Friday, July 13, 2001
Impressionists at the Clark Institute
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The 216-year old Williams College resides in a picturesque valley, surrounded by the green mountains of Northern Berkshires, in Williamstown, MA. It is there that Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956) in the 1950s moved his collection of fine art, for fear of its destruction in an atomic war. He built a marble structure to house the assemblage, which by the year 2001 has grown to 500 paintings, 700 drawings, 3000 prints and thousands of silver and porcelain rarities, collected in 50 years of persistent effort, funded by fine taste and the Singer sewing machine fortune. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, now expanded to a second exhibits building, is the home of one of the finest collections of 19th Century French and American paintings, in a class with those of J.P. Morgan, nasty Henry Clay Frick, the Cone sisters (Baltimore, Matisse), Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, Renaissance, Berenson) and the famous Dr Albert Barnes of Merion, PA. .The permanent exhibit is a sunny collection, a "feel good" assemblage that will turn around a foul temper, always a valuable characteristic.
It is particularly fitting that the loan exhibition "Impression; Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890," organized jointly by the Clark with National Gallery in London and the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, has come here for the Summer, June 15 to September 9. Not a show of Impressionist high spots, its theme matches the Clark’s permanent collection, and it is best seen after a tour of the latter. These are not huge shows, and can be seen in three hours, easily.
The Clark’s docents lead you through the pre-history of Impressionism, with academician William Bouguereau’s gorgeous Nymphs and Satyr (1873) exemplifying all the academic principles of painting that the Impressionists revolted against. The traditionalists permitted portraits and themes from history, myths and religion, with. emphasis on the naked body. There were to be no visible brush strokes, no clear outlines, no painting directly from nature, and the canvas was primed to a muddy brown as the undertone for an outdoors subject. Some young rebellious artists, who wanted life and nature represented as it is - five of them, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot and Bazille had their paintings rejected at the annual government-sponsored Salon of 1873 - formed an exhibition group, Societe anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, etc, better known as the Refusees. In 1874 they hired a hall and showed 165 works by 30 artists.. Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872) gave them their name. There were eight shows of the Refusees, until 1886, when the artists had gained some acceptance, and their dealer, Durand-Ruel, could sell them (Clark bought from D-R)
The academicians’ landscape rules date back to the Dutch, Ruisdael and Hobbema, and the Frenchman, Lorrain, of the 17th Century, who painted foliage brown, and Constable in England.. His contemporary, J .M. W. Turner, rebelled. Turner’s view of a storm at sea, Rockets and Blue Lights ...(1840) violates rules. The impasto was so thick that paint fell off the surface, and a curator generations ago ironed the picture, from the back, compressing the color into the canvas (this painting is so fragile that it cannot leave the Clark Museum). The earlier 1800s Barbizon artists painted from nature though not in true colors, notably Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet. The latter even dared to paint rough peasants at work. Corot of the silvery willows was a master of the direct or plein-air sketch (there is an amazing number of his paintings at the Clark).It may have been Edouard Manet, painter of the nude Olympia, an Academy sensation in 1865, whose quick paintings in 1870 (he was busy serving in the National Guard during the Franco -Prussian War) inspired the rebels, though he never exhibited with them. Some of his works show the quick master stroke that Monet and Renoir practiced at the shores and seaside towns now legendary in Impressionist hagiography.
The Impression exhibit is a masterwork in itself. The theme refers to quick painting, producing art in mere hours,. to capture the colors of nature of each moment. Some of the paintings appear unfinished even today; one can imagine how they offended the 19th Century critics. The effect is somewhat that of color photography, capturing the instant. Thus, Monet’s Cathedral of Rouen, which he painted in 30 versions (likewise the Haystacks) to truly represent the colors of nature at various times of the day. He would paint the 9 AM view for an hour, then switch to the 10 AM canvas and so on. Next morning he would continue with the 9 AM; unless it rained, when he would whip out the 9 AM in the rain version. It’s all there in the loan exhibit, or in the permanent collection. Not attempting to show just the great paintings of the Impressionists, the loan exhibit concentrates on how well each featured painter developed his or her precepts of art. A room is devoted to each of them.
