Impressionism Paintings Collected by European Museums A Resource Packet for Educators

The High Museum of Art The Seattle Art Museum The Denver Art Museum

Acknowledgements

Impressionism: Paintings Collected by European Museums is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, in collaboration with the Denver Art Museum and the Seattle Art Museum.

High Museum of Art, Atlanta Seattle Art Museum Denver Art Museum February 23 - May 16, 1999 June 12 - August 29, 1999 October 2 - December 12, 1999 In Atlanta, this exhibition is In Seattle, the exhibition is In Denver, the exhibition is made possible by the Katherine generously sponsored by: generously sponsored by John Murphy Foundation and Presenting Sponsor U S WEST. Additional funding is The Rich Foundation. U S WEST provided by the Adolph Coors The exhibition is sponsored by Additional funding provided by: Foundation, the Denver Delta Airlines and NationsBank The Boeing Company Foundation, and the citizens who The Seattle Times support the Scientific and Starbucks Coffee Company Cultural Facilities District. Kreielsheimer Exhibition Endowment Seattle Art Museum We regret the omission of Supporters(SAMS) sponsors confirmed after The Annual Fund December 31, 1998.

1 Contents

About the Packet...... 3

What the Packet Includes...... 3

About Impressionism...... 4

Radicalism of Impressionism: “Trees are Not Violet; The Sky is Not Butter!”...... 4 The Painting of Modern Life and Real Life Subjects ...... 5 Busy City and Quiet Countryside Settings...... 5 En Plein Air and “The Painter of the Passing Moment”...... 6 Optical Innovations: Images of “Magical Instantaneity”...... 7 Collecting Impressionism: “Something Solid and Durable”...... 8

About the Exhibition ...... 8

Overall Looking Questions...... 9

Activities ...... 10 Lesson #1...... 11 Lesson #2...... 13 Lesson #3...... 15 Lesson #4...... 17 Lesson #5...... 19 Lesson #6...... 21 Lesson #7...... 23 Lesson #8...... Error! Bookmark not defined. Lesson #9...... 27

Glossary...... 29

Selected Bibliography & Resources for Educators ...... 31

Books ...... 31 Videos ...... 32 Web Sites ...... 32

Credits and Special Thanks...... 34

2 About the Packet his packet introduces you to · Collecting Impressionism:“Something Impressionist painting and provides tools Solid and Durable.” Impressionist paintings Tfor curriculum design. The resources will have become increasingly popular over the be useful whether you have an hour or a week years. to devote to Impressionism. You are encouraged to share the curriculum ideas with 2. Introduction to the Premise of the other teachers. Exhibition

This section provides general information What the Packet Includes about the premise of the exhibition Impressionism: Paintings Collected by 1. Introduction to the European Museums. The provenance, or Major Themes of Impressionism history of a painting’s ownership, is explored in the exhibition and in this introduction. The introduction provides a discussion of Impressionism, its development, and its 3. Nine Overhead Color Transparencies historical context in general terms. Also highlighted are six major themes: These transparencies represent nine of the works included in the exhibition. Each image · Radicalism of Impressionism: “Trees illustrates the various themes found within the are Not Violet; The Sky is Not Butter!” exhibition and can help prepare students to Although it may be difficult to imagine now, participate in activities and discussions. Use the new style of painting was considered these transparencies on an overhead projector radical and even offensive at first to some or as posters by placing a white piece of paper people. on the reverse side.

· The Painting of Modern and Real Life 4. Information, Looking Questions, and Subjects. The Impressionists liked to paint Activities that Correspond to the Color scenes of everyday life: contemporary people Transparencies at work and play. · Information for each image represented · Busy City and Quiet Countryside Settings. in a transparency is provided for quick The Impressionists often painted people in reference about the artist, style, and subject. city and country settings. · Looking Questions enrich the student’s · En Plein Air and “The Painter of the consideration of a painting by encouraging Passing Moment.” Most Impressionists chose discussion and careful looking. Some to paint en plein air, or outdoors, instead of, questions also reinforce the themes of or in addition to, painting in their studios. radicalism, the depiction of modern and real They liked to capture their subjects in the life, city and country settings, en plein air middle of quiet, contemplative moments. painting, and optical innovations. Your students may generate diverse answers to the · Optical Innovations: Images of“Magical looking questions. Instantaneity.” Many scientific and color The looking questions are a starting point theory innovations of the late 19th century for teachers to facilitate the student’s close enabled the impressionists to experiment in viewing. The questions may be expanded to the ways that they did. be more... 3 · interpretive – “What do you think the 5. Glossary artist’s intent was in...?” · comparative - similarities and differences Printed in bold text throughout the packet are between paintings... important terms for understanding · hypothetical – “What if...?” Impressionism and the culture in which it · Suggested Activities engage students in existed. For definitions, please refer to the various experiences relating to Impressionism. glossary at the back of the packet. Additionally, these activities will help cultivate learning skills that involve the arts, 6. Resources math, science, language arts, and social studies. You can develop these activities The books, videos, and other resources for further according to the level and needs of teachers and students provide for further your students. We urge you to share the investigation of Impressionism, the artists, art interdisciplinary curriculum activities in this history, and world events. packet with teachers of other subject areas.

