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Degas, Cassatt, Pissarro and the Making and Marketing of the Belle Épreuve

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Degas, Cassatt, Pissarro and the Making and Marketing of the Belle Épreuve DEGAS, CASSATT, PISSARRO AND THE MAKING AND MARKETING OF THE BELLE ÉPREUVE A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Whitney Rebecca Kruckenberg December 2014 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Therese Dolan, Advisory Chair, Art History Dr. Ashley West, Art History Dr. Gerald Silk, Art History Dr. Suzanne Singletary, College of Architecture and the Built Environment, Philadelphia University © Copyright 2015 by Whitney Rebecca Kruckenberg All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Focusing on the prints of Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Camille Pissarro, my dissertation explores the development of the belle épreuve , or the fine print, in relation to the Impressionist movement. I firstly consider the commercial tactics of the Impressionists in the face of the evolution of the modern art market and the decreasing relevancy of the Salon and expound on previous scholarship by demonstrating how the Impressionists’ modes of presentation proved especially conducive to showcasing works on paper and how we might apply observations about the speculative nature of the Impressionists’ formal innovations to their prints. Additionally I highlight contemporaneous observations about the heterogeneity of the Impressionist exhibitions that reveal meaningful insights into the nineteenth-century perception of the artists’ relationships to each other, thus questioning the tendency to divide the exhibitors into two groups, the Degas-led realists and the Monet-led colorists. Then I consider the printmaking practices of Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro individually, elucidating how each artist’s attitudes toward work, craft and business manifest formally in a small selection of examples from their printed oeuvres intended for exhibition or publication. Among the core members of the Impressionist group, Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro represented those most enamored with printmaking, even collaborating to create prints for a never-realized journal during the winter and spring of 1879 and 1880. I posit that the artists’ shared compulsions for regular work, fascination with artistic processes, technical flexibility and curiosity and forward-thinking disregard for the traditional hierarchy accorded to media rendered them particularly suited for making rarified, laborious prints. iii A final factor that connects Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro is that all three artists had complicated relationships with the business of art or the need to sell. The dichotomy of art making versus art marketing manifested itself in their prints. While printmaking as a process implies multiple pulls of an original image for commercial reasons, by emphasizing handicraft through idiosyncratic techniques, Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro accentuated the artistry and labor of their prints. Because of the complicatedness of their practices, printmaking did not turn out to be particularly lucrative for any of them, yet the artists’ efforts correlate to a concurrent vogue for intimate exhibitions and works, in terms of both size and technique, and Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro seemingly undertook printmaking with the progressive clientele already established for Impressionism in mind. I thusly connect my discussions of biography and personality to a consideration of Impressionism’s relationship to the changing art market of the late nineteenth century, in which facture, as a record of artistic temperament, became a sought-after commodity for collectors of avant-garde art. Despite superficial differences with regard to their subject matter and approaches, an examination of Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro’s printmaking practices reveals the assumed draftsmen and the colorists of the New Painting as kindred spirits, for whom the how of art-making proved just as significant as the what and for whom marketing was important but making was vital. The artists’ uses of combinations of etching, softground, drypoint and aquatint demonstrates concerns for both design and tone, and each artist accordingly strove to achieve in their prints a balance of personal sensations and decorative artifice. iv For Gretchen v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Firstly I thank my advisor and dissertation chair Dr. Therese Dolan for over nine years of faith, support and encouragement, personally as well as professionally. Thank you to Dr. Ashley West for serving as my second reader. Your careful reading and extensive feedback truly pushed me to improve as a writer and produce the best document possible at this point. Thank you to Dr. Gerald Silk and Dr. Suzanne Singletary for agreeing join my committee this semester and for your support and encouragement over the years. I am grateful to the entire graduate art history faculty at Temple University for shaping my development as an art historian, in particular Dr. Tracy Cooper for pushing me to think critically and Dr. Marcia Hall for prompting my fascination with finding meaning in the making of works of art. A big thank you as well to Michele Gudknecht for your help with submitting all of the necessary paperwork remotely. I am further grateful to the Graduate School at Temple University for their invaluable financial assistance in the form of a Summer Research Opportunity Program grant. Finally thank you to my husband Caleb Kruckenberg for being a constant source of support throughout my entire graduate career and taking care of our daughter on the weekends, so I could finally finish this thing. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS .............................................................................................. x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 1 2. FRAMING THE IMPRESSIONIST PRINT .............................................................. 15 The Impressionist Print and the Evolving Art Market .......................................... 17 Prints in the Early Impressionist Exhibitions: Sources of Inspiration .................. 30 Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro in 1879: Connections ............................................... 40 Le Jour et la Nuit ................................................................................................... 45 Objectives of Le Jour et la Nuit ................................................................. 52 The Character of Le Jour et la Nuit .......................................................... 55 The Project’s Failure ................................................................................ 69 Degas, Cassatt and Pissarro in 1880-86: Further Connections ............................. 73 Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 88 3. DEGAS AND THE AESTHETICS OF PROCESS .................................................... 90 Formation of Attitudes Toward Making and Selling Art ...................................... 95 Working Practice ................................................................................................. 102 Works of Mary Cassatt at the Louvre ................................................................. 107 vii The Famille Cardinal Monotypes ....................................................................... 116 Degas and the Business of Art in the 1880s and 1890s ...................................... 130 1892 Landscapes ................................................................................................. 133 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 152 4. CASSATT AND THE INDUSTRY OF ARTIFICE ............................................... 155 Formation of Values and Early Artistic Career ................................................... 159 Impressionism and Prints from 1879-80 ............................................................. 168 1890 Drypoints .................................................................................................... 179 The Color Prints .................................................................................................. 188 Late Printmaking Activity ................................................................................... 203 A Few Notes on Cassatt’s Values, as Expressed in Her Late Work ................... 207 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 210 5. PISSARRO AND THE STRUGGLE FOR UNITY ................................................. 212 Formation of Values and Working Practice ........................................................ 216 Artistic Ideology and Printmaking Practice ........................................................ 223 Ontological Implications of Work ........................................................... 224 Variability ................................................................................................ 228 Unease about the Privatization of Impressionism .................................. 231 Self-conception as an Artist-Worker ......................................................
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