Appropriately, after a viewing of some of the predecessors of Impressionism, the show starts with Edouard Manet, whose Surprised Nymph (1860) supplied the starting date for the theme of the show. Several of his typical recasts of classical themes executed in a rapid stroke lead up to the 1870 pieces, culminating in a masterful 1878 Woman Reading. It appears on the cover of the exhibition’s fine catalogue, by its curator, Richard R. Brettell of Clark (Yale, 2001, $19.95 pb).
Of Claude Monet’s room, the captivating Regatta at Argenteuil, with yellow sails and red houses reflecting in light blue water (1872), La Grenouilliere, a near twin of the one in the Met (1869), and Harbor of La Havre at Night were my personal top attractions, enough to make me want to make the long return trip. Cheerful Berthe Morisot, with much blue water and white high spots (ladies’ dresses, hats and parasols), in a marvelous, small handwriting, held up well, with her individuality and intimacy. Pierre Renoir, after a start in fast painting with Monet in 1869-80, became an artist of dreamy women, both dressed and nude. He is represented by his own Grenouilliere, with a much bluer tonality (also 1869), and a number of early street and intimate interior scenes. The Degas pictures, although of a snapshot thematic quality, show his fine execution. As a painter Degas was notorious for borrowing back sold paintings and tinkering with them until they had to be repossessed. He qualified as a Refusee by temper, participation in seven of the eight shows, and rapidly executed graphics.. Alfred Sisley’s .river and harbor views are, as all of his work, finely composed and balanced, despite being rapidly executed. Pissarro’s landscapes of Pontoise are object lessons in Impressionist technique, capturing the moods of the time of day and the weather. Vincent van Gogh is included in the show, as a successor to the group, although he was not "just an eye," (as Monet was tagged), and expressed himself in a totally personal manner.
The "Impression" show (65 paintings) is a joyful one, informative without being overwhelming, and, if seen in combination with a tour of the permanent collection, it provides a quick seminar in art history. Take this long day’s excursion to the Berkshires.(four hours from New York, an hour from Tanglewood). The museum is open 10 to 5 (two hours later on weekends), closed Mondays. Reservations are recommended, 1-866-THE CLARK, $10. It will be an uplifting experience.
The comprehensive Clark colletion, which has representative examples of painting dating back to the 14th Century Siennese, is also known for its fine Remingtons, Winslow Homers and Sargents. And there are neat verbal legends of the pieces. The Piero della Francesca may have been part-painted by Michelangelo, star pupil of the artist. The Bouguereau Nymphs and Satyr was once owned by notorious "Ned" Stokes, who killed the financier "Diamond Jim" Fisk in 1872 over the favors of actress Josie Mansfield. After a four-year jail term Stokes bought an interest in Hoffman House, where the painting was its chief barroom attraction. After Stokes’s death in 1901 the painting went into storage,and was discovered by Clark in 1930. It graced the family’s dining table for years. The four delectable nymphs pulling Pan into water were posed for by the same model. The god Pan, who could not swim, was in pursuit of another nymph who had hidden herself in the lake.
A large and fleshy Madonna and Child by Rubens was recently graded down to a "by studio of Rubens" status. One reason: it shows the backside of a sheep in the foreground, a lack of refinement that Rubens would not have permitted.. A woman and daughter portrait by Renoir named At the Concert (1880) started in life as the triple portrait of the French undersecretary of Arts Eugene Turquet and family. He refused to pay, and Renoir painted him out. Part of Turquet’s profile is discernible in the upper right.. Hang around with docents, and you learn a lot of stuff.
