Introduction Introduction Sterling and Francine clark art inStitute | WilliamStoWn, massachuSettS NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPEAN PAINTINGS diStributed by yale univerSity Press | NeW haven and london AT THE STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE VOLUME TWO Edited by Sarah Lees With an essay by Richard Rand and technical reports by Sandra L. Webber With contributions by Katharine J. Albert, Philippe Bordes, Dan Cohen, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Alexis Goodin, Marc Gotlieb, John House, Simon Kelly, Richard Kendall, Kathleen M. Morris, Leslie Hill Paisley, Kelly Pask, Elizabeth A. Pergam, Kathryn A. Price, Mark A. Roglán, James Rosenow, Zoë Samels, and Fronia E. Wissman 4 5 Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Francine Clark Art Institute is published with the assistance of the Getty Foundation and support from the National Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Endowment for the Arts. Nineteenth-century European paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute / edited by Sarah Lees ; with an essay by Richard Rand and technical reports by Sandra L. Webber ; with contributions by Katharine J. Albert, Philippe Bordes, Dan Cohen, Kathryn Calley Galitz, Alexis Goodin, Marc Gotlieb, John House, Simon Kelly, Richard Kendall, Kathleen M. Morris, Leslie Hill Paisley, Kelly Pask, Elizabeth A. Produced by the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute Pergam, Kathryn A. Price, Mark A. Roglán, James Rosenow, 225 South Street, Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267 Zoë Samels, Fronia E. Wissman. www.clarkart.edu volumes cm Includes bibliographical references and index. Curtis R. Scott, Director of Publications ISBN 978-1-935998-09-9 (clark hardcover : alk. paper) — and Information Resources ISBN 978-0-300-17965-1 (yale hardcover : alk. paper) Dan Cohen, Special Projects Editor 1. Painting, European—19th century—Catalogs. 2. Painting— Katherine Pasco Frisina, Production Editor Massachusetts—Williamstown—Catalogs. 3. Sterling and Anne Roecklein, Managing Editor Francine Clark Art Institute—Catalogs. I. Lees, Sarah, editor Michael Agee, Photographer of compilation. II. Rand, Richard. III. Webber, Sandra L. IV. Title. Laurie Glover, Visual Resources V. Title: 19th-century European paintings at the Sterling and Julie Walsh, Program Assistant Francine Clark Art Institute. Mari Yoko Hara and Michelle Noyer-Granacki, ND457.S74 2012 Publications Interns 759.9409’0340747441—dc23 2012030510 Designed by Susan Marsh Composed in Meta by Matt Mayerchak Copyedited by Sharon Herson Details: Bibliography edited by Sophia Wagner-Serrano title page: Camille Pissarro, The Louvre from the Pont Neuf Index by Kathleen M. Friello (cat. 253) Proofread by June Cuff ner opposite copyright page: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Production by The Production Department, Jane Avril (cat. 331) Whately, Massachusetts preceding page 474: Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Onions (cat. 280) Printed on 135 gsm Gardapat Kiara pages 890–91: Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Women of Color separations and printing by Trifolio, Verona Amphissa (cat. 3) © 2012 Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers. Distributed by Yale University Press, New Haven and London P. O. Box 209040, New Haven, Connecticut 06520-9040 www.yalebooks.com/art Printed and bound in Italy 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Claude Monet menting with pictures of the cathedral made in the 229 | ​Rouen Cathedral, the Façade in Sunlight open air, he also varied his practice by executing the c. 1892–94 remainder of the canvases indoors, from a succession of premises overlooking the western façade. His deci- Oil on canvas, 106.7 x 73.7 cm sion to produce a sequence of paintings of a single, Lower right: Claude Monet 94 massively dominant motif, from what was virtually the Acquired in memory of Anne Strang Baxter same viewpoint, was without substantial precedent in 1967.1 his oeuvre.6 Far from hampering his creativity, however, these constraints seemed to intensify his involvement Completed in the final years of the nineteenth century, with a limited range of concerns: the changing light this painting is one of the most radical, forward-looking on the Gothic structure; his own shifting moods and works at the Clark and is arguably among the culminat- perceptions as the days passed; and the challenge of ing achievements of late Impressionism. Monet first translating these phenomena into paint. exhibited twenty pictures from his “series” of Rouen Again departing from his previous initiatives, the Cathedral in 1895, when they were immediately per- Rouen cycle did not emerge gradually from Monet’s ceived in extreme terms. For Georges Clemenceau, recent work, but was seemingly prompted by a chance writing on the front page of the newspaper La Justice, confluence of events.7 From the beginning, how- they represented “a moment for art . a moment for ever, he grasped the subject’s potential, becoming mankind . a revolution without gunfire,” while the exhilarated by its visual richness and appalled by its more cautious Camille Mauclair regarded the choice of demands: “The cathedral in sunshine is admirable,” subject as “disturbing” and “a bit offensive.” 