Post #5 Modernity and Masculinity in 19th Century France

Gustave Caillebott was a 19th century French painter of the post impressionist movement. Caillebott was very interested in the renovation and modernization of France, especially in the changes Haussmann was making, and the city is often the subject of his paintings. Scenes of city streets, modern bridges and updated buildings, populated by people of the modern time are seen all throughout Caillebott's work. He uses a looser and more painterly brush stroke than seen in academic painting but does not adapt the extreme of the impressionists. His plays with perspective, something he was criticized for, give his paintings a unique appearance stylistically, but also emit various emotions and feelings, often melancholy. His use of illusionism and creating depth in his paintings also separates him from what was popular with the impressionists. Caillebott will often have a strong man made receding element, such as a street, bridge or bannister that gives his work a realistic space.

When looking at a collection of paintings by Gustave Caillebott, there is a delicate balance maintained between celebration and criticism of the France that he depicts. It seems he favors the celebration slightly because he consistently returns to it as the subjects of his paintings and in those paintings it is the buildings and city structure that create the beauty and compositional interest. Even in Paris Street in Rainy Weather, the weather is bad, but it does not read as a critique. Instead as an emotion given to the city, with its still beautiful shiny stone street. It is with the modern society, the changes in people's behavior, that the side of criticism begins to come through. There is a talked about sub-theme to Caillebott's paintings, feelings and depictions of isolation. Looking through his work, you notice that when he depicts figures, rarely, if ever are they interacting with one another. Often he will have a central figure with his back to either the viewer or the other figures in the piece. Like in PontdeL'Europe-Geneva, the man is gazing off in the distance or the far right edge of the piece, back turned. In other pieces like Portraits à la campagne or the floor scrapers(side version), he puts groups of people in social situations, at close proximity, but clearly shows no eye contact or interaction. Just isolation and introversion. This could be a result of modern life distancing people from one another due to occupations, daily schedule or mass production and machinery. But could also be a reflection of Caillebott's own feelings of isolation and sadness.

 It is the mixture of all of these feelings and emotions that give Caillebott's paintings their melancholy flavor, because the majority of his work is neither outright sad, nor overjoyed. I feel like he saw genuine beauty and inspiration in France but was also a very sad individual and saw changes in the modern life that he did not approve of. It makes his paintings very real in the sense that life is a mix of celebration and critique, beauty and sadness and credit to him as an artist that he can make all of those show through in some way.

Post #4 The Political Side of Impressionism

The French government declared June 30, 1878 a national holiday. The day was a celebration of peace and a marker of France's recovery from the Fanco-Prussian war. For others it was also a reminder of the violent and bloody Paris commune that followed. Artistically, the interest in this particular day is that two prominent artists painted the festivities as they saw them. Both Claude Monet and Edouard Manet created pieces of the same holiday but each with different perspective,style, subject and tone to them. As a viewer it is interesting to see what each artist chooses to incorporate, leave out or put emphasis on, knowing that they are depicting the same moment in time.

Looking at The Rue Montorgueil painted by Claude Monet, the first thing that jumps out to me is the gathering masses. Monet takes a vantage point high above the streets and we see the gathering of people in the street but more in your face is the gathering of French flags waving all throughout the painting. There is an energy to the piece, created by the swift brush strokes and the contrasting colors of the red, white and blue flags against the more earthy tones of the town and its people. Monet and his impressionist style of liberal paint application and loose, but sufficient detail help this effect. There is an uplifting, celebratory tone to the piece that comes from the energy of the paint but also from the subject that is shown being all things France. The number of flags that are being flown and the mobs of people filling the streets give the sense that there is large pride in France. That they people are proud of France, to be in France and are celebrating France's survival and cheering its future. This makes sense because Claude Monet is an impressionist artist and impressionism has been known as a "forgetful" art form. This is associated to all the chaos, war and pain that helped give rise to the impressionist movement, but the artists attempting to forget those times and not explicitly portray it in their artwork. Instead they strongly focus on the present, modern day, and look fondly toward the future. This particular painting is a great example of capturing that impressionist sentiment.

Edouard Manet painted his piece and titled it Rue Mosnier with Flags. Manet chooses a a lower to the street perspective for his painting and after looking at the one by Monet, a far less busy street as well. There are still a number of French flags waving all down the distance, but they appear much more subdued and less energetic. Instead, the eye is drawn to the foreground, to the man with his back to the viewer. It takes no more than a glance to see that the man has lost a leg and is using crutches to get around. While this is later in his career, and his style appears closer to those of the impressionists, Manet still maintains a political aspect to his Avant-Garde art. This man is a grim reminder of what came before this celebration. What people lost and sacrificed for France to embrace this holiday. Though I am not sure if it was intentional or if connected, the figures across the street appear very ghostlike and transparent, especially in comparison to the man near the buggy at the same distance. The figures appear to be a family, and may serve as another reminder of all those families that were lost, broken up and devastated throughout both the war and Commune. The way that the details get much looser and blurred in the distance, it is pretty clear that Manet puts his message and emphasis on what is happening in the foreground. Where Monet chooses to try and depict feeling and emotion to communicate through his work, Manet is much more direct and explicit about what he wants the viewer to recall.

Formal Ananlysis: Impressionist Painting

The piece I have chosen for this formal analysis is titled On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt by French painter and father of Impressionist painting, Claude Monet. The overall feeling I get from this painting is a peaceful calm. The colors are very cool and subtle. Monet uses colors that you would see in nature if you were actually sitting next to the lady at the shore of the water. The way he employs the darker shades on the side of the water closest to the viewer and the lighter ones on the opposite side really gives the sense of light and where the sun is at. The slight change between the dark and light also clues the viewer into the sun being low, just rising in the morning. The early morning feeling created by the effects of the color choices also gives a sense of freshness as though the entire painting is waking up. A large part of impressionism was an extreme Realism where the artist attempts to capture a split second in time and Monet does a good job of capturing the appearance and the feelings of waking up to a new morning.

