Degas (The Dance Class)
The 1st Impressionist Exhibition, 1874
Although the idea originated with Claude Monet, Degas is largely responsible for organizing the very first Impressionist exhibition. After much debate, the artists, including Degas, Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley, Boudin, and even the young Cézanne amongst many others who are now less well remembered, chose to call themselves the Societe Anonyme des Artistes (Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs etc.). The exhibition was held at 35 boulevard des Capucines in Paris and opened on April 15, 1874 in the top floor studio, actually the former studio, of a friend of several of the artists, a photographer named Nadar.
Although the show was well attended, the critics were merciless. Trained to expect the polished illusions of the Salon painters, the raw, unblended, ill-defined paint of Degas, Renoir, Monet and company was very much a shock. In a sharp attack on the exhibition, the satirical magazine, Le Charivari wrote of a visit with Joseph Vincent, an accomplished and conservative painter:
Upon entering the first room, Joseph Vincent received an initial shock in front of the Dancer by M. Renoir. ‘What a pity,’ he said to me, ‘that the painter, who has a certain understanding of color, doesn’t draw better; his dancer’s legs are as cottony as the gauze of her skirts.’…Unfortunately, I was imprudent enough to leave him [Joseph Vincent] in front of the Boulevard des Capucines, by [Monet]. ‘Ah-ha! he sneered…. Is that brilliant enough, now!’ ‘There’s impression, or I don’t know what it means.’ ‘Only be so good as to tell me what those innumerable black tougue-lickings in the lower part of the picture represent?’ ‘Why, those are people walking along,’ I replied. ‘Then do I look like that when I’m walking along the Boulevard Capucines?’ ‘Blood and Thunder!’ ‘So you’re making fun of me!’ ‘…What does that painting depict?’ ‘Look at the Catalogue.’ ‘Impression Sunrise.’ ‘Impression–I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it…and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape!’” From: Linda Nochlin. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874-1904: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 10-13.
And on it goes, ever more sarcastically. The article was titled, “Exhibition of the Impressionists,” and the term stuck. From then on, these artists were called Impressionists.
Degas
Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, he will later contract his name to Degas, is one of the most beloved artists of all time. When there is a Degas exhibition it becomes a major event. Visitors crowd the galleries and the gift shops do a brisk business selling scarves, umbrellas, and notebooks printed with details from the artist’s paintings and drawings of ballerinas. And that’s the subject that people want. Yes, of course his bathers and race horses are popular, still it is his dancers that have captured the public’s imagination. By the way, Degas hated the fact that he was known as the “painter of dancers” Still, he did return to this theme throughout his career. I find it remarkable that while people see his extraordinary use of line, light, and composition they so often miss the less savory aspects of these images.
Haussmann’s Reconstruction of Paris
During each of the previous revolts (1789, 1830, 1848, and again in 1871), sections of Paris had easily succumbed to the revolutionaries. These successes were due in part to the political sympathies of the citizens of Paris, but the crooked narrow lanes of the medieval city also played a role. During times of conflict, urban mobs would blockade the maze that were the streets of Paris. Such barricades proved very effective and made Paris all but uncontrollable at such times. Think back to Eugene Delacroix’s painting, Liberty Leading the People, 1830, Marianne (Liberty) is shown rising over a barricade of this sort.