An outraged critic, Louis Leroy, coined the label “Impressionist.” He looked at Monet’s About Impression Sunrise, the artist’s sensory Impressionism response to a harbor at dawn, painted with sketchy brushstrokes. “Impression!” the journalist snorted. “Wallpaper in its Radicalism of Impressionism: embryonic state is more finished!” Within a “Trees are Not Violet; The Sky is year, the name Impressionism was an Not Butter!” accepted term in the art world. If the name was accepted, the art itself was not. “Try to make Monsieur Pissarro n 1874, fifty-five artists held the first understand that trees are not violet; that the independent group show of Impressionist sky is not the color of fresh butter...and that Iart. Most of them - including Cézanne, no sensible human being could countenance Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Monet, Manet, and such aberrations...try to explain to Monsieur his sister-in-law Berthe Morisot (“a bunch of Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a mass of lunatics and a woman,” muttered one decomposing flesh with those purplish-green observer) - had been rejected by the Salon, stains,” wrote art critic Albert Wolff after the the annual French state-sponsored exhibition second Impressionist exhibition. Although that offered the only real opportunity for some people appreciated the new paintings, artists to display and sell their work. Never many did not. The critics and the public mind, they told each other. At the Salon, agreed the Impressionists couldn’t draw and paintings were stacked three or four high, and their colors were considered vulgar. Their crowded too closely together on the walls. At compositions were strange. Their short, their independent exhibition, mounted in what slapdash brushstrokes made their paintings was formerly a photographer’s studio, the practically illegible. Why didn’t these artists artists could hang their works at eye level take the time to finish their canvases, viewers with space between them. Although the artists wondered? didn’t call themselves “Impressionists” at Indeed, Impressionism broke every rule of first, this occasion would be the first of eight the French Academy of Fine Arts, the such “Impressionist” exhibits over the next conservative school that had dominated art twelve years. training and taste since 1648. Impressionist scenes of modern urban and country life were 4 a far cry from the Academic efforts to teach The sturdiest thread linking the Impressionists moral lessons through historic, mythological, was an interest in the world around them. For and Biblical themes. This tradition, drawn subject matter, they looked to contemporary from ancient Greek and Roman art, featured people at work and play. Inventions such as idealized images. Symmetrical compositions, the steam engine, power loom, streetlights, hard outlines, and meticulously smooth paint camera, ready-made fashions, cast iron, and surfaces characterized academic paintings. steel had changed the lives of ordinary people. Despite the Academy’s power, seeds of Underlying the Industrial Revolution was a artistic and political unrest had been sown belief that technological progress was key to long before 1874. The early- and mid-19th all human progress. In this climate of century was a time of political instability in discovery, people felt they could do anything. France. Between 1830 and 1850, the The Industrial Revolution brought population of Paris doubled. During the economic prosperity to France, and Emperor Revolution of 1848, Parisian workers with Napoleon III set out to make Paris the socialist goals overthrew the monarchy, only showpiece of Europe. He hired civic planner to see conservatives seize the reins of Baron Hausmann, Prefect of the Seine, to government later that year. Fear of further replace the dirty, old medieval city with wide uprisings created widespread distrust among boulevards, parks, and monuments. The new the aristocracy, the poor, and the newly steel-ribbed railroad stations and bridges were prosperous bourgeoisie or middle class. feats of modern engineering. Cafés, At the same time, the far-reaching restaurants, and theaters lured the bourgeoisie, Industrial Revolution fostered a new faith in the powerful new merchant class who had the individual and his unlimited potential. made their homes in and around Paris. Romantic painters such as Eugène Delacroix began to celebrate individuality in terms of Busy City and Quiet Countryside painting technique with warm colors and Settings vigorous brush- strokes. Delacroix’s journals would later provide ideas about color theory and painting techniques to the Impressionists. Most Impressionists were born in the Later in the 19th century, Barbizon School bourgeoisie class, and this was the world they painters Corot, Millet, and Rousseau painted. “Make us see and understand, with abandoned classical studio themes to go brush or with pencil, how great and poetic we outside and paint the landscape around them. are in our cravats and our leather boots,” the Realist Gustave Courbet, a mentor to several poet Charles Baudelaire challenged his friend Impressionists, painted the rural poor just as Édouard Manet. Baudelaire’s essay, The he saw them. His rough-textured technique Painter of Modern Life, inspired other displeased the Academy. Impressionists to portray real life themes, too. The Impressionists, or “Independents,” as Degas prowled behind the scenes of the opera they preferred to be called, brought together a and ballet for his subjects. Monet wide variety of these influences, beliefs, and immortalized Paris railroad stations. Nearly styles when they first exhibited and met in all the Impressionist artists painted people Paris cafés to discuss art. Their rejection of hurrying through busy streets and enjoying the Academy and the Academy’s rejection of their leisure time on the boulevard, at the them united the group. racetrack, in café-concerts, shops, restaurants, and parks. The Painting of Modern Life and However, it was not just city bustle that intrigued the Impressionists. Country themes Real Life Subjects appealed to them, too. Railroads gave people a new mobility. They could hop on a train and be in the countryside in an hour. Commuters 5 escaped the crowded city to the suburbs that more truthful, and thus more ethical, than sprouted around Paris. The Seine River, parks, copying the art of the past. and gardens provided recreation for weekend Impressionist landscapes often contained picnickers, swimmers, and boat parties, which people, or showed the effects of man’s the Impressionists duly recorded. One key to presence - on a bridge or path, for example. Impressionism’s popularity, it has been The Impressionists wanted to catch people in written, is that the artist often put the viewer candid rather than staged or posed moments. in the position of someone on holiday It is as if the artist and we, the viewers, are enjoying a beautiful scene. “Monet never watching a private, contemplative moment. painted weekdays,” one critic noted wryly. We see men, women, and children floating in The home offered other real-life subjects. a rowboat, strolling under the trees, or just It was unacceptable for women painters like watching the river flow. Berthe Morisot or Mary Cassatt to set up an Impressionists often depicted people mid- easel in most public places. They relied on task. Degas caught opera audience members domestic scenes of women from their own watching each other instead of the stage and social class cuddling babies, playing with ballet dancers stretching or adjusting their their children, dressing in the boudoir, or costumes before a performance. Renoir’s tending their gardens. The garden was central guitar player strums her instrument by herself. to late 19th-century life. Monet, Manet, and Pissarro’s Parisian pedestrians hurriedly cross Renoir often painted their gardens. Monet the city streets. called his flowerbeds “my most beautiful A wish to capture nature’s fleeting work of art.” moment led many Impressionists to paint the same scene at different times and in different En Plein Air and “The Painter of weather. They had to work fast to capture the the Passing Moment” moment, or to finish an outdoor painting before the light changed. Artists had often made quick sketches in pencil or diluted oil Painting the sidewalk café, the racetrack, or paint on location, but now the sketch became the boating party attracted the Impressionists the finished work. Impressionist painters to work outdoors, or en plein air. Most adopted a distinctive style of rapid, broken Impressionists worked directly and brushstrokes: lines for people on a busy street, spontaneously from nature. It was Barbizon or specks to re-create flowers in a meadow. painter Camille Corot who first advised artists These artists often applied paint so thickly to “submit to the first impression” of what that it created a rough texture on the canvas. they saw - a real landscape without the Impressionists mixed colors right on the contrived classical ruins or Biblical parables canvas or stroked on the hues next to each of French Academic painting. other and let the viewer’s eye do the blending. Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, and others This process was called optical color mixing. preferred to record their initial sensory Not only did this sketchy technique suggest reactions rather than idealize a subject. A motion, but it also captured the shimmering painter friend of Monet recalled the master effects of light that engaged these artists. The giving him this advice: “He (Monet) said he rough, brilliant paintings of Impressionism wished he had been born blind and then had were a drastic departure from the slick, highly suddenly gained his sight so that he could finished canvases of Academic painters. have begun to paint in this way without Although the Impressionists wanted their knowing what the objects were that he saw work to look almost accidental, it’s no before him. He held that the first real look at surprise that early critics called it “lazy” and the motif was likely to be the truest and most unfinished. unprejudiced one.” The Impressionists thought that painting their experiences was 6 Optical Innovations: Images of storefront establish-ments. In addition, “Magical Instantaneity” collapsible metal tubes replaced pigs-bladder pouches as storage vessels for paint. Tubes preserved the pigment longer, allowing artists Color Theory to take extended painting trips outdoors. In its use of color, Impressionism dramatically broke away from tradition. Advances in the Photography fields of optics and color theory fascinated Perhaps no invention of the Industrial these painters. Working outdoors, Revolution influenced Impressionism more Impressionists rendered the play of sunlight than the camera. Black and white photography and the hues of nature with a palette of not only recorded the scene for later study, it bolder, lighter colors than classical studio arrested the very real-life moments that painters used. In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton had Impressionists pursued. Most of the shown that white light could be split into Impressionists had cameras; in fact, Monet many colors - including the three primary had four and Degas experimented with one of colors, red, blue, and yellow - by a prism. The the early Kodak portable models. Their art Impressionists learned how to create the took on the odd, unexpected, and prismatic colors with a palette of pure, asymmetrical compositions sometimes caught intense pigments and white. Unlike Academy by the camera. painters, who covered their canvases with a Rejecting the centered figural groups of dark underpainting, Impressionists worked traditional art, Impressionists thought nothing on unprimed white canvas or a pale gray or of cutting off a figure at the painting’s edge, cream background for a lighter, brighter or pushing the action into corners and leaving effect. the center of the composition empty. Degas Eugene Chevreul’s 1839 book, On the Law called photography “an image of magical of Simultaneous Contrast of Colors, guided instantaneity,” and was particularly adept at the Impressionist practice of laying down the off-center composition. He was also strokes of pure, contrasting colors. Chevreul intrigued by the newly invented motion found that colors change in relation to the picture machine, which took multiple other colors near them. Complementary photographs of moving animals at high colors, or those directly opposite each other shutter speeds. He used the machine to study on his color wheel, create the most intense movement and gesture. Impressionists eagerly effects when placed next to each other, he studied panoramic landscape photography and wrote. Red-green or blue-orange adopted its flattened perspective. Monet combinations cause an actual vibration in the noticed that slow shutter speeds blurred viewer’s eye so that color appears to leap off moving figures, and he began to smudge his the canvas. No wonder viewers react painted figures similarly. To the human eye, emotionally to the glittering sunlight on of course, figures don’t blur, and one early Monet’s rivers or the splash of orange critic dismissed Monet’s distant pedestrians as costume on Degas’ ballet dancers. “I want my “black tongue lickings.” Even those who red to sound like a bell!” Renoir said. “If I praised the artist’s ability to capture this “ant- don’t manage it at first, I put in more red, and like swarming... the instantaneity of also other colors, until I’ve got it.” movement” often missed the link to photography. Art Materials New technology in art materials made a wider Japonisme range of color pigments available. In the past, Another visual influence on Impressionism artists had to grind and mix their own was the phenomenon called Japonisme. The pigments with oil. Now, color merchants sold opening of Japan to Western trade and ready-to-use paints and other materials from diplomacy in 1854 led to a rage in France for 7 all things Japanese. Japanese artifacts found paintings during the early years. Finally, in an eager market in the growing middle class the 1880s and ‘90s, the world the in Paris. In 1862, a Far Eastern curio shop Impressionists painted began to embrace called Le Porte Chinoise opened near the them. American collectors were largely Louvre Museum. The shop sold fans, responsible for this reversal of fortune, buying kimonos, lacquered boxes, hanging scrolls, enough paintings to keep several artists at ceramics, bronze statuary and other items the work. The Musée de Luxembourg in Paris Impressionists used as props in their mounted the first museum exhibition of paintings. In particular, Impressionists Impressionist art in 1897, and an exhibition at admired Japanese wood-block prints and the 1900 World Exposition sealed the artists’ applied that art form’s flat, decorative shapes, reputations. Paintings sold twenty-five years bright colors, and asymmetrical compositions earlier for a mere fifty francs, noted Durand- to their own work. Ruel, now fetched 50,000 francs. The elegant Japanese prints (known as What caused the public’s change of heart? ukiyo-e, or “images of the floating world” of “Ironically,” writes art historian Ann Dumas, geishas and other popular entertainment) also “the Impressionists” former status as inspired a new interest in printmaking. In renegades enhanced their appeal to the addition to wood-block prints, Impressionists connoisseurship and speculative skills of the created lithographs (prints made from oil- bourgeois collector...(it was) a new art for a based ink designs on wet stone) and etchings new class that wanted images of the world (prints from designs etched into metal plates they inhabited.” with acid). These methods allowed Degas, Perhaps more crucial to its present-day Monet, Cassatt, and other artists to make popularity is the broadly appealing color, multiple copies of their work and thus reach a spontaneity, and freshness of Impressionist larger audience. art. Before the first exhibition in 1874, the art critic Armand Silvestre observed of these Collecting Impressionism: paintings, “A blond light pervades them, and “Something Solid and Durable” everything is gaiety, clarity, spring festivals, golden evenings or apple trees in blossom. They are windows opening on the joyous In the early years of Impressionism, artists countryside, on rivers full of pleasure boats struggled to find markets for their work, and stretching into the distance, on a sky which many lived hand-to-mouth. Impressionism shines with light mists, on the outdoor life, changed when artists quarreled with one panoramic and charming.” another, withdrew from exhibitions, or, like Monet and Renoir, reverted to a more Academic style they hoped would lure buyers. Cézanne also turned away from About the Impressionism, disappointed that he hadn’t been able “to make of Impressionism Exhibition something solid and durable like the art of the Impressionism: Paintings museums.” However, one visionary Paris art dealer, Collected by European Museums Paul Durand-Ruel, recognized the greatness arly paintings by the Impressionists of Impressionism as early as 1870. “A true shocked the public and infuriated many picture dealer should also be an enlightened critics. “A frightening spectacle of patron; he should, if necessary, sacrifice his E human vanity so far adrift that it verges on immediate interest to his artistic convic- sheer lunacy,” scoffed Paris critic Albert tions,” Durand-Ruel wrote. He regularly Wolff in 1876. Just twenty-five years later, bought, sold, and promoted Impressionist however, the work of Monet, Renoir, Manet, 8 Degas, Pissarro, Morisot and Caillebotte said a museum trustee of the Morisot would be found in the collections of major exclusion. museums through-out Europe and America. Private collectors and one particularly One hundred and twenty-five years later, tenacious gallery owner contributed largely to Impressionism is one of the best known and Impressionism’s acceptance. Art dealer Paul loved types of art. Durand-Ruel bought the early paintings of The provenance, or history of ownership these neglected artists so that they could keep of these Impressionist works, is a fascinating working. He offered them advice on style and subject in itself. Who were the early heroes subjects, gave them an alternative to state-run who dared to purchase this “difficult” art and exhibitions - the art world’s first one-person hang it in their homes, offices, and galleries? art shows - and promoted their work in How did these once-spurned paintings find Europe and the United States. their way into major museums and world Among the first private collectors of capitals? What events drove the artwork out Impressionism were writers, fellow painters of the hands of artists to museum directors, like Caillebotte, and other figures from the art private collectors, and ministers of culture? world. The original owner of Claude Monet’s These questions constitute the reason for this Port at Argenteuil was a painter working in a exhibition. style similar to Monet’s. Vincent van Gogh The chief focus of Impressionism: willed all his work to his art-dealer brother, Paintings Collected by European Museums is Theo, on whom he had depended emotionally the earliest acquisitions by European and financially for most of his life. Many of museums. The Musée de Luxemboug’s 1897 those paintings, including Self-Portrait with a exhibition featured thirty-eight Impressionist Straw Hat, remained in the van Gogh family paintings, all bequeathed to the French for seventy years. Americans also collected government by the artist and collector Impressionism early on, as did other newly Gustave Caillebotte. But not all museums rich, “bourgeois” connoisseurs, who saw in welcomed Impressionism, even by 1900. these bold, colorful canvases a mirror of their London’s National Gallery turned down a gift own lives. of Degas’ The Ballet Scene from Meyerbeer’s The artworks in the Impressionism: Opera ”Robert le Diable” in 1905 and Paintings Collected by European Museums refused to show Morisot’s Summer’s Day exhibition reflect the broad interests and after acquiring it in 1913. “The National varied styles of Impressionism at its peak. Gallery is and should remain a great Temple This exhibition is presented by the High of Art” that would not tolerate “an exhibition Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and of the works of the modern French art-rebels the Denver Art Museum. in the sacred precincts of Trafalgar Square,”