Impressionism is most famously known for its loose brush strokes and the very painterly appearance to the final painting. This all relates to the capture of that quick moment in time and painters painting as quickly as they can. On the Bank is a good example of impressionist style qualities. The way this painting changes depending on the distance the viewer sees it is incredible. From far away the eye blends the colors and smooths the stroke so the details really come out. Closer viewing does not make these details disappear but reveals how they were created. The brush strokes that make up the grass and trees next to the woman on the bank, when looked at close, look so inexact and like nothing more than paint on canvas. When viewed as a whole painting however, you see that those brown streaks of paint create highlights on the tree trunk and make the whole piece more lifelike and harmonious. If we were to see this painting on display, they way that the paint is left and built up in spots would leave a distinctive physical texture that the viewer could pick up on visually, adding to the illusion of naturalism. There are two areas where the strokes look like nothing more than paint regardless of the view and they are the light green patch directly behind the woman, and in the mountains behind the houses on the right. These areas do not detract from the overall piece however, and are probably the result of the fast pace that the painting was made.The woman's gaze is directed toward the water and really draws the viewer's eye there as well. It looks as though Monet intentionally smoothed up his brushstrokes and the blend of colors in the water. The water is not choppy and rough, it feels so peaceful and serene and because he chose to have the water be in the middle of his format, those calm feelings bleed into the whole painting. 

The level of depth that Monet is able to achieve in this painting is impressive as well. There are very defined foreground, middle and background areas. Because painting outdoors was important to impressionist painters, being able to capture the depth and distance of what they were viewing really helps make the piece successful. He accomplishes this depth in a couple of different ways and by combining them all. The most effective one is the way he scales the figures and structures in the background compared to the woman in the very front. The size of the figures across the lake really help the viewer to understand how far it is to the other side of this lake and how big the buildings in the town are. Another way he helps add depth is through his use of detail. Though impressionist paintings are not particularly known for their high attention to detail, Monet gives enough to the clothing of the woman and structure of the boat in the foreground that the viewer can pick up on the dulling of detail in things like the figures and buildings in the distance. There re no recognizable clothing details on the people across the water and things like shingles do not appear on the roofs of the buildings. This is the way that details would fade and blur in the distance in real life, or as Monet was seeing it.

Post #2 Realism and the Early Avant-Garde

The early stages of Avant-Garde art, artists were interested in challenging and defying the established values of the Academy of Art. There was also a strong desire to make a commentary or influence on politics and humanity. One of the more successful ways to accomplish both of these goals gave rise to Realist painting. Realism is a movement where the artist tries to capture and portray the world as it is seen around him. The invention and growing use of photography played a large part in the rise and interest in this style of painting. Some techniques, inherent to taking a photo, were even picked up and incorporated by artists. Just as a camera lens can only  capture so much in its view, artists began to crop the edges off of objects on the boarders of their paintings.

As mentioned earlier, Realist painting was an effective tool for both challenging the establishment and social commentary, and one artist in particular was very good at using this tool to stir the pot. Gustave Courbet was a French realist painter who gained much notoriety for how and what he chose to paint. Two specific examples of this type of painting are first, The Stone Breakers, and second A Burial at Ornans. Looking at Stone Breakers we can see that two males are hard at work. They are dressed in modern clothing and the figures are scaled large, taking up much of the canvas. They are clearly what Courbet wants the viewer to focus on. This painting is of the Realist movement because it shows modern people as you would see them at the time of its creation. This is contradictory to what the Academy would prefer, but also is very unsettling to the bourgeoisie viewers who might view it as well. Both of these groups find it offensive to dedicate a painting to the much lower class stone breakers. To compound it, Courbet chooses a very large canvas to paint this piece on, an 5ft X 8ft. This size of painting was traditionally reserved for Academy style history paintings but it also makes the figures in the piece very large as well. They are unavoidable and force the viewer to see them as they are. Another issue many people had with this piece is that the figures are either turned away or have their face covered. There is no eye contact with the viewer and no other implied narrative other than these two men at work.

The second piece, A Burial at Ornans, is an interesting painting all its own. Stone Breakers was large but this painting is an enormous 10ft X 21ft and shows a group of people gathered at a funeral procession. This is not to be any specific funeral but is based on the burial of Courbet's grandfather. This painting does not seem to carry the photographic Realist qualities that Courbet shows in Stone Breakers because he does take some artistic liberties and does some blending of time periods. The figures to the right of the grave are said to be representatives of the 1789 French revolution and that Courbet was attempting to make a connection between that revolution and the more recent socialist revolution of 1848. This does however, does put a charge in his Avant-Garde political statement, since both revolutions tried to advance democracy in France. The painting itself is very somber and also awkward in ways. By doing a scan of faces in this funeral group you can see a wide range of emotions. Some appear sad and grieving, like the men on the right of the grave. Others seem bored or uninterested, like the clergy to the left. While others still, look away or appear to caught up in thought. The awkward tension create by the whole scene is very real, and is something one might experience at a real funeral, everyone experiencing and feeling something different. He was criticized for all of these facial expressions and the misplace dog, distracting from the real activity of the scene, a funeral. Courbet was also heavily criticized for the placement of the grave itself in this painting. He placed the large hole right in the center of his piece with all the figures huddled around it, as well as disrespecting the traditional use of such a large canvas to depict the burial of a heroic figure.