CRITICAL READINGS IN

Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

AN. ANTHOLOGY

Edited by M A R Y T 0 M P K I N S L E W I S

UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER q3 University of California Press

1 1......c -Q 1-

Berkeley Los Angeles London

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© 2007 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Critical readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism :

an anthology I edited by Mary Tompkins Lewis.

p. em.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-o-po-24010-o (cloth: alk. paper) ­

ISBN 978-o-po-2)622-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

r. Impressionism (Art)-France. 2. Post-impressionism

(Art)-France. 3· Painting, French-19th century.

4· Painting, French-2oth century. I. Lewis, Mary

Tompkins.

ND)47·J.I4C7) 2007

7)9·0) 04- dC22 2006034879

Manufactured in the United States of America

16 I) 14 13 12 II IO 09 08 07

IO 9 8 7 6 4 2

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1 992 (R I997)

(Permanence of Paper).

University of California Press, one of the most

distinguished university presses in the United States,

enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship

in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation

and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and

institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, Califo rnia

University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England

© 2007 by The Regents of the University of California

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Critical readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism:

an anthology I edited by Mary Tompkins Lewis.

p. em.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-o-po-24010-o (cloth : alk. paper)­

ISBN 978-o-p0-25022-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

r. Impressionism (Art)-France. 2. Post-impressionism

(Art)- France. 3· Painting, French- 19th century.

4· Painting, French- 2oth century. I. Lewis, Mary

Tompkins.

ND)47·P4C7) 2007

759·0) 14- dC22 2006034879

Manufactu red in the United States of America

16 I) 14 13 12 II !0 09 08 07

!0 9 8 7 6 4 2

T he paper used in this publication meets the minimum

requirements of ANSIINISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997)

(Permanence of Paper).

7 Duranty on Degas: A Theory Part Five of Modern Painting Recent Studies in Post-Impressionist Painting CAROL ARMSTRONG I63

II Seurat's Grande Jatte:

8 Berthe Morisot and the An Anti-Utopian Allegory

Feminizing of Impressionism LINDA NOCHLIN 2)3 TAMAR GARB I9I

I2 At the Threshold of Symbolism:

Van Gogh's Sower and Gauguin's

Part Four Vision after the Sermon

Impressionism, DEBORA SILVERMAN 27I Politics, and Nationalism

I3 Mark, Motif, Materiality:

9 Camille Pissarro in I88o: An Anarchistic The Cezanne Effect in the

Artist in Bourgeois Society Twentieth Century

MICHEL MELOT 20) RICHARD SH IFF 287

IO Monet and the Challenges to Select Bibliography 323 Impressionism in the I88os Contributors 33I PAUL TUCKER 227 List of Illustrations 333

Index 337

FIGURE 6.1. Edouard Maner, The Escape of Henri de Rochefort, 1874. Kunsthaus Zurich. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library.

he Bridgeman Art Library.

6

The Intransigent Artist or How

the Impressionists Got Their N arne

S T E P H E N F. E I S E N M A N

MOST HISTORIES of Impressionism provide an ac­

count of how the movement got its name; the formula

is as follows. 1 On April 15 , 1874, there opened at the

Paris studios of the photographer Nadar an exhibi­

tion billed as the "Premiere exposition" of the Societe

anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs,

etc.2 Thirty artists participated, including Claude

Monet, who submitted a painting entitled Impression,

soleillevant.3 Within a week, the terms "impression,"

"effect of an impression," and "quality of impres­sions" were employed in press accounts of the exhi­

bition, in particular referring to the paintings of

Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Degas, Pissarro, and Cezanne. 4

Louis Leroy was apparently the first to speak of a school of "Impressionists," in his now famous satir­

ical dialogue published in Le Charivari on April 25,

while it was Jules Castagnary who described "Im­pressionism" for readers of Le Siecle on April 29.5

The name apparently stuck, and three years later, in February 1877, the Societe itself accepted the sobri­quet, voting to call its imminent third exhibition the "Exhibition of Impressionists."6 The organization

went on to have five more exhibitions (the last in

r886), and its members would remain in loving art

historical memory simply as the Impressionists.

Two aspects of this story of origins concern me.