The 216-year old Williams College resides in a picturesque valley, surrounded by the green mountains of Northern Berkshires, in Williamstown, MA. It is there that Robert Sterling Clark (1877-1956) in the 1950s moved his collection of fine art, for fear of its destruction in an atomic war. He built a marble structure to house the assemblage, which by the year 2001 has grown to 500 paintings, 700 drawings, 3000 prints and thousands of silver and porcelain rarities, collected in 50 years of persistent effort, funded by fine taste and the Singer sewing machine fortune. The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, now expanded to a second exhibits building, is the home of one of the finest collections of 19th Century French and American paintings, in a class with those of J.P. Morgan, nasty Henry Clay Frick, the Cone sisters (Baltimore, Matisse), Mrs. Isabella Stewart Gardner (Boston, Renaissance, Berenson) and the famous Dr Albert Barnes of Merion, PA. .The permanent exhibit is a sunny collection, a "feel good" assemblage that will turn around a foul temper, always a valuable characteristic.
It is particularly fitting that the loan exhibition "Impression; Painting Quickly in France 1860-1890," organized jointly by the Clark with National Gallery in London and the Van Gogh in Amsterdam, has come here for the Summer, June 15 to September 9. Not a show of Impressionist high spots, its theme matches the Clark’s permanent collection, and it is best seen after a tour of the latter. These are not huge shows, and can be seen in three hours, easily.
The Clark’s docents lead you through the pre-history of Impressionism, with academician William Bouguereau’s gorgeous Nymphs and Satyr (1873) exemplifying all the academic principles of painting that the Impressionists revolted against. The traditionalists permitted portraits and themes from history, myths and religion, with. emphasis on the naked body. There were to be no visible brush strokes, no clear outlines, no painting directly from nature, and the canvas was primed to a muddy brown as the undertone for an outdoors subject. Some young rebellious artists, who wanted life and nature represented as it is - five of them, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Morisot and Bazille had their paintings rejected at the annual government-sponsored Salon of 1873 - formed an exhibition group, Societe anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, etc, better known as the Refusees. In 1874 they hired a hall and showed 165 works by 30 artists.. Monet’s Impression: Sunrise (1872) gave them their name. There were eight shows of the Refusees, until 1886, when the artists had gained some acceptance, and their dealer, Durand-Ruel, could sell them (Clark bought from D-R)
The academicians’ landscape rules date back to the Dutch, Ruisdael and Hobbema, and the Frenchman, Lorrain, of the 17th Century, who painted foliage brown, and Constable in England.. His contemporary, J .M. W. Turner, rebelled. Turner’s view of a storm at sea, Rockets and Blue Lights ...(1840) violates rules. The impasto was so thick that paint fell off the surface, and a curator generations ago ironed the picture, from the back, compressing the color into the canvas (this painting is so fragile that it cannot leave the Clark Museum). The earlier 1800s Barbizon artists painted from nature though not in true colors, notably Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet. The latter even dared to paint rough peasants at work. Corot of the silvery willows was a master of the direct or plein-air sketch (there is an amazing number of his paintings at the Clark).It may have been Edouard Manet, painter of the nude Olympia, an Academy sensation in 1865, whose quick paintings in 1870 (he was busy serving in the National Guard during the Franco -Prussian War) inspired the rebels, though he never exhibited with them. Some of his works show the quick master stroke that Monet and Renoir practiced at the shores and seaside towns now legendary in Impressionist hagiography.
The Impression exhibit is a masterwork in itself. The theme refers to quick painting, producing art in mere hours,. to capture the colors of nature of each moment. Some of the paintings appear unfinished even today; one can imagine how they offended the 19th Century critics. The effect is somewhat that of color photography, capturing the instant. Thus, Monet’s Cathedral of Rouen, which he painted in 30 versions (likewise the Haystacks) to truly represent the colors of nature at various times of the day. He would paint the 9 AM view for an hour, then switch to the 10 AM canvas and so on. Next morning he would continue with the 9 AM; unless it rained, when he would whip out the 9 AM in the rain version. It’s all there in the loan exhibit, or in the permanent collection. Not attempting to show just the great paintings of the Impressionists, the loan exhibit concentrates on how well each featured painter developed his or her precepts of art. A room is devoted to each of them.
