that lunatic impressionist gang

(More Suite101 blog reposts....)

The French Impressionists initially had to organize their own exhibits because the official Paris Salon wouldn’t consistently accept their works. When those indie shows were reviewed by certain art critics of the day, the feedback could be downright nasty. While some admired their new perspective, others sniped how:

“Here five or six lunatics deranged by ambition -- one of them a woman -- have put together an exhibition…They take canvas, paint and brushes, splash on a few daubs of color here and there at random, then sign the result. The inmates of the Ville-Evrard Asylum behave in much the same way…Try telling M Pissarro that trees are not purple, or the sky the colour of butter…Try to explain to M Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a rotting mass of flesh, with violet-toned green spots all over it...There is also, as in all famous gangs, a woman. Her name is Berthe Morisot, and she is a curiosity. She manages to convey a certain degree of feminine grace in spite of her outbursts of delirium.”

That was critic Albert Wolff behind that 1876 rampage, and as a result of it, Berthe Morisot‘s husband Eugene (also painter Edouard Manet‘s brother) challenged Wolff to a duel, though I don’t think any swords were ever drawn or pistols fired. Clearly, Mr. Wolff would be horrified by the crowds who still flock to museums to view French Impressionist paintings, and by all the Monet tote bags and Degas and Renoir calendars for sale in the gift shops.

Wolff’s tirade is included in Sue Roe’s very interesting and smoothly flowing The Private Lives of The Impressionists (HarperCollins). The book gives factual and biographical information, but it also heightens the personalities and friendships of the artists so that it reads more like a novel. Definitely worth checking out.

(Pictured: Buttery sky by Camille Pissarro -- Apple Pickers at Eragny, 1888 -- Dallas Museum of Art)