First, the basic accuracy of the account-how com­

mon was the term "Impressionism" in the period be­

tween April 1874 and February 1877, and why did the Societe anonyme adopt a name that apparently had

been used in derision? Second, what was at stake in naming the new art? Why did the artists and their

critics attach such importance to the matter? My an-. swer to these questions is intended as a contribution

both to the history of an art movement narrowly conceived and to the ongoing debate over Mod­

ernism itself, of which Impressionism constitutes a

signal moment.

The term "Impressionism" derives from "im­

pression," a word of considerable antiquity denoting a physical mark upon a surface or the immediate effect

of an experience or perception upon the mind. This latter definition underlay a school of British episte­

mology, sometimes called "Impressionism," of which David Hume was the spokesman. In his Essay

on Human Understanding of 1742 he wrote,

149

, I

·'I

By the term impression, I mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or see, or feel, or love or hate, or desire, or will. ... Impressions are distin­guished from ideas, which are the less lively per­ceptions of which we are conscious, when we reflect on any of those sensations or movements above mentioned.?

Hume 's description of the sensual immediacy of im­

pressions was echoed by the French physiopsychol­

ogists of the mid-nineteenth century, Hippolyte Taine, Theodule Ribot, and Emile Littre, who un­

derstood impressions as the middle term between

subject and object or the self and non-self.8 In his great Dictionnaire of r866, Littre explicitly severed

any ties between perception and cognition by defining

impression as "the more or less pronounced effect

which exterior objects make upon the sense organs."9

The word "impression" entered the vocabulary of

art criticism at about the same time that the French

positivists were undertaking their studies of percep­

tion. Charles Baudelaire, for example, in r863 de­scribed the "impression produced by things on the

spirit of M.G. (Constantin Guys] ."10 Other texts could

be cited, but the recent studies of Richard Shiff and

Charles Stuckey permit a generalization to be made

at once. By r87o it had become clear that any art based

upon impressions, that is, upon unmediated sensory

experience, must resemble the colored patchwork

that it was believed constituted unreflective vision, what Ruskin had earlier called "the innocence of the

eye." 11 In that year Theodore Durer said of Maner,

He brings back from the vision he casts on things an impression truly his own .... Everything is summed up, in his eyes, in a variant of coloration; each nuance or distinct color becomes a definite tone, a particular note of the palette. 12

Durer thus detected two aspects in Maner's Impres­

sion(ism): first, its utter individuality, and second, its structure of discrete color "notes" juxtaposed

against, but not blended with, their adjacent tone. The dual nature of Impressionism also underlay Castag­

nary's celebrated usage of 1874, cited above in part.

150 STEPHEN F. EISENMAN

"They are Impressionists in the sense that they render

not the landscape but the sensation produced by the landscape .... [The Impressionists] leave reality and

enter into full idealism." 13 By "idealism," as Shiff has

shown, Castagnary meant to signify the individual­

ism of the artists, an individualism that corresponded

to their technique of laying down a mosaic of colors

and forms, which was determined by the impression of the exterior world upon their sense organs. 14

Impressionism in 1874 thus connoted a vaguely defined technique of painting and an attitude of indi­vidualism shared by an assortment of young and

middle-aged artists unofficially led by Maner. Yet if

the word "Impressionism" offered only the merest

coherence to the exhibition at Nadar's, it had one

significant advantage over any other. Serving as a de­

scription of unbridled individualism, Impressionism

assured politically moderate critics that the new art

had both broken with increasingly discredited Salon r

conventions and ,remained unsullied by any trou-bling radical affiliations. "Does it constitute a revo­

lution?" asked Castagnaryoflmpressionism. "No . . .

it is a manner. And manners in art remain the prop­

erty of the man who invented them." 15 To such sup­

porters of the Third Republic as Castagnary, indi­

vidualism was deemed an essential instrument for the

emancipation of citizens from debilitating ties to for­

mer political, economic, or religious dogma. Indi­

vidualism would be necessary in the massive work

of reconstructing France after the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War and Commune. 16 We may con­

clude that the combination of painterly daring and

political discretion suggested by the word "I~pres­sionism" helps account for the surprisingly positive reception given the new art by many critics.

