Impressionism. Nathalia Brodskaya

du Petit Palais, Paris

      His success in the Paris Salon made him famous. Gleyre taught in the studio organized by the famous salon artist Hippolyte Delaroche. The professor painted huge pieces based on themes from the Holy Scriptures and ancient mythology built with classical clarity. The modeling of his feminine nudes could only be compared to works of the great Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

      Women in the Garden

      Claude Monet, 1866

      Oil on canvas, 256 × 208 cm

      Musée d’Orsay, Paris

      Auguste Renoir, in his conversations with his son, the great movie director Jean Renoir, said that the best part of his education took place in the studio. He described his professor as “a powerful Swiss, bearded and short-sighted” (Jean Renoir, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, my father, Paris, Gallimard, 1981, p.114).

      Boats in the Port of Honfleur

      Claude Monet, 1866

      Oil on canvas, 49 × 65 cm

      Private collection

      According to Renoir, the studio that was located in the Latin Quarter on the left bank of the Seine was “a big bare room, filled with young people leaning on their easels. To the north, a bay window enabled grey light to pour in over the objects under observation” (op. cit. and loc. cit.). The students were all very different.

      Beach at Sainte-Adresse

      Claude Monet, 1908

      Oil on canvas, 75.8 × 102.5 cm

      The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

      Young men from rich families who “played artists” came to the studio in black velvet jackets and berets. Claude Monet called this bourgeois group of students – ‘the spices’. A white painter’s blouse worn by Renoir fuelled their mockery, but Renoir, just like his new friends, ignored them.

      Lady in the Garden (Sainte-Adresse)

      Claude Monet, 1867

      Oil on canvas, 80 × 99 cm

      The Hermitage, Saint-Petersburg

      Jean Renoir wrote, “he was there to learn how to draw figures. He quickly covered his paper with charcoal lines and, the drawing of a calf or the curve of a hand completely absorbed him” (op. cit., p.114). For Renoir and his friends, these lessons were not a game, although Gleyre was bewildered by the amazing skill with which Renoir worked.

      The Railway Bridge, Argenteuil

      Claude Monet, 1873

      Oil on canvas, 54 × 71 cm

      Musée d’Orsay, Paris

      Renoir imitated his professor’s reproaches with that amusing Swiss accent which made students laugh, “young man, you are very skillful, very talented, but one says you come for fun – It is evident, my father responds” Jean Renoir wrote, “if it did not amuse me, I would not paint!” (Jean Renoir, op. cit., p.119).

      The Cliff at Dieppe

      Claude Monet, 1882

      Oil on canvas, 65 × 81 cm

      Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich

      In this studio, the students learned traditional classical education freed from the form requirements of the French Academy of Fine Arts. The four future Impressionists were seriously inclined to learn the basics of painting and the classical technique. They tediously studied the nudes and took all the mandatory courses winning awards for drawing, perspective, anatomy, and precision.

      Portrait of Madame Gaudibert

      Claude Monet, 1868

      Oil on canvas, 217 × 138 cm

      Musée d’Orsay, Paris

      They acquired the essential knowledge of technique and technology of painting, the mastery of the classical composition, precision of the drawing and the beauty of the line, although later the critics frequently mocked the Impressionists for what they regarded as the lack of these very skills. All of the future Impressionists would receive praise from their teacher from time to time.

      Snowy Landscape

      Auguste Renoir, 1868

      Oil on canvas, 51 × 66 cm

      Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris

      One day, to please the professor, Renoir painted a nude model following all the rules, as he would say, “a caramel-coloured flesh emerges from asphalt, black like the night, a caressing backlight which highlights the shoulder, the tortured expression that accompanies the stomach cramps” (J. Renoir, op. cit., p.119).

      Interior

      Edgar Degas, ca. 1868–69

      Oil on canvas, 81 × 116 cm

      Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia

      Gleyre considered this to be mockery. His surprise and outrage were not accidental, for the student proved that he could wonderfully paint according to the teacher’s requirements while at the same time all these young people tried to paint their models “in their day-to-day state” (J. Renoir, op. cit., p.120).

      Pouting

      Edgar Degas, ca. 1869–71

      Oil on canvas, 32.4 × 46.4 cm

      The Metropolitan Museum of Art

      New York. H. O. Havemeyer collection

      Monet recalled Gleyre’s reaction to his sketch of a nude model: “not bad,” he wrote himself, “not bad at all. But it is too much in the character of the models. You have a stocky man. He has enormous feet, you draw them as they are. All that is very ugly. Remember young man that when one executes a figure one should always think of the ancient style. Nature, my friend, is very beautiful to study, but it does not offer originality” (François Daulte, Frédéric Bazille, Pierre Cailler, Geneva, 1952, p.30). But for the future Impressionists, it was precisely nature which offered originality.

      La Grenouillère

      Claude Monet, 1869

      Oil on canvas, 74.6 × 99.7 cm

      The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

      La Grenouillère

      Auguste Renoir, 1869

      Oil on canvas, 66 × 81 cm

      Statens Konstmuseert, Stockholm

      Renoir reported that in their first meeting, Frédéric Bazille told him, “the big, classical compositions are finished. The depiction of