Appropriately, after a viewing of some of the predecessors of Impressionism, the show starts with Edouard Manet, whose Surprised Nymph (1860) supplied the starting date for the theme of the show. Several of his typical recasts of classical themes executed in a rapid stroke lead up to the 1870 pieces, culminating in a masterful 1878 Woman Reading. It appears on the cover of the exhibition’s fine catalogue, by its curator, Richard R. Brettell of Clark (Yale, 2001, $19.95 pb).
Of Claude Monet’s room, the captivating Regatta at Argenteuil, with yellow sails and red houses reflecting in light blue water (1872), La Grenouilliere, a near twin of the one in the Met (1869), and Harbor of La Havre at Night were my personal top attractions, enough to make me want to make the long return trip. Cheerful Berthe Morisot, with much blue water and white high spots (ladies’ dresses, hats and parasols), in a marvelous, small handwriting, held up well, with her individuality and intimacy. Pierre Renoir, after a start in fast painting with Monet in 1869-80, became an artist of dreamy women, both dressed and nude. He is represented by his own Grenouilliere, with a much bluer tonality (also 1869), and a number of early street and intimate interior scenes. The Degas pictures, although of a snapshot thematic quality, show his fine execution. As a painter Degas was notorious for borrowing back sold paintings and tinkering with them until they had to be repossessed. He qualified as a Refusee by temper, participation in seven of the eight shows, and rapidly executed graphics.. Alfred Sisley’s .river and harbor views are, as all of his work, finely composed and balanced, despite being rapidly executed. Pissarro’s landscapes of Pontoise are object lessons in Impressionist technique, capturing the moods of the time of day and the weather. Vincent van Gogh is included in the show, as a successor to the group, although he was not "just an eye," (as Monet was tagged), and expressed himself in a totally personal manner.
The "Impression" show (65 paintings) is a joyful one, informative without being overwhelming, and, if seen in combination with a tour of the permanent collection, it provides a quick seminar in art history. Take this long day’s excursion to the Berkshires.(four hours from New York, an hour from Tanglewood). The museum is open 10 to 5 (two hours later on weekends), closed Mondays. Reservations are recommended, 1-866-THE CLARK, $10. It will be an uplifting experience.
The comprehensive Clark colletion, which has representative examples of painting dating back to the 14th Century Siennese, is also known for its fine Remingtons, Winslow Homers and Sargents. And there are neat verbal legends of the pieces. The Piero della Francesca may have been part-painted by Michelangelo, star pupil of the artist. The Bouguereau Nymphs and Satyr was once owned by notorious "Ned" Stokes, who killed the financier "Diamond Jim" Fisk in 1872 over the favors of actress Josie Mansfield. After a four-year jail term Stokes bought an interest in Hoffman House, where the painting was its chief barroom attraction. After Stokes’s death in 1901 the painting went into storage,and was discovered by Clark in 1930. It graced the family’s dining table for years. The four delectable nymphs pulling Pan into water were posed for by the same model. The god Pan, who could not swim, was in pursuit of another nymph who had hidden herself in the lake.
A large and fleshy Madonna and Child by Rubens was recently graded down to a "by studio of Rubens" status. One reason: it shows the backside of a sheep in the foreground, a lack of refinement that Rubens would not have permitted.. A woman and daughter portrait by Renoir named At the Concert (1880) started in life as the triple portrait of the French undersecretary of Arts Eugene Turquet and family. He refused to pay, and Renoir painted him out. Part of Turquet’s profile is discernible in the upper right.. Hang around with docents, and you learn a lot of stuff.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:39 AM 