Not all critics, however, were sanguine about the

political moderation of the new art. Indeed, "Im­pressionist" was not the only name given to the artists

who exhibited at Nadar's studio in April r874. The word "Intransigent" also appeared, and continued

to gain in popularity until the Impressionists' self­naming in 1877. A critic for Le Figaro, writing two

weeks after Leroy, described the "brutality of the In­transigents."17 Jules Claretie commented that "the

ense that they render tion produced by the

.ists] leave reality and

dealism," as Shiff has

gnify the individual­

;m that corresponded

m a mosaic of colors .ed by the impression r sense organs.I4

connoted a vaguely td an attitude of indi­

:ment of young and · led by Manet. Yet if

~ red only the merest

Nadar's, it had one

>ther. Serving as a de­

alism, Impressionism ·itics that the new art

gly discredited Salon

sullied by any trou­; it constitute a revo­

tpressionism. "No ...

art remain the prop-hem." 15 To such sup­

as Castagnary, indi­

tial instrument for the

lebilitating ties to for­

ligious dogma. Indi­

in the massive work · the disasters of the

mune.16 We may con­

painterly daring and

•y the word "Impres­

surprisingly positive

many critics. re sanguine about the ~w art. Indeed, "1m­

me given to the artists

io in April 1874. The ~ared , and continued · Impressionists' self­

e Figaro, writing two e "brut~lity of the In­:ommented that "the

skill of these Intransigents is nil," while Ernest Ches­

neau noted that "this school has been baptized in a

very curious fashion with the name of the group of

Intransigents." 18 Before citing other critical articula­

tions, it is necessary to outline the derivation and

meaning of this curious word "Intransigent."

The French word intransigeant, like the English "in­

transigent," is derived from the Spanish neologism los

intransigents, the designation for the anarchist wing of the Spanish Federalist Party of 1872.19 The In­

transigents were opposed to the compromises offered

by the Federalist Benevolos (Benevolents), led by Pi

y Marga!, believing instead that the Spanish consti­

tutional monarchy led by the Savoy Prince Amadeo

could best be toppled by mass armed resistance and

a general strike.20 When in fact Amadeo's fragile

coalition finally collapsed in February 1873, the In­

transigents pressed their claims for Cantonal inde­

pendence against the newly empowered Benevolent Republicans. The dispute soon would escalate into

civil war. The French government led by President Thiers

had in the meanwhile been watching the events in

Spain with concern. The perception was widespread

that the newly hatched Spanish Republic might de­generate into a radical Commune. Indeed the links

between the two were direct, as it had been the Com­

mune that helped inspire the Federalist challenge in

Spain.21 In addition, many Communards had found refuge there (including Karl Marx's son-in-law Paul

Lafargue), precipitating the belief in France that

Communard agitators were responsible for destabi­

lizing the Spanish executive. In late February 1873 the correspondent for Le Temps sought to quash rumors that a contingent of Communards had arrived in

Spain. "As for those Communards who would come

to Madrid seeking an audience for their new exploits,

let them not doubt that they will receive here the wel­come they deserve."22 The ex-Orleanist minister

Marquis de Bouille refused to recognize the new Benevolent Republic, and amid reports that the

French might militarily intervene if the Intransigents gained control, the correspondent for Le Temps as-

sured his readers that Spain remained stable. An at­

tempted Intransigent coup in July 1873 ignited civil war, but without support of the International, the ma­

jor Spanish cities, or France (its conservatism

strengthened by the May election of Marshal MacMa­

hon), the rebels were routed. The last Intransigent

stronghold, Cartagena, submitted to the increasingly

conservative Republic in January 1874. By the end of

the year the Republic itself had been defeated and the Spanish Bourbons restored to power.

With the destruction of Intransigentism in Spain,

the word "Intransigent" entered the political and cul­

tural vocabulary of France. In the March 1875 pref­

ace to a catalogue for an auction of Impressionist

paintings, Philippe Burty described the landscapes of

the new group, "who are here called the Impression­

ists, elsewhere the Intransigents."23 By 1876 the name

Intransigent had grown considerably in popularity. In

his April 3 review of the Second Impressionist Exhi­

bition, Albert Wolff wrote, "These self-proclaimed artists call themselves the Intransigents, the Impres­

sionists ... . They barricade themselves behind their

own inadequacy."24 At the same time Armand Sil­

vestre spoke of Manet and "the little school of In­

transigents among whom he is considered the leader,"

while the Impressionist painter and patron Gustave

Caillebotte composed a last will and testament that

stipulated, "I wish that upon my death the necessary

sum be taken to organize, in 1878, under the best con­ditions possible, an exhibition of works by the painters

called Intransigents or Impressionists."25 A more

ominous note was sounded in Le Moniteur universe!.

