all, please visit my Paris again and study it more carefully this time. While you are here, note the declension of parks, plazas, squares, pocket parks, playgrounds, and other people places. These are the civic spaces where people fall in love with Paris and with each other.
EN PLEIN AIR One commonality amongst many of these so-called “Impressionists” is their insistence on painting outdoors. Parisians have come to expect proper paintings, created in a studio from sketches by professional artists. But the Impressionists are doing the opposite by painting outdoors in the city and countryside. It’s true that the newly invented portable paint tubes give artists more flexibility, but that does not mean hundreds of years of tradition should be thrown out the window! The Impressionists say they can capture the momentary effects of sunlight by working quickly in the open air. We say their work is unfinished and messy. They are obviously distracted by modern life and should find another vocation!
“Feeling a trifle bout de souffle, I entered the gallery with some trepidation, I admit, because the title of the show is so very provocative to begin with. How, indeed, would these works be E. Prudence Heward. Farmer’s Daughter (detail), c. 1938. Oil on canvas. 66.6 x 66.5 cm. considered acts of defiance, I wondered, sotto Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery; Gift voce—was it because women are too often from the Estate of Prudence Heward. G-51-170. regarded as works of art, rather than artists born? As I perambulated the gallery space, cautiously observing each painting and sculpture in turn, I soon realized that many of these women artists were displaying, yes, even flaunting, the influence of our very own French Impressionists in a manner most marvellous. With each touch of the brush, each soupçon of colour, the conveyance of spontaneity and controlled revelment flooded the senses and filled one with a sense of wonder at the painter’s audacity. As for the sculptures, Mon Dieu, I have not seen anything akin to the extraordinary powers of form that these women have harnessed—such strength, such life, is wrested from the most unforgiving of materials. I lingered long, moved by the daring of these women to paint and sculpt with such authority, to resist society’s urgings and to follow their hearts despite the naysayers. While these artists find inspiration in the academies and salons of Paris, we find ourselves euphorique in turn.
A COPYIST NIGHT OUT at the LOUVRE
WHILE@WAG
Fé l i x Na d a r photographer to the famous and caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist and more... and we have space to be let: check out the studio
Join us for a chance to paint and sketch great art, meet new people, perhaps find the love of your life LOUVRE MUSEUM, RUE DE RIVOLI, 75001 PARIS
on april 15-may 15, 1874 for the first exhibition of the impressionists. PENTHOUSE • 35 BOULEVARD DES CAPUCINES • PARIS
SUMMER with the
#wagimpress
IMPRESSIONISTS
JUNE 16-SEPT 9
Discover the inside story of the outsiders who forever changed the art world. The Impressionists sparked a revolution in European art in the late 19th century when they broke from convention by spontaneously painting out-of-doors and “on the spot” rather than in a studio from sketches. Capturing landscapes and scenes of everyday life, some of the most beloved artists of all time are featured in Manitoba’s first-ever major display of French Impressionism: Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and many others.
WAG members get FREE entry to Summer with the Impressionists.
JOIN TODAY!
at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
BUY TICKETS ONLINE NOW! impress.wag.ca/visit Hours: Tues-Sun 11am-5pm, Fri 11am-9pm Open: Canada Day • August Long Weekend • Labour Day
Adult $19 • Senior/Student $17 • Child 5 years & under FREE Family $53 Up to two adults and four children under 18
THE IMPRESSIONISTS ON PAPER
brings over 20 artworks from the National Gallery of Canada’s eminent collection of Impressionist art with watercolours, pastels, drawings, and prints. Curated by Stephen Borys with the generous collaboration of the National Gallery of Canada
GET THE FREE APP Enjoy the audio guide (English & French), maps, and more. Search the App Store for “Winnipeg Art Gallery” and download before your visit.
FRENCH MODERNS: MONET TO MATISSE, 1850-1950 includes more than 60 pieces from the Brooklyn Museum, New York’s renowned collection of French art. Organized by the Brooklyn Museum. Curated by Richard Aste and Lisa Small. This exhibition is made possible through the generous support of
KATHLEEN RICHARDSON
SUMMER with the IMPRESSIONISTS EVENTS PARISIAN STILL LIFE CAFÉ
ILLUSTRATED TALK:
Visit the family-friendly interactive sketching area with props, books, and hands-on activities.
IMPRESSIONIST Café
TOUR & TALK
The Painters called the Impressionists
June 16, 1pm • FREE with Gallery admission; FREE for WAG members French Moderns with Brooklyn Museum curator, Lisa Small.
with Dr. Stephen Borys
THEMATIC TOURS Select Fridays starting June 22, 7pm • FREE with Gallery admission; FREE for WAG members. Join expert guides for a fascinating series of special guided tours.
JUNE 26 7pm
FEAST: IMPRESSIONIST CAFÉ
FREE
June 28 • July 12 & 26 • Aug 9, 6pm • $70; $60 for WAG members
Gallery admission not included
Enjoy a three-course French meal, followed by an exciting tour of Summer with the Impressionists.
MOULIN ROUGE SING-ALONG SCREENING
AUG 10 9-11pm
FEAST: JUNE 28 • JULY 12 & 26 • AUG 9
FAMILY Sunday WAG members FREE
AUG 12 1-4pm
Aug 10, 9-11pm • $10, cash bar • Join Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, and the onscreen cast of can-can dancers for an unforgettable Burlesque singalong screening of Baz Luhrman’s cinematic masterpiece.
FAMILY SUNDAY: PROMENADE À PARIS Aug 12, 1-4pm • $20/family; FREE for WAG members Take your family on a walk through Paris as you complete a scavenger hunt and paint outdoors just like the Impressionists did!
MOULIN ROUGE SING-ALONG SCREENING
For weekend drop-in tours, summer art-making workshops, art camp for kids, and all Impressionist events and programs, go to impress.WAG.ca
Supporting Sponsors
JIM AND HEATHER PERCHALUK • THE ASSOCIATES OF THE WINNIPEG ART GALLERY
Promenade à Paris
Media Sponsors
paris gazette concept and design: Doowah Design Inc. contributors: Rachel Baerg (Meet the Artists), Hazel Borys (What I Love Most About My Paris), Stephen Borys (Meet the Artists, Editorial), Terry Gallagher (ads), Andrew Kear (Manet’s Painting Ridiculed at Salon Show), Paula Kelly (Outrageous Show Across The Pond), Catherine Maksymiuk (editing, En Plein Air), Steven Rosenberg (editing, They Call Themselves “Anonymous Society” We Call Them Absurd!, Two Misguided Women, Morisot & Manet to Wed, Meet the Artists, Two Strokes That Changed The World)
Winnipeg Art Gallery 300 Memorial Blvd • Winnipeg, MB • 204.786.6641
Creative Partners