They returned to France the preachers of a new crusade. The “Café de la Nouvelle Athénée” became the centre of the group. Reunited under Manet, whose style commenced to show signs of much influence from Claude Monet, the reformers gathered many recruits, and gained more enemies. They were not without friends on the press: Emile Zola, who had written so eloquently in “Mes Haines,” Théodore Duret, friend and literary executor of Manet, Gustave Geffroy of “La Vie Artistique,” in Monet’s opinion the most slashing of the lot, Arsène Alexandre of “Le Figaro,” Gustave Cahen, Roger Marx, and many others.
A SUMMER AFTERNOON · GEORGES D’ESPAGNAT
But the financial position of the whole group was exceedingly precarious. They could not sell their pictures. It was admitted that the canvases of such men as Monet and Pissarro were the works of men of genius, but the buying public (and they are numerous in France) did not understand the new movement, and so failed to support it adequately. As a whole, it may be said that the art public were in open hostility to Impressionism. With a few exceptions, the critics of the established art journals condemned the movement. Even comic singers ridiculed the painters in the music-halls of Paris. The Salon was closed against them, and the dealers refused to look at their canvases.
Meanwhile the artists starved. These were the evil days of evictions, of visits from the sheriff, of the forced sale of household furniture to pay insignificant debts. It is a sordid story of a struggle to obtain the barest necessities of existence. These wretched years proved a bitter chastening of the spirit to proud and refined natures. Tragedy and comedy were intermixed. Glimpses of hope and comfort appeared from time to time as some fresh buyer appeared on the scene. But these welcome callers were not frequent, and the rifts of sunshine through the grey clouds were, as a rule, transitory.
The artists did not over-value their works. They were able to live in tranquillity if their pictures fetched prices ranging from £2 to £4. To sell a canvas at £8 was an event, and £20 was a figure absolutely unheard of. A letter from Manet, a comparatively rich man with an independent income, to Théodore Duret, the critic, gives a vivid insight into the situation in 1875. Manet had recently visited Claude Monet at Argenteuil. “Dear Duret,” he writes, “I went to see Monet yesterday. I found him altogether ‘hard up.’ He asked me if I knew of a purchaser for ten or twenty of his pictures at £4 each. Shall we take it on? I thought of a dealer, or of an amateur, but there I foresee the possibility of refusals. It is unfortunate that it is only connoisseurs, like ourselves, who can at the same time—in spite of all the repugnance we may feel over it—make an excellent bargain and help a man of such talent. Answer as quickly as possible or make an appointment with me. Amitiés, Edouard Manet.”
This is good proof, if proof were needed, of the straits to which one of the leaders of the group was reduced. It is also odd to note that Manet was afraid of a refusal, from both dealers and collectors, to the offer of such a bargain as a score of works by Claude Monet at £4 apiece. The letter also proves that those professional dealers who had hitherto supported the Impressionists were at the end of their resources, notably M. Durand-Ruel.
This celebrated dealer and collector had brought himself to the verge of bankruptcy through a too generous investment in Impressionist work. He was gradually ostracised by brother dealers, buyers, and art critics. He was regarded in much the same light as the artists themselves, considered to have lost his mental balance and also his acumen as a man of business. Certainly he speculated upon a large scale. In January 1872, having previously bought two studies, M. Durand-Ruel called upon Manet at his studio and bought on the spot twenty-eight canvases for the sum of 38,600 francs (£1544). The whole Impressionist camp went wild with joy under the mistaken idea that their millennium had arrived. They had many years to wait. Both the pictures and the capital were locked up for a considerable time. The public had yet to be educated, and the few amateurs who bought Impressionist work could select examples in abundance from the artists’ easels.
It is to the credit of the group that they followed their ideals and refused many temptations. Several of them, Monet in particular, were admirable portraitists, and could easily have gained a very respectable living from that branch of art. A writer in one of the French art reviews asserts that Claude Monet’s Femme à la Robe Verte was the finest painting in the Salon of 1866. Only men who have passed through such experiences can appreciate at its true value the heroic courage, faith, and self-confidence required during such a trial.