Responding to ~favorable review by Emile Blemont

in the radical Le Rappel, an anonymous critic wrote,

Let us profit from this circumstance to understand

that the "Impressionists" have found a complacent

judge in Le Rappel. The Intransigents in art holding

hands with the Intransigents in politics, nothing

could be more natural.26

The assertion that the Impressionists had joined

hands with the Intransigents in politics was given fur­ther support by Louis Enault in Le Constitutionnel. In

THE INTRANS IGENT ART IST 151

,I·

. I I

his review of the second "Exposition des Intran­

sigeants," he recalled the origins of the word "In­

transigent":

If our memory is faithful, it is to Spain that we owe

this new word whose importation is more recent than

mantilles and less agreeable than castagnettes. It was, I

believe, the Republicans from the southern peninsula who for the first time employed this expression whose

meaning was not perfectly understood at the begin­

ning . . .. The political Intransigents admit no compro­mises, make no concession, accept no constitution ....

The terrain on which they intend to build their edi­

fice must be a blank slateY

The Intransigents of paint, Enault proceeded, simi­

larly wished to begin with a clean slate, unburdened

by the lines that the great draftsmen used to mark the

contours of figures or by the harmonious colors that

offered such "delicacies to the eyes of dilettantes."

A critic for La Ga1_ette [des itrangersj, Marius Chau­

melin, was more precise about the politics of Intran­

sigent art and the appropriateness of its name:

At first they were called "the painters of open air,"

indicating so well their horror of obscurity. They

were then given a generous name, "Impressionists,"

which no doubt brought pleasure to Mile Berthe Morisot and to the other young lady painters who

have embraced these doctrines. But there is a title

which describes them much better, that is, the Intran­

sigents . ... They have a hatred for classical traditions

and an ambition to reform the laws of drawing and color. They preach the separation of Academy and

State. They demand an amnesty for the "school of the daubs [taches}," of whom M. Manet was the founder and to whom they are all indebted.28

Chaumelin claimed that the principles of the new

art- reform of the laws of color and design, "sepa­

ration of Academy and State," and amnesty for

daubers-were derived from the principles of the po­

litical Intransigents, that is, the radicals who had

gained some thirty seats in the March 1876 elections

to the Chamber of Deputies. Among the radical

152 STEPHEN F. EISENMAN

leaders was Georges Clemenceau representing Mont­

martre, whose campaign platform included reform of

electoral laws, separation of church and state, and

amnesty for imprisoned or exiled Communards.29

This latter issue of giving amnesty, highlighted by Chaumelin, was particularly controversial as it im­

plied that the 1871 Commune had been a legitimate

political contest between classes and not, as conser­

vatives or moderate Republicans claimed, a criminal

insurrection whose brutal suppression was deserved.

Chaumelin offered his readers little help, however, in

determining just how political turned into artistic In­

transigence, preferring like Enault to treat them both

as largely nugatory affairs.

Not all the evaluations of the new art as Intransi­

gent came from the political right, however. Indeed,

it was no less a critic than Stephane Mallarme who de­

scribed with the greatest clarity as well as the great­

est subtlety the link between radical, or Intransigent,

art and politics. Malla(me perceived the new art as an

expression of working -class vision and ideology. His

essay, long forgotten but now justly celebrated, was

published in English in an issue of the Art Monthly

Review of September 1876. Toward the end of the es­

say, Mallarme wrote,

At a time when the romantic tradition of the first half

of the century only lingers among a few surviving

masters of that time, the transition from the old imag­

inative artist and dreamer to the energetic modern worker is found in Impressionism.

