Annotated Mona Lisa, The - Strickland, Carol.original_ [73]
Monet, “Impression: Sunrise,” 1872, Musée Marmottan, Paris. In 1874 Degas, Sisley, Pissarro, Morisot, Renoir, and Monet, among others, mounted their first group exhibition, which included “Impression: Sunrise. ” This painting earned the group the name “Impressionists,” coined by a critic as a derogotory slur on the “unfinished” nature of the work. (The term “impression” had before been used to denote a rapid, sketchlike treatment or first intuitive response to a subject.) Here Monet’s blobs and streaks of color indicating ripples and boats at dawn were the finished painting. The name stuck.
HOW TO TELL THEM APART
It doesn’t help that Manet’s and Monet’s names are almost identical or that the whole group often painted the same scenes in virtually indistinguishable canvases. First impressions can be deceiving, however. Basic differences are just as striking as the similarities.
Manet, “Bar at the Folies-Bergère,” 1882, Courtauld Institute, London.
Monet, “Rouen Cathedral,” 1892-94, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Renoir, “Le Moulin de la Galette,” 1876, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Degas, “Prima Ballerina,” c. 1876, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
LANDMARK PAINTINGS IN ART HISTORY
Certain paintings altered the course of Western art, signaling a profound shift from one style to the next. These seminal works not only kicked off a revolution in how painters saw art, they changed the way people thought about the world.
Each of these groundbreaking paintings seemed radical in its day. Most provoked howls of outrage from conservatives. Now, however, they’ve become part of yesterday’s tradition that new artists defy in even more controversial gestures of independence. “All profoundly original art, ” said critic Clement Greenberg, “looks ugly at first. ”
Caravaggio, “Conversion of St. Paul,” c. 1601, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome. In his strongly lit, realistically painted figures, Caravaggio rejected Renaissance-idealized beauty and Mannerist artificiality. He introduced everyday reolity into art, engaging the viewer’s emotions through thrusting compositions and dramatic shadows. Although Caravaggio worked only twelve years, he revolutionized Western painting, portraying old subjects in completely new ways and ushering in the theatrical Baroque Age.
Manet, “Le Déjeuner sur l‘herbe,” 1863, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Monet shattered tradition by painting female nudes as contemporary human beings, not idealized goddesses, and by abandoning academic chiaroscuro for bold light-dark contrasts. By repudiating the allegorical Salon style, he brought painting into the modern world of real life.
Giotto, “Noli me tangere,” 1305-6, Arena Chapel, Padua. Giotto founded the Western tradition in painting when he broke away from stylized, Byzantine figures for a more three-dimensional style and convincing sense of space. Giotto’s natural style, coupled with the Renaissance mastery of anatomy and perspective, was the cornerstone of Western art until the twentieth century.
David, “Oath of the Horatii,” 1784, Louvre, Paris. David’s austere, tout composition marked the end of fluffy, frivolous Rococo art. Henceforth, Neoclassical art, with its revival of interest in antiquity and morality and its rational sense of order, dominated.
Picasso, “Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon,” 1907, MoMA, NY. In this transitional painting on the brink of Cubism, Picasso exploded traditional ideas of beauty, perspective, anatomy, and color. He replaced the appearance-based style that had reigned since the Renaissance with an intellectual structure that existed only in his mind — the most important turning point in the development of no-holds-barred Contemporary art.
Géricault, “The Raft of the Medusa,” 1818-19,