Overall Looking Questions

· Have all your students become familiar colors and shapes of the shadows in each with all of the transparencies. painting. · What kinds of brushstrokes do you see in · Next, group the paintings by themes each painting? beginning with city or country life. · Where is the horizon line in each · What other categories or themes can you painting? create? · Lights and shadows interested many Impressionist painters. Describe the

9 objects in the foreground overlap objects in the background? Although there are no Activities specific right answers, ask the students to The Arts hypothesize how many feet of depth each Up until the 1860s, European painters often painting illustrates. What clues did the artist painted idealized people and events from the provide to support the hypotheses? Bible, mythology, or history. In contrast, Impressionist paintings often depict ordinary Language Arts situations. We may think differently about Discuss the transparencies with the class. ordinary situations in our own lives by What are their favorite paintings? Why did drawing or writing about them. Ask students they choose those? Have the students write an to list five things they do each day that might essay from the point of view of a collector or be appropriate for an Impressionist painting of museum director who wants to purchase one a modern life subject. Vote on one subject and of the paintings. Include why they chose the then have each of the students paint it. A painting and how it will add to their current busy, fleeting moment in a hallway or collections. For instance, a director of a self- cafeteria, for instance, may seem more portrait museum might want to add the self- beautiful upon reflection. Explain that portrait by van Gogh to his or her collection. everyone will have a different “impression” of the scene. Try to emphasize the lights, Social Studies shadows, and colors in the scene. Have the students stage an art exhibition of their own within the classroom. Math or Science Send out invitations and design posters to All of these two-dimensional, flat works advertise the exhibition. Some students will create an illusion of three-dimensional depth. be traditional artists while others will be Rank them from the composition that appears experimental artists. Other students will be to be the closest to the viewer (or most critics and collectors. The artwork and written shallow) to the composition with the greatest exercises that the students create based upon feeling of depth. Look for the ways that each the activities in this packet would be painting depicts depth. For instance, are the appropriate for the exhibition. colors softer in the background? Did the artist use perspective? Are objects smaller in the background than in the foreground? Do

10 Lesson #1

Claude Monet (mow-NAY) French, 1840-1926 The Port at Argenteuil, about 1872 Oil on canvas 23 5/8 x 31 3/4 in.

Musée d’Orsay; Paris, France; bequest of Count Isaac © Photo RMN - H. Lewandowski - Musée de Camondo, 1911 d'Orsay, Paris

Subject accessible from Paris by steamship, and a boathouse; Monet probably painted this railroad. the last and most distant is fresh, airy afternoon scene the bridge and horizon. outdoors, en plein air. He Style often painted outdoors, then Like most of his work, The Artist carefully reworked the details Port at Argenteuil shows Monet grew up in Le Havre, of his canvases in his studio. Monet’s fascination with the France, where an aunt first “My only merit,” Monet ever-changing quality of light financed his painting studies. wrote later in life, “lies in and color in different Later, in Paris, he met and having painted directly in weather, and at different was influenced by future front of nature, seeking to times of the day. Notice the Impressionist colleagues render my impressions before long stripes of tree shadows Sisley, Renoir, and others. He the most fleeting moments.” in the foreground. Against was a leading figure in the This is one of seventy-five the bright sky, these deep Impressionists’ first group works Monet painted of the shadow tones capture a exhibition in 1874, which one Seine River in Argenteuil, a breezy late afternoon in critic ridiculed as “a yachting center west of Paris. summer. Monet usually collection of freshly painted It combines two favorite “primed” or covered his canvases smeared with floods Impressionist themes: canvas with a layer of warm of cream.” It was Monet’s fashionable, leisurely figures gray or light tan first and then painting of the Le Havre strolling, boating, and painted his subject in the harbor in Impression, bathing, and an industrial short, bold brushstrokes Sunrise, that gave the backdrop of bridge and typical of Impressionism. The fledgling movement its name. smokestack. Monet lived and scene is composed of restful, Until late in his life, Monet painted in Argenteuil for horizontal elements - the suffered frequent personal several years; today the town shadows of trees, the water, and professional ups and is best known for his images bridge, and clouds. Monet downs. Yet, he never of it. Additionally, Monet arranged these elements in a wavered in the quest to paint lured his Impressionist series of planes to create his direct, sensory friends - Renoir, Sisley, depth. The plane closest to us impressions of nature without Pissarro, Manet, and contains the strollers, seated intellectual thought. Caillebotte - to paint in onlookers, boaters, and other “Paintings aren’t made with Argenteuil, which was easily figures; a second plane doctrines,” he declared. behind it has sailboats, a

11 Looking Questions · How many people do you · What sort of boats are what you see, can you see? these? Sailing boats? tell the time of day? · What are they doing? Fishing boats? Cargo · What do you see on the boats? left side of the painting? · Describe the weather. · What do you see on the What season is it? What right side of the painting? time of day is it? From

Activities Many Impressionists were them to look at the interested in views of reality. transparency closely. The Arts Scenes were painted outside, Continue the poem by writing Have the students create a with an emphasis upon what “But when I took a closer landscape with depth. Have interested the artist on the look I noticed…” Share the them choose three objects day the painting was created. poems. Discuss the difference that they want in their Approximately what between an impression and landscape. Decide which percentage of this scene is an analysis of something. objects will go in the sky? What percentage of the foreground, middle ground, total area of this painting is Social Studies and back- ground. Draw the used to describe the land that The people in the fore- ground object first. day? What percentage is reproduction look as if they They should make this object buildings or water? What might be out relaxing on a large. Next, decide what fraction reflects things made weekend afternoon. What do objects will go in the middle by people? What percentage you and your family do to ground, drawing it slightly of the ground is sunlit or relax during weekends? Have smaller in the middle portion shadow? What do you think your students pick a partner of the paper. Finally, repeat interested Monet the most on and share what they enjoy this process for the back- the day he was painting this? doing with their families. ground object, making that Why do you think that? Make a chart to compare and object the smallest. To create contrast leisure-time of their a landscape with depth and Language Arts families with those depicted overlapping forms, add more An impression is a vague in this and other transparecies objects and horizontal lines to notion, memory, or split- in the packet. How do they indicate land. Discuss second look at something. compare to what the people overlapping and back- Have your students glance at in the picture are doing? ground, middle ground, and the transparency for thirty Have them find out about foreground. seconds and then cover it other forms of relaxation in with paper. Ask them to write the 19th century. Math or Science a poem beginning “My first impression was…” Next, ask

12 Lesson #2

Edgar Degas (duh-GAH) French, 1834-1917 The Ballet Scene from Meyerbeer’s Opera, “Robert le Diable,” 1876 Oil on canvas 30 1/8 x 32 in.