The participation of a hitherto ignored people in the political life of France is a social fact that will

honor the whole of the close of the nineteenth cen­

tury. A parallel is found in artistic matters, the way being prepared by an evolution which the public with

rare prescience dubbed, from its first appearance,

Intransigent, which in political language means radi­cal and democratic. 30

Mallarme argued that, as Romantic fantasy and imag­

ination characterized the art of the first half of the

century, the new Impressionist art marked a

significant new stage in social evolution. The Im­

pressionist artist became the eyes of the "energetic

1 representing Mont­

n included reform of

urch and state, and

led Communards.Z9

~sty, highlighted by

ntroversial as it im­

ld been a legitimate

and not, as conser­

; claimed, a criminal

:ssion was deserved.

tie help, however, in

rned into artistic In­

lit to treat them both

new art as Intransi­

lt, however. Indeed,

1e Mallarme who de­

as well as the great­

.cal, or Intransigent,

ved the new art as an

m and ideology. His

stly celebrated, was

of the Art Monthly

1rd the end of the es-

clition of the first half ng a few surviving Jn from the old imag­energetic modern m. to ignored people . social fact that will the nineteenth cen­ic matters, the way which the public with first appearance,

anguage means radi-

:ic fantasy and imag­

the first half of the

1ist art marked a

~volution. The Im­

~s of the "energetic

modern worker" and assisted him in his drive for a

radical republic. Thus the individualism that some

critics perceived in Impressionism may have been

valuable to Mallarme, but a collectivist impulse too

was celebrated. He wrote:

Rarely have three workers (Maner, Sisley, and Pis­sarro] wrought so much alike and the reason of the similitude is simple enough, for they each endeavor to suppress individuality for the benefit of nature. Nevertheless the visitor would proceed from this first impression ... to perceiving that each artist has some favorite piece of execution analogous to the subject accepted rather than chosen by him.31

Impressionism was a movement with a radical coop­

erative program, Mallarme believed, and the cur­

rency of the name Intransigent signaled to him the

widespread perception of that fact.

Mallarme offered a set of homologies between Im­

pressionist art and working-class, or radical, vision.

As did Enault and Chaumelin, Mallarme began by

noting that Intransigent art or politics stripped away

outmoded principles, seeking a blank slate upon

which to write a new cultural or political agenda. Yet,

unlike these critics, Mallarme suggested that this rad­

ical erasure was itself a positive style, akin to the pop­

ular art commonly supposed indigenous to the work­

ing classes. The key term in Mallarme's dialectic was

"the theory of the open air," by which academic for­

mulas were jettisoned in favor of a greater truth. He

noted that "contours, consumed by the sun and

wasted by space, tremble, melt and evaporate into the

surrounding atmosph ere, which plunders reality

from the figures, yet seems to do so in order to pre­

serve their truthful aspect." Mallarme continued,

Open air:- that is the beginning and end of the question we are now studying. Aesthetically it is answered by the simple fact that there in open air alone can the flesh tints of a model keep their true qualities, being nearly equally lighted on all sides. On the other hand if one paints in the real or artificial half-light in use in the schools, it is this feature or that feature on which the light strikes and forces into

undue relief, affording an easy means for a painter to dispose a face to suit his own fancy and return to by­gone stylesY

Open-air pamtmg thus provides an objective

justification for the discarding of academic traditions

or individualist caprice. Yet Mallarme further claims

that the Impressionists' stripping away results in a pic­

torial clarity and flatness that mimics the look of the

simple, popular art forms favored by the rising class

of workers and petit bourgeois: "But today the mul­

titude demands to see with its own eyes;, and if our

latter-day art is less glorious, intense and rich, it is not

without the compensation of truth, simplicity and

child-like charm."33 The poet's analysis of Manet's

sea pictures illuminates this vaunted simplicity, re­

vealing how the artist's technique of cropping reit­

erates pictorial flatness. Mallarme most likely re­

ferred to Manet's Alabama and Kearsarge (John F.

Johnson Collection, Philadelphia), but The Escape of

Henri de Rochefort (fig. 6.r) serves as welL By plac­

ing the boat containing Rochefort and his comrades

in the center of a vertical sea, Manet denies the tra­

ditional and essential metonymy that prevails be­

tween horizontal sea pictures and horizontal seas. Nor

has Manet compensated for this elimination of lateral

extension by providing a deep space. The even tonal

value between fore-, middle-, and background and

the numbing repetition of comma-shaped brush­

strokes preclude extending the vision along the line

of sight. Indeed, the juxtaposition of Rochefort's

boat to the tiny ship at the top. (no doubt inspired by

the relationship between the two vessels in Geri­

cault 's RafiofcheMedusa) merely caricatures the con­

vention that diminution in size indicates flight into

pictorial space. Similarly, Mallarme wrote that "the

function of the frame is to isolate [the picture],"

thereby excluding from its concerns all that is non­

pictoriaJ.l4 One is reminded here of Renoir's remarks

to Ambroise Vollard concerning Manet's simplicity:

He was the first to establish a simple formula, such as we were all trying to find until we could discover a better . . . . Nothing is so distracting as simplicity ....

