FIG. 68.—MEISSONIER. NAPOLEON IN 1814.
THE IMPRESSIONISTS: The name is a misnomer. Every painter is an impressionist in so far as he records his impressions, and all art is impressionistic. What Manet (1833-1883), the leader of the original movement, meant to say was that nature should not be painted as it actually is, but as it "impresses" the painter. He and his few followers tried to change the name to Independents, but the original name has clung to them and been mistakenly fastened to a present band of landscape painters who are seeking effects of light and air and should be called luminists if it is necessary for them to be named at all. Manet was extravagant in method and disposed toward low life for a subject, which has always militated against his popularity; but he was a very important man for his technical discoveries regarding the relations of light and shadow, the flat appearance of nature, the exact value of color tones. Some of his works, like The Boy with a Sword and The Toreador Dead, are excellent pieces of painting. The higher imaginative qualities of art Manet made no great effort at attaining.
Degas stands quite by himself, strong in effects of motion, especially with race-horses, fine in color, and a delightful brushman in such subjects as ballet-girls and scenes from the theatre. Besnard is one of the best of the present men. He deals with the figure, and is usually concerned with the problem of harmonizing color under conflicting lights, such as twilight and lamplight. Béraud and Raffaelli are exceedingly clever in street scenes and character pieces; Pissarro[16] handles the peasantry in high color; Brown (1829-1890), the race-horse, and Renoir, the middle class of social life. Caillebotte, Roll, Forain, and Miss Cassatt, an American, are also classed with the impressionists.
[16] Died, 1903.
IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE PAINTERS: Of recent years there has been a disposition to change the key of light in landscape painting, to get nearer the truth of nature in the height of light and in the height of shadows. In doing this Claude Monet, the present leader of the movement, has done away with the dark brown or black shadow and substituted the light-colored shadow, which is nearer the actual truth of nature. In trying to raise the pitch of light he has not been quite so successful, though accomplishing something. His method is to use pure prismatic colors on the principle that color is light in a decomposed form, and that its proper juxtaposition on canvas will recompose into pure light again. Hence the use of light shadows and bright colors. The aim of these modern men is chiefly to gain the effect of light and air. They do not apparently care for subject, detail, or composition.
At present their work is in the experimental stage, but from the way in which it is being accepted and followed by the painters of to-day we may be sure the movement is of considerable importance. There will probably be a reaction in favor of more form and solidity than the present men give, but the high key of light will be retained. There are so many painters following these modern methods, not only in France but all over the world, that a list of their names would be impossible. In France Sisley with Monet are the two important landscapists. In marines Boudin and Montenard should be mentioned.
PRINCIPAL WORKS: The modern French painters are seen to advantage in the Louvre, Luxembourg, Pantheon, Sorbonne, and the municipal galleries of France. Also Metropolitan Museum New York, Chicago Art Institute, Boston Museum, and many private collections in France and America. Consult for works in public or private hands, Champlin and Perkins, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, under names of artists.