The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England

© The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, Photo, V&A Picture Library Subject him look in every direction preferred artificial light to the Unlike most Impressionists, except toward the stage. en plein air kind. Notice how Degas never worked from What or who is the bearded this painting’s three light nature. “Art is not a sport,” man with the opera glasses sources create different wrote this cool, cynical (far left) eyeing? The moods: the bright lamps intellectual, the very image of painting’s focus is a far cry lighting the musicians’ the Paris dandy. Instead, he from the moralizing themes scores, the eerie cast of roamed behind the scenes of of French Academy art. footlights on the per- formers such popular city haunts as Perhaps Degas was making and the moonlight created by the opera, ballet, and fun of this heavy, melo- gas lights over the stage. racetrack. In this scene from dramatic opera, with its ties “The fascinating thing,” the then-popular Robert Le to a traditional, Romantic Degas said, “is not to show Diable (Robert the Devil) past that the Impressionists the source of light, but the opera, the spirits of dead nuns wanted to escape. effect of light.” who have broken their vows dance wildly in a ghostly Style Artist moonlit cloister, hoping to The daring composition (like To Degas, a painting was lure the hero Robert to a photograph taken by “something which requires as damnation. Painting from an someone in the audience) much knavery, trickery, and audience member’s view- shows how photography deceit as the perpetration of a point, Degas is more influenced the Impressionists. crime.” In his studio, Degas interested in what is going on As they gaze toward the loved to experiment with at the edge of the theater’s painting’s edges, Degas’ composition and light, but orchestra pit than on the subjects seem to say that life unlike most Impressionists, stage. Several musicians and goes on outside this painting. he often painted from audience members are The artist often made quick, memory or imagination. He painted as portraits of Degas’ location sketches with also worked in a variety of opera-loving friends. “essence”- oil paint thinned materials, including pastel, Viewing this painting, we can with turpentine - and then pastel-paint combinations, almost reach out and touch painted a finished work in his and sculpture. When a the slicked-down hair of the studio. Like other financial crisis forced him to man in the right foreground, Impressionists, Degas was sell his work in the mid- as he and the gentlemen near fascinated with light, but he 1870s, he turned to monotype

13 prints (made by applying turned out quickly. However, eyesight grew too weak at the colored or black paint to a he continued to paint until his end of his life. metal plate) which could be

Looking Questions · Where does this · There are two the lower left-hand scene take place? horizontal lines in this corner looking? · Where are you, painting. Where are they? · What colors do you the viewer, located in · Where are the see in the painting? relation to the scene in lights coming from? · What shapes are the painting? · What are the people on repeated in this painting? · What musical instru- the stage doing? ments do you see? · Where is the man in Activities letters are constants, values together to develop their own that do not change. Some script or story line for a The Arts letters in algebra are music video. It must relate to Discover how different kinds variables, values that change the painting. It could be about of lights affect colors and and are different. Have the the audience, stagehand, shadows of objects. Set up a students look for things that usher, musicians, and/or the still life for your students. Put these two reproductions have activity on stage. Each team a clear glass, a piece of cloth, in common (the constants) will develop a short story line and a tall, shiny object such and how they are different or script describing their as a colorful plastic cup on a (the variables). Then make a proposed video. What kind of large, white piece of paper. list of each category. Which music is being played? Are Use candlelight and a is the longer list? the actors dancing or posed flashlight covered with tinted standing still? Is the audience Mylar to add color, electric Language Arts enjoying the performance? light, and sunlight. Record This painting captures the Try to make the video what happens to the colors, experience of attending an include some historically shadows, and shapes of the opera, one of the artist’s accurate details. objects as the light changes. favorite forms of enter- Create drawings from these tainment. Ask your students experiments. to write a review of a specific work from their own favorite Math or Science form of entertainment. It may Ask your students to look at be a movie, play, computer this transparency next to the game, or television show. other Degas reproduction in this packet, Before the Social Studies Performance. During the late The painting features three 1800s, French different types of people. The mathematicians formalized actors are on the stage. The some of Augutin Cauchy’s musicians are in the orchestra and Evarist Galois’s ideas pit. The audience members into what we call algebra - are sitting in the front rows. math in which letters are used Divide the class into teams of to represent basic number about five students each. The relationships. Some of these small groups will work 14 Lesson #3

Gustave Caillebotte (KIE-ye-bot) French, 1848-1894 Le Pont de l’Europe (The Bridge of Europe), 1876 Oil on canvas 49 1/4 x 71 in.

Petit Palais Musée d’Art Moderne, Geneva, Switzerland. Image: © Petit Palais Musée d’Art Moderne, Geneva, Switzerland. Subject separated symbolically and bridge, row of buildings, The Bridge of Europe and physically from the laborer curb, and dog, which repeat two other Paris scenes but looks toward him. the “X” shape of the bridge exhibited at the third Simultaneously, the bridge girder, draw us into the Impressionist exhibition rail creates a line of scene. Before he began to established Caillebotte as a perspective from the laborer paint, Caillebotte made painter of modern-city life. back to the couple. Perhaps meticulous sketches on this He depicted a more sober, this visual link reflects bridge and in his studio, realist Paris than his fellow Caillebotte’s personal arranging and re-arranging Impressionists, exposing the struggle to bridge two the elements to achieve this social ten- sions that underlay worlds, those of wealthy intriguing composition. The the industrial city and its new gentleman and democratic painting’s cool, stark lighting society. Six boulevards Impressionist. The couple and crisp forms underscore converged at the famous and even the dog in the this flâneur-artist’s Bridge of Europe, a wonder foreground walk at the fast assessment of Paris’s of technology that straddled pace typical of city dwellers. transformation. the rail yards of the Gare Is the elegant gentleman Saint-Lazare, one of Paris’s trying to leave the lady with Artist major train stations. Here on the parasol behind? Notice, The great realist writer Emile the bridge is a moment from too, how the immense steel Zola was so taken by the everyday life, juxtaposing girders of the bridge, the very “beautiful truth” in Gustave two social classes that essence of modern, industrial Caillebotte’s work that he frequented the streets of the Paris, dominate the picture. wrote, “When his talent city. Leaning on the rail at This realist’s viewpoint, in all becomes a little more broken the right is an artisan/laborer, its brute strength, dwarfs the in, Monsieur Caillebotte will while on the left, a man and Paris of strollers, tree-lined certainly be one of the woman of higher social boule- vards, and shimmering boldest of the group.” But the stature walk toward us and light. wealthy Caillebotte is gaze at each other. probably better known for The gentleman, who is Style buying up the works of rendered as a flâneur, or The elements of perspective fellow Impressionists and, in man-about-town and observer in this painting are 1894, bequeathing them to of modern life, may be a self- remarkably deep. The lines the French government for portrait of the artist. He is created by the railroad display at Paris’s Musée de 15 Luxembourg. Of sixty-seven works by Cézanne, seven by art at the Musée de works, the museum accepted Degas, eight by Monet, seven Luxembourg in 1897. Not only thirty-eight, citing lack by Pissarro, two by Manet, until the 1950s did of space and the still- six by Sisley, and six by Caillebotte’s own paintings controversial image of Renoir. Caillebotte’s gift win the attention they Impressionist art. Included in made up the first museum deserved. the final bequest were two exhibition of Impressionist Looking Questions

· This is a painting of painting? Notice the sky the train and the clouds. Paris. What does the and bits of green. Why do you think the artist include to show you · What geometric shapes artist chose to include that this is a city rather do you see? Where do these elements? than a country scene? you see “X” shapes? · What colors are the · Describe the clothing Where do you see ovals? shadows? each person is wearing. What shapes are the · Do you see any red in the · Is there anything that shadows? What shapes painting? Where? represents nature in this repeat to create patterns? · Notice the steam from Activities pattern. Have your students sleep? What does the dog circle any of these words that eat? Notice the dog’s tail. The Arts they could use to talk about a What feeling does the tail Create a lesson about one- part of this work of art. Ask convey? point linear perspective. Put them to write at least three an overleaf of Mylar on this sentences using the circled Social Studies transparency and draw the words to describe this Look closely at the painting. receding lines of the bridge, painting. For example: “I see Discuss how clothing street, and buildings. Show several cut-out shapes with describes a person’s place in and explain the vanishing curves on the bridge.” society or reflects a certain points and horizon line. occasion. Look at this Language Arts painting and discuss each Math or Science Did you notice the dog in the person’s role. Have the The following terms are often painting? Why do you think students look through used in science and/or math: the artist chose to include the magazines and cut out images growth, life forms, direction, dog? Have your students of fashion that describe a rhythm, balance, repetition, develop a short explanation profession, an occasion, or weight, angles, light, shapes, of what the dog is thinking. Is even a class of society. Ask triangle, rectangle, circle, the dog a stray or does he/she them to create a costume square, curves, movement, belong to someone in the collage using the images. direction, motion, size, painting? Where is he going? Why? Where does the dog

16 Lesson #4

Berthe Morisot(more-ee-SOH) French, 1841-1895 Summer’s Day, about 1879 Oil on canvas 18 x 29 5/8 in.

