David’s style was continued and refined by his pupil J.-A.-Dominique Ingres ([page 15]), whose father was a painter at Montauban. Ingres’ apprenticeship with David and eighteen years spent in Italy led Ingres to paint with precise, sculpturesque draftsmanship and coldly calculated color. To sustain the classical tradition, his subjects were usually drawn from mythology and ancient history. After he returned to Paris, in 1824, Ingres’ ideal of perfectionism came to dominate academic art.
Behind it the Academy had the weight of traditionally accepted theory and the splendid accomplishments of the Old Masters. The theory, growing from ancient classical concepts of art, seemed infallible and, on such a theoretical basis, the five hundred years preceding the nineteenth century had produced an extremely impressive art. Imitation of idealized figures was the chief aim of the academic painter. By showing nature “as it ought to be,” the artist served philosophical and ethical ends; he could educate mankind by painting morally improving illustrations of heroic deeds. On this premise art had been raised during the Renaissance from a handicraft to rank with the liberal arts. Academies had arisen to prove the merits of art, and why should such august institutions be challenged?
But even in the early years of the century artists revolted against the academic limitations. Eugène Delacroix ([page 17]) was the central figure in the opposing Romantic movement. Son of a prefect of Marseilles, Delacroix began painting in 1813 as an amateur in a Parisian academic studio. Soon new sensuous richness of coloring and a feeling of lively movement entered Delacroix’s pictures to express strong emotions. His art reveals new psychological penetration; as he said, addressing his fellow artists, “Anything can be a subject. The real subject is yourself; it is your impressions, your emotions before nature. You must search within yourself, not look about you.” Delacroix’s life was embittered by the jealous rivalry of Ingres, who called him “the apostle of ugliness” and prevented him from teaching in the Academy, but his daring use of color was to influence many later painters.
In the Romantic era, nature, which had been neglected as long as the classical tradition prevailed, was extolled by poets and painted by outstanding masters. Camille Corot ([page 19]), son of a Parisian milliner, became a leading landscapist. Although his teachers were academicians, admirers of Poussin and Ingres, Corot turned to his own fresh experiences of nature. As a Romantic, he saw the world about him passionately. “While imitating conscientiously,” he said, “I never for a moment lose the emotion which first caught my interest.” At times Corot painted with the group of artists who worked at Barbizon near the Forest of Fontainebleau, or sometimes he traveled in Italy, Switzerland, Holland, and England, but usually he was content to stay with his parents in Paris or at their summer home in Ville d’Avray. Versatile in his art, he combined elements of classical composition with romantic feeling and realistic vision.
Corot’s breadth of taste allowed him to see the importance of paintings by Daumier, whom he saved from neglect and poverty. Honoré Daumier ([page 21]), after serving as a bailiff’s clerk and a librarian, was trained as a lithographer and turned to political and social caricature. In the Paris journals, his lithographs, lampooning prominent figures, exposing graft, and making fun of the bourgeoisie, were intensely popular. Politics had been uppermost in French minds after the Revolution and times were very unsettled. Two civil revolutions in 1830 and 1848 were followed by invasion during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. During this time the government swerved precariously from monarchy to republic, to empire, and back to republic. The turbulence of these years together with daily human follies was the material of Daumier’s striking cartoons. His paintings, largely made for personal satisfaction, dwelt on the hardships of life in the growing industrial city or, in a lighter vein, on artists, connoisseurs, and circus performers. With his interest in the life about him, Daumier was drawn from Romanticism to Realism.
Among artists, dissatisfaction was growing ever stronger against the implausible gods and heroes painted by academicians and also against the escapist tendency of the Romantics, who loved to paint exotic scenes, removed from ordinary experience. The increasing materialism and scientific objectivity of the nineteenth century demanded a realistic style. The role of leader in the Realist school was taken by Gustave Courbet ([page 23]). This big, boisterous son of a wealthy farmer in Ornans came to Paris in 1842. After a few lessons, Courbet taught himself to paint, chiefly by copying in the Louvre galleries. His large, coarsely executed pictures of common people shocked most of his contemporaries. When his work was refused at the International Exhibition of 1855, he opened his own pavilion, boldly titling it “Le Pavillon du Réalisme.” Among his best-known sayings are, “Painting should consist only in the depiction of things visible and tangible to the artist,” and, “Show me an angel, and then I’ll paint it.” His outspoken nature led him to embroil himself in politics after the Franco-Prussian War. Finally, to escape imprisonment he fled to Switzerland, where he spent his last years in exile.
Both Daumier’s and Courbet’s realism depended upon their acceptance of everyday subjects as worthy of being painted. But realism could be manifest, too, in meticulous attention to details. Henri Fantin-Latour ([page 25]), a friend of our American painter Whistler, exhibits this exacting realism in portraits and still-life pictures. Strongly influenced by the early developments in photography, he produced works which, because they were pleasant and unassuming, were often shown at the annual Salon beside the conservative paintings of approved academicians. In 1863, however, he found himself with the young “rebels” who were allowed to exhibit only at the Salon des Refusés, and he began then to associate with the more advanced artists.
Édouard Manet ([page 27]) was probably more influential as a realist than even Courbet. His father, a Paris magistrate, offered him a choice between studying law and joining the merchant marine. After a try at the latter, in 1857 he was allowed to take up painting. Ironically he was warned by his academic teacher that unless he gave up his common subjects, he “would be only the Daumier of painting.” His boldly painted, unorthodox canvases stirred great controversy, were defended by Emile Zola, the realistic novelist, and brought new courage to other artists who sought to escape from academic dullness.
Manet associated with a number of young artists who became known as Impressionists after a group exhibition in 1874. One of them, Claude Monet ([page 29]), displayed a picture called Impression, Sunrise, and a newspaper critic, vastly amused at its sketchy style and at the similar sketchiness of the other pictures in the exhibit, jeered that these artists were not painters at all, but “impressionists.” The name stuck to the group because it so aptly characterized their intentions. Their aim was to catch a fresh impression of nature in their pictures. Monet was the leading figure in Impressionism, which developed in the 1870’s and ’80’s. Son of a grocer in Le Havre, he was doing clever caricatures at the age of fifteen. He began to paint landscapes with a fellow artist, Boudin, who taught him to be aware of special effects of outdoor lighting. Going to Paris in 1863, he attended academic classes but usually stayed only long enough to answer roll call. Then he would be off to the city’s outskirts to paint nature instead of ancient heroes. Often he lured others with him, and Impressionism was born in the friendly competition of Monet, Renoir, Bazille, and Sisley. Soon they were joined by others, among them Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot. For many years they sought understanding for their works. Monet, who alone pursued Impressionism to its ultimate possibilities by painting vivid sensations of light, suffered abject poverty. Only in his last years was his art recognized and internationally imitated.
Few of the other Impressionists analyzed light as Monet did; they contented themselves with sketchy brush strokes which seemed to dissolve their forms in light. Berthe Morisot ([page 31]), for example, followed Manet rather than Monet. After six years of study with Corot, she met Manet while they were both copying pictures in the Louvre. A strong friendship developed between Manet and the Morisot family. Berthe became his pupil and soon afterward married his brother. Her crisp, delicate brushwork is a feminine version of Manet’s bold style.