The Impressionists

Illustrated background stories (check the menu) about impressionist painters, and people and places that were very important to them. Sharing what I learn.

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Anniversary Today, 25 February is the birthday of Giuseppe de Nittis ((1846-1884).

"A friend of Degas and Manet, often exhibited at the Salon, a participant in the Impressionist adventure at Nadar’s since the start, welcoming Parisian intellectuals and artists to his home (…), he was admired by many critics, from Castagnary the herald of Realism, to Geoffroy the first historian of Impressionism...” (The Art Tribune)

Giuseppe de Nittis, Westminster, 1878. Oil on canvas, 110 X 95 cm. Private collection

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, 25 February is the birthday of Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884).

Giuseppe de Nittis, L'Arco di Trionfo, Parigi (The Arc de Triomphe, Paris), c.1875. Oil on canvas, 53 x 40.5 cm. Private collection

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today is Renoir’s day! We’re celebrating the birthday of one of the founding fathers of Impressionism.  Renoir was born on 25 February 1841 in Limoges, France. 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La loge (The Theatre Box), 1874. Oil on canvas, 80 x 63 cm. Courtauld Gallery, London

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary “Giuseppe De Nittis was the only foreign artist to exhibit, on the invitation of Degas, at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, but his five paintings were hung in a poor light some days after the event began. He never showed with this group again.” (New York Times, February 27, 2013).

De Nittis (1846-1884) was born on February 25.

Giuseppe de Nittis, Signora col cane o Ritorno dalle corse (Return from the Races), 1878. Oil on canvas, 90 x 150 cm. Museo Revoltella, Trieste, Italy

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today is Renoir’s day! We’re celebrating the birthday of one of the founding fathers of Impressionism. Renoir was born on 25 February 1841 in Limoges, France.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Nu couché (Reclining Nude), 1883. Oil on canvas, 65.1 x 81.3 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary “Trained in Naples, the Italian-born painter Giuseppe de Nittis settled in Paris in 1868. There he befriended many of the Impressionist artists, particularly Edgar Degas.” (National Galley, London)

De Nittis (1846-1884) was born on February 25.

Giuseppe de Nittis, Effetto neve (Snow Effect), 1880. Oil on canvas, 53 x 72 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta, Italy

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

It’s Renoir’s birthday! What better way to celebrate than with a dance. The happy lady on the canvas is none other than Renoir’s future wife, Aline Charigot, enjoying the company of Paul Lhôte, a friend of Renoir.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Danse à la campagne (Country Dance), 1883. Oil on canvas, 180 x 90 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, 25 February is the birthday of Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884).

Giuseppe de Nittis, Paesaggio lacustre nei pressi di Napoli (Seascape near Naples), c.1866. Oil on wood, 24,5 x 61 cm. Private collection

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, 20 February is the birthday of Lucien Pissarro (1863-1944), the eldest son of the more famous Camille Pissarro, who taught and continuously coached him. Lucien settled in England in 1890 and completed this picture not much later, in Epping, Essex.

Lucien Pissarro, April, Epping, 1894. Oil on canvas, 60.3 x 73 cm. Tate, London

[proleutimpressionists]

People of Popincourt, rejoice!

Today you can celebrate the birthday of your very special neigborhood girl.

On February 18, 1844 Victorine Meurent was born in your midst, at 39 rue de la Folie-Méricourt, today the rue Popincourt, Paris. The Brasserie du Prince Eugène was on the ground floor. The rest of the six story building contained one or two room apartments.

In one of those lived the “ciseleur” Jean-Louis-Étienne Meurent with his wife Louise-Thérèse Lemesre who gave birth to a baby girl that 18 years later would become the favorite model of Édouard Manet and help him to change the face of painting.

I shall dedicate a number of posts to her over the coming weeks in an effort to get to know her better.

Édouard Manet, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass), 1863. Oil on canvas, 208 × 264 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris (detail)

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, 16 February, is the birthday of Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927). He showed work at the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th exhibitions of the Impressionists. He was supported by Pissarro, but rejected by Monet and Degas. Like Cézanne, he loved the colours of the Provence.

