A group of mid-century artists who combined many of the qualities of the Classic and Romantic schools included Cabanel, Lefebvre, Bouguereau and Gerome. The military painters, Meissonier, Detaille, and de Neuville, might conveniently be grouped with them, they alike treating romantic subjects in a precise and academic manner. Reflections of this group in Germany are seen in Piloty, Menzel and Max; in Great Britain in Alma-Tadema, Leighton and Orchardson. Such painters as these expressed the Academic attitude with which, from 1850 to 1885, the ideas of the Barbizon painters, the Realists, the rising Impressionists, and, in England, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (unrelated to any Continental movement) had to compete.
The Barbizon School, including Rousseau, Corot, Millet, Daubigny, Troyon, and others, owed much to the Dutch landscape painters of the XVII century and to the influence of the Englishman Constable (1776-1837), who had gone directly to nature and represented what he saw with a fidelity rare since the time of Ruisdael and Hobbema. The spirit of this group inspired Mauve and Jacob Maris in Holland, while Israels was influenced rather by the old Dutch masters of figure painting.
Modern Impressionism is a mixture of two streams of influence. One arose in the direct vision of Courbet, and the realistic painting of enveloping atmosphere as invented by Velasquez and rediscovered by Manet. The other stream springs from the poetic impressionistic methods of Corot and the fiery Turner. Influenced by these two currents, Monet and Renoir produced the high-keyed externality of Luminism, which has strongly affected contemporary American painters; while in Europe, [pg 91] Degas, Pissarro, Sisley, Sorolla, Zuloaga, Zorn and Liebermann have drawn in varying degrees from the same two streams. Defying all classification, stands the one great decorator of the century, Puvis de Chavannes; while initiating the most modern art movement are Cezanne, Gauguin and Matisse, who revolt against objectivism, and strive in visual forms to express the abiding verities.
Landscape. Georges Michel, 1763-1843
To those who asked him why he did not go to Italy for his subjects, Georges Michel would answer: “The man who can not find enough to paint during his whole life in a circuit of four miles is in reality no artist.” This artistic creed was nothing less than revolutionary at that time, in the early days of the XIX century, when the landscape painter regarded nature as unworthy of his brush unless it was bedecked with ancient temples and peopled with gods and goddesses, or at least suggested Italy or some distant land. Georges Michel lived on the heights of Montmartre in Paris. He walked out into the country and painted what he saw. His landscapes are actual studies of nature painted in the open air. As one of the first painters of paysage intime, Michel was a forerunner of Rousseau and the men of 1830. His narrow, subdued scheme of color establishes his relationship with the great Dutch masters of the XVII century. In France, however, his was pioneer work; he did not cater to the popular demand, and it was not until the World Exhibition in 1889 that his genius was generally recognized.—Gift of James J. Hill.
Child with Cherries. Gillaume Adolphe Bouguereau, 1825-1905
The most popular figure paintings of the mid-nineteenth century in France were those of the group of compromisers or semi-classicists. Their compositions were the natural successors to the classicism of the academicians David and Ingres, modified by a new vogue in France for romantic types and for modern history. One of the important men of this group was Bouguereau. He had much skill in drawing and in composition. He makes his appeal, however, chiefly through his choice of themes, employing usually either sentimental religious subjects or pretty children.—From the Bequest of Mrs. W. H. Dunwoody.