THE INT RANSI GENT ARTI ST 153

; I

You can imagine how those [Barbizon "dreamers" and "thinkers"] scorned us, because we were get­ting paint on our canvases, and because, like the old masters, we were trying to paint in joyous tones and carefully eliminate all "literature" from our pictures.35

Both Mallarme and Renoir assert that the Im­

pressionist followers of Manet remained loyal to the

simple or popular character of his art. Indeed,

Renoir's own Etude [Torso, Sunlight Effect; plate 2] , reviled by Albert Wolff in r876 as a "mass of de­

composing flesh," perfectly exemplifies the "theory

of the open air." The anatomy of the figure is dis­

solved by the dappled light produced by irregular

brushwork, oddly shaped and ordered patches of

pink, and shadows composed of the collision between

warm and cool tones of yellow, orange, or purple, and green, gray, or blue. The face of Renoir's nude

does not permit the imputation of character, or "lit­

erature." Eyes are unfocused, lips are unresolved, and

the nose is articulated solely by rough daubs of green at the nostrils and bridge. Nevertheless, simple con­

tours are created through the conformity of hair to

shoulders and the vertical scumblings bordering the

figure. To borrow the language of r96os Modernism, the torso "stamps itself out" as a simple shape set

amid a shallow pictorial space.36 Indeed, this clarity, simplicity, and formal self-regard are the positive fea­

tures that Mallarme perceived in the Impressionist art of erasure. Mallarme's ideal Impressionist painter

proclaims in conclusion, "I have taken from [nature]

only that which properly belongs to my art, an orig­

inal and exact perception which distinguishes for it­

self the things it perceives with the steadfast gaze of

a vision restored to its simplest perfection."37 Here Mallarme anticipates the late Modernist credo of

medium purity. Clement Greenberg has written that

Manet's paintings became the first Modernist ones by virtue of the frankness with which they declared the surfaces on which they were painted. The Impres­sionists, in Ma~et's wake, abjured underpainting and glazing, to leave the eye under no doubt as to the fact that the colors used were made of real paint

154 STEPH EN F. EISENMAN

that came from pots or tubes. Cezanne sacrificed verisimilitude, or correctness, in order to fit drawing and design more explicitly to the rectangular shape of the canvas. 38

To both Mallarme and Greenberg, Impressionism

was a method of dispensing with all the artistic con­

ventions fatally compromised by academicism. Mal­

larme, however, believed that the Modernist art that resulted would be favored by a working class whose

own visual culture it resembled. He could not have

foreseen what Greenberg brilliantly described, that is,

the growth of mass culture or kitsch. In the decades

after r87o, the European and American working classes were provided with an administered culture

which did indeed borrow the superficial forms that

became characteristic of Modernism but now turned

them into shallow receptacles for fashion, entertain­

ment, and economic consumption. Far from becom­

ing an instrument of working-class ideology, Mod­ernism would narrow its audience and its range of

expression nearly into extinction.

Faced with the conflicting interpretations of such for­

midable writers as Castagnary and Mallarme, the

reader must by now be wondering whether the new

art, between 1874 and 1877, was in fact Impression­ist or Intransigent, that is, affirmative and individu­

alist, or radical and democratic. The answer must be that it was neither and both. The essence of the new

art was its insistent indeterminacy, or, put another

way, its determined position between those polari ties

Impressionist / Intransigent. As such, the new art

must be understood as a signal instance of Modernist dialectics. On the one hand, works that primarily ex­

plore their own physical origins or constituents (Renoir's "simple formula," Mallarme's "simplest

perfection," or Greenberg's "frankness") are In­

transigent rebukes to a society that seeks to tailor all culture to its own interests. On the other hand, the apolitical self-regard of Modernist art creates an en­

vironment favorable to the eventual industrial ap­

propriation of the works. The "free space" desired by

Modernism also is valuable to a culture industry that

:ezanne sacrificed

n order to fit drawing 1e rectangular shape

tberg, Impressionism

th all the artistic con­

'Y academicism. Mal­

he Modernist art that

working class whose

l. He could not have

1tly described, that is,

utsch. In the decades

American working

administered culture

:uperficial forms that

·nism but now turned

)r fashion, entertain­

on. Far from becom­

class ideology, Mod­

~nce and its range of

lfi.

