Sisley E-Book

Nathalia Brodskaya

• Herausgeber: Parkstone International
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 47

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Beschreibung

A painter of the Impressionist movement, Alfred Sisley was born on October 30th 1839 in Paris but was of British origin. He died on January 29th 1899 in Moret-sur-Loing. Growing up in a musical family, he chose to pursue painting rather than the field of business. In 1862 he enrolled in Gleyre’s studio where he encountered Renoir, Monet, and Bazille. The four friends left their master’s studio in March 1863 to work outdoors, setting their easels to paint the forest scenes of Fontainebleau. Sisley tirelessly chose the sky and water as subjects for his paintings, animated as they were by the changing reflections of light, for his landscapes of the regions surrounding Paris, Louveciennes, and Marly-le-Roi. This was in keeping with the painting styles of Constable, Bonington, and Turnet. Even if he had been influenced by Monet’s work at some point, Sisley drew away from his friend’s style due to his own desire for his work to follow the structure of forms. Sensitive to the changing seasons, he liked to portray spring with its blooming orchards, but it was the wintry and snowy countryside which Sisley was particularly attracted to. His reserved temperament preferred mystery and silence to the splendour of Renoir’s sunny landscapes.

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Author: Nathalia Brodskaya

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ISBN: 978-1-78160-635-3

Nathalia Brodskaya

Table of content

The Impressionists and Academic Painting

1. Avenue of Chestnut Trees atCelle-Saint-Cloud, 1867.

Oil on canvas, 95.5 x 122.2 cm,

Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton.

Impression: Sunrise (Impression,soleillevant,MuséeMarmottan, Paris) was the prescient title of one of Claude Monet’s paintings shown in 1874 in the first exhibition of the Impressionists, or, as they called themselves then, theSociétéanonymedes artistes,peintres,sculpteurs,graveurs(the Anonymous Society of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers). Monet had gone painting in his childhood hometown of Le Havre to prepare for the event, eventually selecting his best Le Havre landscapes for display. Edmond Renoir, journalist brother of Renoir the painter, compiled the catalogue. He criticised Monet for the uniform titles of his works, for the painter had not come up with anything more interesting thanView of Le Havre. Among these Le Havre landscapes was a canvas painted in the early morning depicting a blue fog that seemed to transform the shapes of yachts into ghostlyapparitions.The painting also depicted smaller boats gliding over the water in black silhouette, and above the horizon the flat, orange disk of the sun, its first rays casting an orange path across the sea. It was more like a rapid study than a painting, a spontaneous sketch done in oils–what better way to seize the fleeting moment when sea and sky coalesce before the blinding light of day?View of Le Havrewas obviously an inappropriate title for this particular painting, as Le Havre was nowhere to be seen.“WriteImpression,”Monet told Edmond Renoir, and in that moment began the story of Impressionism.

On 25 April 1874, the art critic Louis Leroy published a satirical piece in the journalCharivarithat described a visit to the exhibition by an official artist. As he moves from one painting to the next, the artist slowly goes insane. He mistakes the surface of a painting by Camille Pissarro, depicting a ploughed field, for shavings from an artist’s palette carelessly deposited onto a soiled canvas. When looking at the painting he is unable to tell top from bottom, or one side from the other. He is horrified by Monet’s landscape entitledBoulevard desCapucines. Indeed, in Leroy’s satire, it is Monet’s work that pushes the academician over the edge. Stopping in front of one of the Le Havre landscapes, he asks whatImpression: Sunrisedepicts.“Impression, of course,”mutters the academician.“I saidsomyself, too, because I am so impressed, there must be some impression in here…and what freedom, what technical ease!”At which point he begins to dance a jig in front of the paintings, exclaiming:“Hey! Ho! I’m a walkingimpression,I’m an avenging palette knife”(Charivari, 25 April 1874). Leroy called his article,“The Exhibition of the Impressionists.”With typical French finesse, he had adroitly coined a new word from the painting’s title, a word so fitting that it was destined to remain forever in the vocabulary of the history of art.

Responding to questions from a journalist in 1880, Monet said:“I’m the one who came up with the word, or who at least, through a painting that I had exhibited, provided some reporter fromLe Figarothe opportunity to write that scathing article. It was a big hit, as you know.”(LionelloVenturi,Les Archives del’impressionnisme, Paris, Durand-Ruel, 1939, vol. 2, p. 340).

2. Village Street inMarlottenearFontainebleau, 1866.

Oil on canvas, 50 x 92 cm,

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.

3. The Ferry of the Ile dela Loge - Flood, 1872.

Oil on canvas, 45 x 60 cm,

NyCarlsbergGlyptotek, Copenhagen.

4. The Bridge atVilleneuve-la-Garenne, 1872.

Oil on canvas, 49.5 x 65.5 cm,

The Metropolitan Museum, New York.

5. Ile Saint-Denis, 1872.

Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm,

Muséed’Orsay, Paris.

The Impressionists and Academic Painting

The young men who would become the Impressionists formed a group in the early 1860s. Claude Monet, son of a Le Havre shopkeeper,FrédéricBazille, son of a wealthy Montpellier family, Alfred Sisley, son of an English family living in France, andAugusteRenoir, son of a Parisian tailor, had all come to study painting in the independent studio of CharlesGleyre, who in their view was the only teacher who truly personified neo-classical painting.

Gleyrehad just turned sixty when he met the future Impressionists. Born in Switzerland on the shores of LakeLéman, he had lived in France since childhood. After graduating from theÉcoledes Beaux-Arts,Gleyre