1 Cited by he wrote to Alice Hoschedé on 25 February, adding, later generations alongside the precursors of abstract “What a task this cathedral is! It’s terrible, and I truly and gestural art, the Cathedrals remained controver- hope that there won’t be too many changes in the sial for many decades.2 For those astute admirers of weather.” 8 In the same letter he mentioned two new Monet’s early and middle years, Sterling and Francine paintings begun that very day, and on later occasions Clark, the serial images of the 1890s appear to have noted progress on nine and then fourteen separate ver- marked the limit of their taste.3 It was eleven years sions in a single session, as he labored from “seven after the founding of the Clark that Rouen Cathedral, in the morning to six-thirty in the evening, standing all the Façade in Sunlight was acquired for the collection, the time.” 9 Based in the city and less than eighty kilo- under the directorship of George Heard Hamilton, a meters (fifty miles) from his Giverny studio, Monet had pioneer scholar of early modernism. easy access to materials and equipment, and would The circumstances in which Monet’s cathedral eventually tackle approximately thirty canvases, most pictures were painted have often been described, but of them in a vertical format and closely similar in size.10 less frequently considered in terms of their practical This consistency further underlines the focused nature consequences for images like the Clark canvas. By of his new enterprise and perhaps points to a grander 1891, the artist had carried his engagement with the ambition for the cycle. On 29 February, he left Rouen to landscape to a new level of sophistication in two series install fifteen of his Poplars at the Durand-Ruel gallery of variants, the Grainstacks and the Poplars, which he in Paris, barely lingering for the enthusiastic reception self-consciously displayed as groups in 1891 and 1892, they received before returning to the Cathedrals. The respectively.4 The climax of almost thirty years of first- freshly drafted paintings in Rouen may already have hand study of rustic themes, these works were summa- suggested themselves for a future exhibition and rized as “luminous” and “masterful” by his colleague were perhaps designed to this end from their incep- Camille Pissarro, while friendly critics such as Gustave tion; where the Poplars varied considerably in scale Geffroy extolled their poetic responsiveness to nature and shape, the nearly identical-sized Cathedrals would at different times of the day.5 When Monet began the allow for more direct comparison and would heighten Rouen sequence in February 1892, he heightened the character of the suite as a continuous experience. some of these characteristics and abandoned others. Rouen Cathedral, the Façade in Sunlight belongs to Unexpectedly turning his back on the countryside, he one of three subsets of the larger series, each defined now chose to paint a large, historic building at the by its composition and its subtly distinct framing of center of a bustling modern city. After briefly experi- the motif.11 In effect, Monet concentrated on a trio of 541 picturesque surroundings, Monet cropped the forms of the great church along the sides of his rectangle and showed the narrow strip of street at the lower edge devoid of worshipers or pedestrians. Allusions to the human were thus largely removed, as he had implicitly excluded nature when he began the project.15 Characteristically, Monet did not offer explana- tions for his prolonged attention to the Rouen Cathe- dral façade. In contrast to the series of Grainstacks and Poplars, however, which were painted close to his home, the emergence of this new sequence was illumi- nated by almost daily letters written from Rouen to his family in Giverny. Early in March 1892, he announced, “I’m hard at work, I’m taking great pains and think only of my Cathedrals,” insisting that “I have a clear view of what I’m doing.” 16 He often despaired of making progress and expressed anxiety about the conditions outside his window, telling Alice that “the barome- ter is dropping” and noting “a moon surrounded by a huge double halo, which is a bad sign.” 17 At least some of his pictures were associated with specific reg- isters of light—he referred, for example, to two or three canvases of “gray weather” and to “the two gold and red motifs”—and he feared disaster if the climate was uncooperative: “a few more days of this beautiful sun- Fig.