The National Gallery, London, England. Image: © The National Gallery, London, England.

Berthe Morisot struggled to Subject be taken as seriously as male In this, perhaps her most Style counterparts of the time. famous painting, Berthe Intrigued by the play of light Reared in a conservative, Morisot captures two on her subjects, Morisot cultured family, she received apparently middle-class painted the swans, the the art lessons given all ladies in a moment of quiet reflections in the lake, and young ladies of her class. She thought. (The women have the ladies themselves in the was excluded, as a woman, not been identified and quick, zigzag brushstrokes from nude life-drawing probably are models who for which she’s known. In classes, but her ability posed for Morisot.) They typical Impressionist style, emerged in paintings of the float lazily in a boat on the the composition is off center, outdoors and domestic lake in the Bois de Boulogne, with the blue-coated woman scenes. She married the a large, wooded park on the partially cropped by the edge brother of her mentor, edge of Paris. Morisot of the scene. Yet notice how Èdouard Manet, and painted them as if she were similar brush- strokes exhibited in all but one sitting next to them, and well throughout the painting pull it Impressionist show. During she might since the fashion- together. This sketchy texture her lifetime, Morisot’s able Bois was not far from captures Morisot’s open-air canvases often fetched her home. It was con- sidered “impression” of the moment, slightly higher prices than safe and accept- able for a though art critics of the time those of her male colleagues, woman of Morisot’s social often mistook her loose style but she remained modest. She class to stroll, picnic, and for sloppiness. “Why, with had merely wanted to capture even paint here. Unlike her her talent, does she not take “something of what goes male counterparts who could the trouble to finish?” by...the smallest thing,” she set up an easel in city streets complained one early wrote in later life. “An and café-concerts, Morisot reviewer. But other critics attitude of Julie’s (her stayed close to home and raved about Morisot’s pearly, daughter), a smile, a flower, a painted real-life moments soft color harmonies. “She fruit, the branch of a tree, any from her immediate world - grinds flower petals onto her of these things alone would elegant women getting out of palette,” gushed one writer, be enough for me.” bed, relaxing in the garden, “so as to spread them later on or dressing in their boudoir her canvas....” for a night at the opera. Artist

17 Looking Questions

· What type of location in the painting? Where What else do you think do you see in the do you see zigzag, curvy, was in the boat outside of painting? or straight lines? What our view? Do you think · What time of day is it? kinds of lines repeat? the artist or someone else · Describe the clothes that · Is there any black in the was in the boat? the women are wearing. picture? Where? · Although there are very · The painting shows us few outlines, what other part of the boat and the kinds of lines do you see two women riding in it. Activities this reproduction of of the characters. Next, create The Arts Morisot’s painting. How a dialogue between them. Many colors, lines, and many greens and yellows are Perform the play for the rest shapes are combined to create there? Are any other color of the class. You may want to the illusion of sunlit water in groups represented? If you include the artist as another this painting. Have the were designing a set of character in your play. students create drawings of crayons for the colors in this water. Use felt tip pens to painting, how many would be Social Studies apply color in short zigzag in the box? What would you Ask your students to imagine strokes. Experiment with a name some of the colors? that they are riding in the variety of colors over the Just for fun, see if you can boat with the two women. page rather than coloring in give them all science-type Perhaps they are reporters large blocks of one color. names, like Sulfur Yellow! interviewing the women Draw a river or seascape, or about their lives. Write a arrange a still life with a glass Language Arts short newspaper article from of water as one of the objects. The two women appear to be this interview. Read the enjoying a relaxed, sunny information section about the Math or Science day. Have your students write artist and painting to give the Ask the students to count the a dialogue between the two articles more details. different blues they see in women in the boat. First, create a one-line description

18 Lesson #5

Claude Monet (mow-NAY) French, 1840-1926 The Cliff at Fécamp, 1881 Oil on canvas 25 5/8 x 32 in.

Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Aberdeen, Scotland. Image: © Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, Aberdeen, Scotland

Subject seize a sparkling downpour of popular Japanese wood- This cliff painting is one of a of light on the white cliff and block prints. series created at Grainval, fix it in a shower of yellow just south of Fécamp on the tones which made the effect Artist Normandy coast. It reflects of this fleeting and blinding Technological advances - the artist’s philosophy that marvel seem strangely portable easels and metal “landscape is nothing but an astonishing.” This painting is tubes that stored paint impression - an instantaneous Monet’s reaction to a brisk indefinitely - allowed one.” Monet waited and spring day at Fécamp, as the Impressionists like Monet to watched the shifting sun and breeze ruffles the sea, and take extended painting trips shadows and then quickly clouds tumble by in a outdoors. A wide range of brushed in the moment he luminous sky. Like a true pigments was also available, wanted. He liked to paint the Impressionist, he has applied though Monet used a small, same scene many times so he brushstrokes of brilliant blue, typical Impressionist palette could study the effects of green, and yellow in of eight to ten colors. “The changing light and weather. contrasting patterns. Some real point,” he wrote a friend, Children frequently trailed viewers can see animal-like “is to know how to use the the artist and carried his shapes in the rocks of The colors.” Despite failing canvases. Cliff at Fécamp - perhaps the eyesight, the artist painted only sign of life in a scene well into his eighties. The Style that is without human public discovered his work evidence. The swirling The writer Guy de by 1890, and his fortunes ambiguity of cliffs and sea is Maupassant also followed quickly improved. By 1920, dizzying and adds to the Monet in his quest for the painter who once had sense that we are there. impressions and vividly struggled to feed and clothe Notice the off-center described the artist’s gifts: his family complained about composition of the cliffs “He would pick up with a the “too-frequent visits from against the sea. Like other few strokes of his brush the buyers who often disturb and Impressionists, Monet was falling sun ray or the passing bore me.” probably influenced by the cloud, leaving aside the false asymmetrical compositions and conventional. I saw him

19 Looking Questions

· Describe the shapes that · Name two colors that · Look carefully at the you see. What shapes are contrast. textures of the plants, repeated? · Where do the colors rocks, water, and sky. · Notice brushstrokes of contrast? How do the brushstrokes warm colors next to · Do you see any outlines? describe different brushstrokes of cool textures? colors. Activities did. The Impressionist ground feel like? Is it warm painters were interested in or cool? Where is the light The Arts how smaller parts (like coming from? How does the Join the students as you pick brushstrokes, bits and blobs scene smell? How is the up an imaginary brush and of paint, and colored dots) weather? Ask the students to pretend to paint this painting. make up the whole (a explain their thoughts by Next, take the students painting). The scientists made writing a paragraph that outside (or work from visual discoveries about atoms describes the experience of re- sources like old calendars) (smaller parts) and matter jumping into the painting. to create a landscape using (the whole). Have the acrylic, tempera paint, or oil students make four headings Social Studies pastels. Look for different on their paper - gas, liquid, Have the students look at the textures and colors as solid, other. Next, analyze land in the painting. Notice students paint directly on the this whole painting by listing the plants, rocks, and view of paper or canvas without its smaller parts. Write under the water. Imagine that the sketching in outlines. After each of these four headings class owned the land they finish, have the students the parts that apply to it. For represented in the look at the painting again. example, list breeze, air, and reproduction. Generate a list What do they notice now atmosphere under the of ways to use the land. Will about the painting that they heading of gas. Use the same it be kept as open space, didn’t notice at first? headings and analyze other become a park, or be works in this set. developed into a resort hotel? Math or Science What other uses can you Scientists John Dalton, Language Arts think of? Vote on how you Stanisloa Cannizzaro, and Tell the students to imagine would use the land. Amedeo Avogadro all jumping into the painting. worked in Europe at the same How would it feel to be on time as the Impressionists these cliffs? What would the

20 Lesson #6

Paul Cézanne (say-ZAHN) French, 1839-1906 Still Life with Pears, about 1885 Oil on canvas 15 x 18 1/8 in.

Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany. Image: © Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany. Subject left. Is that a strip of wood one red pear. The odd- This is one of more than 170 slashing flat across the numbered groupings of still life paintings Paul background? The artist seems simply shaped objects in Cézanne created in his to have lifted the back of the contrasting colors are lifetime. At first glance, it’s a table and tipped it forward. characteristic of Cézanne’s simple arrangement of pears The objects on it appear to still life paintings. Cézanne on a tabletop, but a second slide into our laps. tried to show internal con- look shows us that the objects struction of the forms that he are not true to nature. What, Style painted, “nature as cylinders, for example, is the gauzy Like other Impressionists, sphere, and cones,” in his black mass to the right of the Cézanne painted with quick, words. plate? Is that really drapery visible brushstrokes, laying protruding stiffly beyond the on colors next to each other. Artist table’s edge? Indeed, In this painting, the red pear Paul Cézanne was born to a Cézanne liked to make appears more intensely red wealthy family in the town of ordinary objects look when placed among the green Aix-en-Provence. Tempera- unfamiliar, a radical idea in pears. Cézanne understood mental and shy, he became an the late 19th century. To him, that when complementary artist against his father’s studying nature was merely colors like red and green wishes. Fellow artist Camille the first step in making art. (found on opposite sides of Pissarro introduced him to After that, Cézanne the color wheel) are placed Impressionism in the 1870s explained, the artist should adjacently in a painting, they and became a lifelong friend, “make pictures that teach us vibrate with intensity. Many encouraging Cézanne to paint something.” Often that other Impressionist painters from nature and providing “something” was to see a used contrasting colors to emotional support. Still, scene from different points of describe the play of light on Cézanne grew disillusioned view. Like his fellow the surfaces of forms. with Impressionism, Impressionists, Cézanne was Cézanne often used colors to distrusted fellow artists, and intrigued by the optic articulate the forms and the refused to exhibit with the sciences. Notice how he composition. For instance, in group after their second distorted perspec-tive in this this painting the arrangement show. “I wanted to make of painting by showing the of the three pears on the right Impressionism something tabletop parallel to the picture and the three pears on the solid and enduring, like the frame on the right, but pulled plate is emphasized by bits of art in museums,” he once away from the wall on the black and contrasted with the said. 21 Looking Questions · What is a still life? Why · Are there any colors that painting? Why do you would someone paint a surprise you? think the artist chose to still life? · What circular shapes do use yellow? · Does this painting seem you see? What do the · What shapes did he radical to you in any circular shapes represent? choose to repeat? way? · Where do you see · Do some of the objects · Discuss Cézanne’s triangles? have similar colors? choice of objects. Do · Straight lines? Curvy some of them seem odd lines? or distorted? · Where do you see the color yellow in the Activities glued to another piece of Math or Science paper. After that, the students The Arts Name at least three geometric write descriptions of each First, place a sheet of clear solids or flat shapes object around the outline of plastic over the transparency represented in this the cut-out shape. This way, and draw the basic geometric composition. How many the students will have a shapes of the still life. shapes or forms appear to be written and visual description Cézanne said he wanted to touching each other? How of the objects. “treat nature by the cylinder, many are overlapping? the sphere, the cone.” Set up Carefully copy at least two Social Studies a still life of objects with different shapes by drawing The artist Paul Cézanne has simple shapes like soft drink their outlines on a piece of moved through a time cans or bottles and a bowl of paper and cutting them out. machine to be the art teacher fruit on a cafeteria tray. Ask See if someone else can find for the class. The students the students to draw from it. which ones you copied. have the opportunity to ask Challenge your students to Cézanne questions about the simplify the image by Language Arts choices he made as an artist. drawing only three- Discuss the definition of still What questions are they dimensional geometric life with your students. Then, curious about? Write down a shapes. tell them to “write a still few questions after reading life.” Each student lists their the information and looking favorite personal objects and at the transparency draws their outlines. Next, the objects are cut out and

22 Lesson #7

Vincent van Gogh (van-GO) Dutch, 1853-1890 Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887 Oil on pasteboard 16 x 12 3/4 in.

Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Image: © Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation), Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Subject Van Gogh is dressed in the he wrote. “To express the “Ah! Portraiture, portraiture yellow straw hat and work thought of a brow by the with the thoughts, the soul of coat of the peasant laborer, an radiance of a light tone the model in it,” Vincent van often-worn costume befitting against a somber Gogh exclaimed to his art- his self-image as a working background.” dealer brother, Theo. Van man’s artist. Gogh’s compassionate heart Artist and interest in individual Style The son of a Dutch character - plus the wish of Vincent van Gogh came to clergyman, van Gogh tried this lonely man to know Impressionism late, as many and failed at dealing art, himself and others - find of the movement’s founders teaching, and religious expression in his portraits. took other paths. He evangelism before turning to Van Gogh was probably embraced their palette of drawing and painting at age more interested in the human lighter colors over the dark, twenty-seven. He was a self- face than other heavy forms of his early taught and virtually un- Impressionists, whom he work. Notice how the daubs noticed painter who sold only encountered for the first time of paint change direction to one artwork during his in 1886. The artist painted express different forms and lifetime. Soon after finishing twenty-two self-portraits textures in the face. The blue- Self-Portrait with a Straw while living with his brother stroked background contrasts Hat, van Gogh left the bustle in Paris from 1886-1888. vividly with the yellows in of Paris for the south of Later ones, like this Self- the head. Van Gogh delighted France. There he sought the Portrait with a Straw Hat, in color and studied its direct inspiration of nature reveal the artist’s crumbling combinations all his life. “I and the color, light, and health. The three-quarter am always in hope of making natural forms he admired in profile, deep shadows, and a discovery there, to express Japanese prints. tight mouth suggest a man the love of two lovers by a Unfortunately, his attacks of suffering physical and wedding of two comple- mental illness continued, and, emotional stress. A haunted mentary colors, their at the age of thirty-seven, he gaze from one blue and one mingling and their opposi- took his own life. green eye both pleads for our tion, the mysterious help and pushes us away. vibrations of kindred tones,” 23 Looking Questions · Describe with words short brushstrokes of the · What is the focal point? the different ways painting. Why? lines are used in this · How does the artist · What colors are the eyes? painting. show shadows? · How would the painting be · Next, ask students to · How does the artist different if van Gogh were answer without words show the contours of the directly facing the viewer? by using their hands face? only. Have them · Where are primary pretend to use their colors used? hands to paint the Activities painting is 16x12 inches, as blue as the deep blue what is the price per square velvet night sky.” The Arts inch? If the movie runs 187 Ask the students to pretend minutes, what is the price per Social Studies that they are the artist, van minute? Should size or length Vincent van Gogh and his Gogh, in this picture. Have factor in determining the cost brother Theo had a close and them explain what kind of of a work of art? If the supportive relationship. day they had when they students had the opportunity When they were adults, Theo painted this picture. How did to own the original van Gogh supported Vincent financially they feel? How would they painting, or the movie and emotionally. Vincent describe the clothes they Titanic, would they spend the even lived with his brother were wearing? Have them money on the painting or the for a while. Theo managed a then create their own self- movie rights? Why? Parisian art firm. He portraits. Use the same size introduced Vincent to paper as the painting, 16 x 12 Language Arts Impressionist artists such as 3/4 inches, and use oil pastels The artist Vincent van Gogh Gauguin and Degas. Have and watercolors. Discuss was intrigued by the concept your students find examples costume, color, line, and of painting portraits and self- of supportive relationships in mood. How do these portraits. When he lived in recent newspapers. Perhaps elements affect the painting? Paris, he painted twenty-two they will find articles about portraits in less than two teachers who helped their Math or Science weeks. He carefully selected students, sisters or brothers Your students are all colors for their potential to that helped each other, or multimillionaires. They have convey feeling and heroes that sacrificed their just learned that this painting expression, in addition to a own security to help others. by van Gogh recently sold for convincing representation. Ask them to write an essay fifty million dollars to a Have the students write a about supportiveness and private investor. They have a self-portrait, using only encouragement with several chance to bid on the rights to words to describe their examples. the movie Titanic. They also personality, moods, and have a chance to acquire the facial features. Have them original of this van Gogh use several descriptive colors painting. If each costs exactly from the color wheel. For fifty million dollars, and this instance, “Sometimes I feel

24 Lesson #8

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (ren-WHAR) French, 1841-1919 Woman Playing a Guitar, 1896-97 Oil on canvas 31 7/8 x 25 5/8 in.

Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France. Image: © Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, Lyon, France

Impressionists. In terms of Subject review, the Folies-Bergères. composition, the woman, Julie Manet, daughter of The artist also loved the chair, and guitar are painted Impressionist Berthe Morisot enchanting lute players of to emphasize and repeat and Èdouard Manet’s brother, 18th-century French painting voluptuous curves. The Eugène, was charmed to and, especially, the women curves in the foreground are discover this painting in playing musical instruments anchored in space by the progress in Renoir’s studio. by 19th-century painter Jean- crisp verticals and horizontals “He’s doing some ravishing Baptiste-Camille Corot. of the background. things with a guitar;” she Renoir’s career veered from wrote, “a woman with a the Impressionist’s contemporary Paris life, and Artist white muslin dress, held by The son of a tailor, Pierre- pink bows, leans gracefully the modern dress worn by his earlier models. This guitar- Auguste Renoir studied with over a large brown guitar, Monet at the classical Ècole with her feet on a yellow player wears a simple, white costume. The solid, triangular des Beaux-Arts. As an cushion... It’s all colored, Impressionist, he painted soft, delicious.” Julie composition recalls the monumental figures of human figures enjoying provides a perfect description modern pastimes in light- of this work, which captures classical painters Titian and Rubens centuries earlier. filled gardens, outdoor a contemplative moment. restaurants, and cafes. Soft Julie no doubt saw other brushstrokes and luminous paintings from this series of Style color characterize his work. men and women playing the Color and composition make “For me a picture should be a guitar, done late in Renoir’s a dramatic impact in this pleasant thing, joyful and career. The subject may have painting. Notice the variety pretty - yes pretty!” he said. appealed to the artist for of colors in the skin and Later in life, he favored the several reasons. Maybe the dress: warm yellow-gray and more conservative subjects, guitarists were successors to pink tones where the figure solid figures, and centered Renoir’s earlier paintings of catches the light, and cool compositions of earlier, young women playing the blue-gray and green shades in academic art. Like fellow piano. Or perhaps he was the shadows. Rich and artists Monet and Cassatt, he inspired by the seductive glowing, the color harmonies wondered if the Spanish dancer “la Belle capture the play of light and Impressionists’ views of a Otero,” who performed with shadow that so interested the fleeting moment in modern Paris’s famous entertainment 25 life would interest future generations. Looking Questions · This painting shows us a · Where do you see woman playing a guitar curving lines? as she sits on a cushioned · What color are the chair. Describe the shadows? furnishings that you see. · What is the focal point of · What shapes and colors this painting? are repeated in this · How did the artist image? indicate the focal point? Activities student that says the number surrounding the creation of must point out where the this painting. The Arts bows are. If they can identify Ask the students to draw one that number of bows, they Social Studies of their hands. Try drawing win that question. Repeat this The woman in this painting is the hand alone, and then process with the following playing a guitar, which is a depict it holding a pencil or things: circles, rectangles, hobby or leisure-time paint brush. Have them use straight lines, and curvy lines. activity. List other late 19th- chalks or pastels and include The right answer is not the century, leisure-time all of the colors that are in main goal of the game. The activities by looking at the their skin. Consider the pose goal is to get the students to other transparencies. or position. Does it look observe the painting closely. Compare and contrast them forceful or gentle? What to the leisure-time activities colors did they use? Language Arts of present day. List the Have the students pretend similarities and differences. Math or Science they are either the musician How accurately did the artist Many things are repeated in in this painting or the artist depict the guitar and its this painting. Play a counting who is creating the painting. playing? Check with the game with your students to Then, have them create a guitarists in the class. see how many things are diary as if they were one of repeated. Ask how many these people. Have them bows they see. The first describe the moments