Armand Guillaumin,  View on Agay, Pointe du Dramont, 1895. Oil on canvas, 73 x 92 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, 16 February, is the birthday of Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927). He showed work at the 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th exhibitions of the Impressionists. He was an admirer of Cézanne, supported by Pissarro, but rejected by Monet and Degas.

Armand Guillaumin,  - The Bridge of the Archibishop´s Palace and the Apse of Notre-Dame, c.1880. Oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza - Le Pont-Marie, c. 1882. Private collection - The Road of Damiette, 1885. Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza - Saint-Palais-la-Pierrière. Low Tide, 1893. Oil on canvas, 59 x 72 cm. Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Madrid

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) was born on 15 February. He became one of the leading artists of the School of Barbizon, precursors of the impressionist movement. (Barbizon was a small village in the Forest of Fontainebleau). Daubigny and his fellow artists admired John Constable’s rural scenes and refused to see nature as a backcloth for some historical or academic scene, but rather as the sole subject of their paintings. And then, there was this invention that set them free: paint in tubes. Painters no longer had to go through the tedious process of preparing their own paints in their studios. They were free to go out and paint wherever they liked. ‘Plein air’ painting was born.From the 1850s, another - unexpected - invention boosted the movement of outdoor painting. From then on, artists attracted by the work of Daubigny, Corot, Millet and the like, could simply take the train and travel from Paris to the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau in just an hour and a half.Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Bazille all took that train…

Charles-François Daubigny, Paysage avec un ruisseau éclairée par le soleil (Landscape with a Sunlit Stream), c. 1876. Oil on canvas, 63.8 x 47.9 cm. The Met, New York

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) was an important member of the Barbizon school and as such a precursor of impressionism. He met Monet in London in 1870 and introduced him to Paul Durand-Ruel, a decisive moment in Monet’s career.

Daubigny was born on 15 February.

Charles-François Daubigny, Soleil couchant sur l’Oise (Sunset over the river Oise), c.1865. Oil on canvas, 23 x 33 cm. Musée des Beaux Arts de Dijon, France Claude Monet, La Seine à Bougival, le soir (The Seine at Bougival in the Evening), 1870. Oil on wood, 60 x 73 cm. Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts

[proleutimpressionists]

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Charles-François Daubigny (1817-1878) was an important member of the Barbizon school and as such a precursor of impressionism. He met Monet in London in 1870 and introduced him to Paul Durand-Ruel, a decisive moment in Monet’s career.

Daubigny was born on 15 February.

Charles-François Daubigny, - Le printemps (The Spring), 1862. Oil on canvas, 133 x 240 cm. Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin - River Scene with Ducks, 1859. Oil on oak, 20,4 x 40 cm. National Gallery, London

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Ellen Day Hale (1855–1940) was an American painter. Today, February 11, is her birthday.

“Like most ambitious young painters of her day, Hale completed her training in Paris. She enrolled at the Académie Julian, a program favored by Americans that also offered classes for women, who were not permitted to study at the most prestigious art school in Paris, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, until 1897. (…) Ellen Day Hale continued to paint throughout her life, later developing a looser, lighter style more influenced by Impressionism.“ (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Ellen Day Hale, Morning News, 1905. Oil on canvas, 127 x 91,4 cm. Private collection

[proleutimpressionists]

Anniversary Today, February 11, is Ellen Day Hale’s birthday. She was an American painter (1855–1940).

“Like most ambitious young painters of her day, Hale completed her training in Paris. She enrolled at the Académie Julian, a program favored by Americans that also offered classes for women, who were not permitted to study at the most prestigious art school in Paris, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, until 1897. In Paris Hale perfected her skills as a figure painter, and this assertive self-portrait demonstrates her success. (...) Ellen Day Hale continued to paint throughout her life, later developing a looser, lighter style more influenced by Impressionism.“ (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

Ellen Day Hale, Self Portrait, 1885. Oil on canvas, 72.4 x 99 cm. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston