For those who follow this blog and my quilt blog, you will know that I LOVE Monet. When this new exhibit was announced, I instantly wanted to see it and cannot believe it has taken me two months to do so. At any rate, today is the day and you know the drill - I'm going to educate you against your will as this is how I remember and learn. If you only wish to look at the pics - go for it - they are amazing and these are some of the greatest artists in my humble opinion. It is the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition and this is a fitting celebration for it. The core members of the Impressionist movement included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Berthe Morisot. They set the foundation which following generations of avant-garde artists reacted, from Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh to Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. Come along with me today and see how many you recognize BEFORE reading to see. I'll place the pictures first this time.
So - how did it all get started? In 1874 an artist's collective that called itself the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, Etc. opened the first of what became eight group shows held over the course of twelve years. The participants in each exhibition varied, and, beyond a shared rejection of artistic tradition, so did their subjects and approaches. What unified these independent artists we now call the Impressionists was the desire to publicly exhibit their work. Read that again --- all they wanted to do was exhibit. Seems innocuous enough. However, the only public exhibition venue for living artists in 19th-century Paris was the annual Salon organized and juried by the state-run Academy of Fine Arts. Artists who diverged from Academic tradition (the styles and subject matter favored by the Academy) frequently experienced rejection and were left with no other avenues to garner critical and financial success. By organizing their own exhibitions, the Impressionists bypassed the official system, an act that was as rebellious as it was entrepreneurial. Despite the artists' efforts, the Impressionist exhibitions scandalized the Parisian public and were generally considered a failure. Apart from a few forward-thinking critics and collectors, there was little appreciation or market for this subversive artwork until well after the last show in 1886. Read that again --- Subversive. Oh how I laugh when you think of what is subversive today. Okay - here we go and I love this first one.