26 Lesson #9 Edgar Degas (duh-GAH) French, 1834-1917 Before the Performance, about 1896-98 Oil on paper laid on canvas 18 3/4 x 24 3/4 in.

National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland. Image: © National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland

Subject Style pastel that inspired this Before the Performance The artist was fascinated by painting. depicts a favorite Degas the succession of movements subject, an off-guard moment and gestures - one reason, no Artist in the life of the Paris ballet doubt, that he painted dancers Edgar Degas was born to an dancer. As the last minutes to in so many positions. He affluent Parisian banking curtain time tick by, these liked the artistic tension of family and briefly studied little “rats” (a common arms and legs straining and law before turning to art. nickname for the company’s twisting at odd angles, Although a founding member adolescent dancers) apparent in the two dancers of the Impressionist group daydream, gossip, and adjust on the right of this painting. exhibitions, Degas never their costumes. By the 1890s, The figure bisected by the really thought of himself as Degas had little need to sell picture frame (left) and the an Impressionist. He had his work, thanks to earlier slash of trees across the received academic art commercial success and background show the training. He worked more inherited wealth. He was able influence of photography on realistically than the other to take more risks artistically, Degas’ compositions. Some Impressionists for much of as demonstrated in the photographs capture unusual, his career. His drawing skills, moodiness of this painting. spontaneous compositions obvious in the clear, Notice how the dancers’ with figures, and objects deliberate lines around his faces are blank and cropped off rather than whole painting subjects, also set expressionless; they stand to within the image. Blurred him apart from Monet, the rear of the picture space, edges and delicate Renoir, Sisley, and many as if alienated from the application of paint give the others. Unlike his fellow viewer. The artist no longer painting a two-dimensional, Impressionists, who were tried to render his subjects’ decorative feeling remini- criticized for sloppy feelings. “They call me the scent of the Japanese prints brushwork and lack of finish, painter of dancers,” Degas so popular at the time. Degas Degas was sometimes said, “without understanding also used more brilliant, questioned for the “low-life” that for me the dancer has expressive colors than in subjects he painted been the pretext for painting earlier works. The orange obsessively: laundresses, beautiful fabrics and tutus are a soft smudge of dancers, and street women. In rendering movement.” paint, resembling the original later life, the artist moved away from realism toward a

27 looser style that would painters. This looser style was due, in part, to his failing inspire a new generation of eyesight.

Looking Questions

· Squint your eyes and · What did the artist crop describe the colors, or cut off at the edges of · Imagine that all the shapes, and patterns that this painting? dancers were wearing you see. · Cover the bottom third of pink instead of yellow · Where is the source of the transparency. How and orange. How would light? does it change? it change the mood of the · Name the colors that are · Cover all of the painting? repeated. transparency except one · What complementary of the dancers. What did colors do you see? the artist choose to simplify or eliminate? Activities be taken instead. The Social Studies The Arts computer was invented in the This painting has several Look at all the different middle of the 20th century. colors, like buttery yellows positions the dancers’ bodies What new kinds of art has the and peachy oranges. Write a take in the painting. Recruit a computer influenced or recipe for this painting. few willing students to pose enabled? Ask the students to Include measurements, all the in the same positions the write an essay about these ingredients you can find, the dancers took while the artist, two inventions and their time to prepare, and any Edgar Degas, sketched, impact on the world of art. special “cooking” or photographed, or painted “viewing/consuming” them. The rest of the students Language Arts instructions. Write another will sketch a series of quick Have the students compose a recipe for one of the other drawings capturing the story describing the move- transparencies (maybe the movement and gesture of the ments of the dancers in the other Degas) and see if body rather than making it painting. List words that someone else can guess anatomically correct. Use describe the dancers’ actions. which recipe matches each charcoal crayons or soft What happened after the image. For example: “You pencils for this exercise. moment you see in the will need orange, yellow, image? The title of the brown, black, white, and Math or Science painting is Before the green paint. Mix paint to One influence on Performance. Have the taste. Apply paint liberally to Impressionist painting was students write what they background, foreground, and the invention of the camera in imagine the performance dancers’ costumes and the middle of the 19th would be like. sparingly to bodies and faces. century. There was no longer Sprinkle white paint to a need to paint a person or garnish. Enjoy this satisfying event with complete accuracy painting again and again!” because a photograph could

28 stronger. For example, red strengthens green, blue strengthens orange, and yellow Glossary strengthens violet. Academy or Academic art - Art created according to the prescriptions of the official composition - The combination of elements academies of painting and sculpture which in a painting or other work of art that provides flourished in Europe from the 17th to the 19th order or structure to the scene. centuries. French Academic art of the late 19th century was characterized by idealized cool color - A color that suggests sensations mythological or historical subject matter, of coolness, such as blue or its associated mixed, modulated colors, and a smooth, hues, blue-green, and blue-violet. In painting, highly polished finish. cool colors appear to recede from the picture plane and therefore suggest depth. background - The surface or area against which objects are seen or represented. dandy - A man who affects extreme elegance in clothes and manners. Barbizon School - A group of French flâneur (Fr.) - This French word describes an painters who, from about 1830 to 1870, lived idler or stroller. in or near the town of Barbizon, at the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau in France. There focal point - The area in a pictorial they painted the animals, landscapes, and composition to which the eye returns most people of the region. The group was naturally. distinguished by painting outdoors rather than in studios, as had generally been the practice. foreground - The part of a picture or view The work of the Barbizon painters included a depicted as nearest to the viewer. wider scope of subject matter, greater realism, and fresher color than that of the other French horizon line - In linear perspective, the line painters of the time, who followed the where sky and earth seem to meet. It is on this traditions of historical scenes and idealized line that the vanishing point is located. style favored by the conservative French Academy. The Barbizon painters are Japonisme (Fr.) - The widespread interest in considered by many as the precursors of all things Japanese - art, furnishings, costume, Impressionism in their informality and etc. - in France after the opening of Japan to insistence on naturalness rather than idealism. Western trade in 1854. The color harmonies, simple designs, asymmetrical compositions, color wheel - Conventional means of and flat forms of Japanese wood block prints arranging the primary colors (blue, red, and strongly influenced Impressionist and Post- yellow), their principal mixtures or secondary Impressionist art. colors (orange, green, and violet), and other principal mixtures or hues, so as to landscape - A landscape is a view or vista of demonstrate their sequential relationship. natural scenery on land, or a representation, Colors that fall directly opposite one another especially painting, of the outdoors. in the color circle are called complementary colors. linear perspective - Uses real or suggested lines converging on a vanishing point or complementary color - A primary color points on the horizon line or at eye level, and whose placement opposite the secondary color linking receding planes as they converge. It produced by the other two primaries on the provides a three-dimensional world on a two- color circle makes it seem brighter or dimensional surface. 29 middle ground - The part of a picture or view provenance - The record of all known depicted as the middle to the viewer. previous ownership and locations of a work of art. one-point perspective - Linear perspective in which the eye is drawn towards a single The Salon - An official French exhibition of vanishing point in the center of the paintings was first held in 1667 under royal composition, usually on the horizon line. patronage in the Salon d’Apollon in the Synonym: centralized perspective. Louvre. From 1667 to 1737 the exhibit was held annually; from 1737 to the French optical mixtures - Pure primary colors used Revolution it was held biannually. After the in small touches in close juxtaposition so that French Revolution (1789-99), the Salon took they seem to merge, producing secondary place once again annually. It continued to be colors. This effect was used in Impressionist officially administered until 1881, when the art. government withdrew. In that year a committee of ninety artists, elected by all who outline - In drawing, an imaginary line which had exhibited in previous Salons, met to set marks the boundary of an object or figure, up the Soc?ti? Nationale des Beaux-Arts. without taking into consideration light, shade, This organization held an annual exhibition of internal modeling, or color. its own from 1880 onwards. overlap - To extend over and cover part of. self-portrait - An artistic image of the artist, especially one showing the face. palette - 1. A portable tray (usually made of wood) on which an artist sets out his colors still life - A painting of objects. and also mixes them. 2. By extension, the choice of colors seen in his or her work. underpainting - In traditional oil painting, the process of painting the canvas in a neutral perspective - The method of representing a color as a first step in the development of three-dimensional object, or a particular tonal values and of the composition as a volume of space, on a flat or nearly flat whole. surface. vanishing point - In perspective, the point (en) plein air painting - 1. Painted out of towards which a set of lines, which are in doors. The practice may have been initiated reality parallel to each other, seem to by François Desportes in the early 18th converge. century but was made a matter of doctrine by the Impressionists. 2. Sometimes incorrectly warm color - A color which suggests applied to landscapes painted in the studio sensations of warmness, such as red or which employ such a direct technique that yellow. they seem to have been done out of doors. Warm colors tend to project from the picture plane. primary colors - Blue, yellow, and red. The colors from which all others are derived, and which cannot be resolved or decomposed into Resource for art terms: Lucie-Smith, Edward. The other colors. Thames and Hudson Dictionary of Art Terms. London, 1984. Most of the definitions in the glossary are from this dictionary.

30 briefly examines his life and influences and Selected has many reproductions of his works. Bibliography & Skira-Venturi, Rosabianca. A Weekend with Van Gogh. New York: Rizzoli, 1993. It Resources for briefly examines his life and influences and Educators has many reproductions of his works. Welton, Jude. Monet. [Eyewitness Art series]. London: D. Kindersley/The Musée Books Marmottan, Paris, 1992. This book uses the same format for each artist with many Children reproductions, details, and text.

Bjork, Christina and Anderson, Lena. Linnea Welton, Jude. Impressionism. [Eyewitness Art in Monet’s Garden. Stockholm: R & S Books, series]. New York: D. Kindersley/The Art 1987. This is a story of a little girl’s interest in Institute of Chicago, 1993. This book Monet and her visit to Monet’s home. combines biography and artistic analysis with photos of selected works. It has many detailed Muhlberger, Richard. What Makes a Degas a reproductions. Degas? New York: Viking/Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. The book explores Adults such art topics as style, composition, color, and subject matter as they relate to twelve Bade, Patrick. Degas: The Masterworks. New works by Degas. York: Portland House, 1991. The author outlines Degas’ life, influences, and works Muhlberger, Richard. What Makes a Monet a and contains many color reproductions with Monet? New York: Viking/Metropolitan commentary. Museum of Art, 1993. The book explores such art topics as style, composition, color, Denvir, Bernard. The Impressionists at First and subject matter as they relate to twelve Hand [World of Art series]. New York: works by Monet. Thames and Hudson, 1987. This paperback book has first hand accounts by Impressionist Muhlberger, Richard. What Makes a Van artists and writers about their lives. Gogh a Van Gogh? New York: Viking/ Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. The book de la Faille, J.B. The Works of Vincent van explores such art topics as style, composition, Gogh: His Paintings and Drawings. color, and subject matter as they relate to Amsterdam: Reynal and Co./Wm. Morrow, twelve works by van Gogh. 1970. Described as the ÒdefinitiveÓ catalog of van Gogh’s work, and the only book that Salvi, Francesco. The Impressionists: The contains reproductions of all of his known Origin of Modern Painting. [Masters of Arts paintings and drawings. Series]. New York: Peter Bedrich Boales, 1994. The book includes information on Lloyd, Christopher. Pissarro. New York: individual artists, list of key dates, historical Phaidon, 1979. Forty-eight full-color plates background, and nice illustrations. with commentary and analysis.

Skira-Venturi, Rosabianca. A Weekend with Moffet, Charles S., Benson, Ruth and Renoir. New York: Rizzoli, 1991. The book Wiseman, Fronia E. The New Painting: Impressionism 1874-1886. Seattle: R. Barton 31 distributors for the United States and Canada, Videos The University of Washington Press, ©1986, 1989. This catalogue provides an overview of the paintings in the Impressionist exhibition. Children

Nunhead, Nancy. Claude Monet. London: Linnea in Monet’s Garden. The Linnea Park Lane, 1994. Nunhead briefly introduces Swedish Film Institute, Feature Institute Monet’s life and the development of his work Nordic Film, and TV Fund, 1993. This is a with over ninety large, full-color plates. 30-minute story of a little girl’s interest in Monet and her visit to Monet’s home. Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. New York Graphic Society Boston/The Adults Museum of Modern Art, New York, Fourth revised edition, 1973. The 672-page book has An Age of Reason, An Age of Passion: A 623 illustrations, and is a comprehensive Fresh View, Impressionism and Post- reference. Impressionism. Produced by WNET, New York. West Long Romano, Eileen. The Impressionists Their Branch, NJ: Kultur, 1989. This two-part video Lives, Their World, and Their Paintings. New series was presented by PBS and is 114 York: Penguin Studio, 1997. This book is a minutes long. concise introduction to Impressionism including the historical context. The Landscape of Pleasure. Written and presented by Robert Hughes, The Ambrose Stuckey, Charles. Berthe Morisot, video publishers, New York, 1988. The Shock Impressionist. New York: Hudson Hills Press, of The New series explains the basics of 1987. It has biographical information and Impressionism in 52 minutes. many full-color reproductions. Monet, a Legacy of Light. Boston WGBH by White, Barbara Ehrlich. Renoir, His Life, Art Public Media Home Vision, 1989. It is a 30- and Letters. Harry N. Abrams, Inc. minute introduction to MonetÕs life and art. Publishers, New York. 1984. The book has detailed information; 391 illustrations. Web Sites

White, Barbara Ehrlich. Impressionists Side The Claude Monet Home Page by Side: Their Friendships, Rivalries and www.columbia.edu/~jns16/ Artistic Exchanges. New York: Knopf, 1996. monet_html/monet.html White focuses on seven pairs of artists: Degas This is an introduction to Monet with and Manet, Monet and Renoir, Cézanne and biographical information and an overview of Pissarro, Manet and Morisot, Cassatt and Impressionism. Discussion of Monet’s Degas, Morisot and Renoir, Cassatt and methods and techniques, formal and thematic Morisot. She compares their treatment of analysis of one of his works. Bibliography is identical subjects using reproductions, and provided. Some sections are all text. It has text. great reproductions and links to other sites.

Varnedoe, Kirk. Gustave Caillebotte. New Impressionism: Paintings Collected by Haven and London: Yale University Press, European Museums 1987. The book has biographical data, his www.Impressionism.org working methods, characteristic themes, color This site, created for this exhibition, has reproductions, and a selection of critical activities for teachers and families, essays on responses. 32 the artists, and images of many paintings in This site (Sun Site Aalborg University, the exhibition. Denmark) has extensive information about the Impressionist artists, links to biographical Inside Art: An Adventure information with pictures of the artists and in Art History their works. An example is the site for Alfred www.eduweb.com/insideart/ Sisley: index.html http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/ This is a great activity page for kids. There is paint/auth/sisley/ also a link to teacher resources. There is a biography, description of techniques, and color photos of his works. WebMuseum Impressionism http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/ paint/glo/impressionism/

33 Chiyo Ishikawa, Curator of European Painting Credits and Special at the Seattle Art Museum for their assistance. Thanks Thanks also to Stacy Harnew, Head of School Programs; Lisa Rothstein, School Programs This Resource packet has been developed by Assistant; Phaedra Siebert, Curatorial the Denver Art Museum in conjunction with Assistant, European Art; H. Nichols B. Clark, the exhibition, Impressionism: paintings Eleanor McDonald Storza Chair of Education; Collected by European Museum. David Brenneman, Frances B. Bunzl Family Curator of European Art at the High Museum Project Coordinator: Sarah Hyde-Koenig of Art for their suggestions. The on-line Editor: Molly Squibb version of this resource packet was made Designer: Joan Pacos possible by funding from the Center for Western European Studies, Henry M. Jackson Teacher Advisors: Sharon Rouse and Penny School for International Studies, University of Selle Washington.

Melora McDermott-Lewis, Master Teacher Seattle Art Museum on-line production for American and European Art; Timothy crew: Kathleen Peckham Allen, Museum Standring, Gates Foundation Curator of Educator for School and Teacher Programs; Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the Christina DePaolo, Promotions and Web Site Berger Collection; Maria Garcia, Family and Manager; Scott Nacke, Operations Assistant; Kids Programs Coordinator; and Marilyn Jill Rullkoetter, Kayla Skinner Director of Knox, Docent at the Denver Art Museum for Education and Public Programs; and Joe their knowledge and advice. Shuster, Chief of Information Technology.

Special Thanks to: Special Thanks to: Thanks to Kathleen Peckham Allen, Museum Linnea Harwell, Sarah Hyde-Koeing and Joan Educator for School and Teacher Programs; Pacos. Jill Rullkoetter, Kayla Skinner Director of Education and Public Programs; and

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