1retations of such for­

{ and Mallarme, the

·ing whether the new

tS in fact Impression­

mative and individu­

. The answer must be

1e essence of the new

1acy, or, put another

:ween those polarities

.s such, the new art

nstance of Modernist

rks that primarily ex­

gins or constituents

vfallarme's "simplest

'frankness") are In­

that seeks to tailor all

1 the other hand, the

nist art creates an en­

·entual industrial ap­

free space" desired by

. culture industry that

relies for its vitality upon the public generation of new

desires. Yet there have been times when this process

of appropriation has been sufficiently slowed that a

semblance of autonomy (what Adorno has called

"the duty and liberty of [the mind's] own pure ob­

jectification") has been achieved.39 Such was the case

between 1874 and 1877 when the new art was definable

only by the uncertainties in critical language.

The opposition between Impressionist and In­

transigent art is unresolved in the criticism of

claretie, Chesneau, Burty, Wolff, Silvestre, Blemont,

Enault, Chaumelin, and Mallarme. Indeed, even

those critics who worked hardest to claim Impres­

sionism for the moderate Republic were strangely

compelled to call attention to its Intransigent alter­

ego. Thus Emile Blavet wrote in the conservative Le

Gaulois of March 31, 1876,

Let us consider the artists who for the second time are calling on the public directly; are they rebels as some are pleased to call iliem when they are not stupidly called Communards? Certainly not. A few dissidents have simply come together to show to the public the several styles and varieties of their work in finer exhi­

bition conditions than ilie Salon can offer.40

Blavet went still further in his effort to rescue Im­

pressionism from the left, claiming that the new art

represented "the fruitful renovation of the French

School, the affirmation, in a word, of a principle of

art whose results may be considerable." But once

again the critic resurrects the radical bogey by sug­

gesting that the new art offered the young Republic

a chance to demonstrate its magnanimity, just as

Courbet offered a chance to an earlier republic:

"When the Burial at Omans appeared it was in fact

(the academician] Flandrin who was the first to

exclaim: 'What beauty! What grandeur ! What

truth!' ... In a Republic there are no pariahs." If the

new art, as we have seen, embodied a "theory of the

open air," so too did its criticism, often seeming to

"tremble, melt and evaporate" into ideological un­

ease, the critics on the left proving no more confident

than those on the right. This uncertain art criticism

was thus wholly appropriate to the ambiguities of the

new art. May we suppose that the artists took delib­

erate steps to cultivate a zone of aesthetic autonomy

that could remain free from the political polarizations

disfiguring the art of the previous decades? The se­

lection of the group's name in 1874 as the neutral So­

ciete anonyme suggests a high degree of premedita­

tion. Renoir later explained,

The title failed to indicate the tendencies of the exhi­bitors; but I was the one who objected to using a title with more precise meaning. I was afraid that if it were called the "Somebodies," or "The So-and-Sos," or even "The Thirty-Nine," the critics would imme­

diately start talking of a "new school," when all that we were really after, within the limits of our abilities, was to try to induce painters in general to get in line and fo llow the Masters, if they did not wish to see painting definitely go by the board .... For in the last analysis, everything that was being painted was merely rule of iliumb or cheap tinsel-it was con­sidered frightfu lly daring to take figures from David

and dress them up in modern clothes. Therefore it was inevitable that the younger generation should go back to simple things. How could it have been oilier­wise? It cannot be said too often that to practice an art, you must begin with the ABCs of that art. 41

Indeed, Renoir's rejection of a name encouraged

critical uncertainty over the new art, thereby pro­

longing the period during which it remained between

ideological antinomies. Such a stance was considered

by Renoir as part of the tradition of "the Masters,"

essential if painting was not to "definitely go by the

board," that is, be absorbed into the "cheap tinsel"

or academicism that predominated in the Salon.

The success of the new art in evading either aca­

demicism or political tendentiousness is thus attrib­

utable both to the refusal of a proper name and the

articulation of a new style; it was apparently Renoir

who was responsible for the former and Maner who,

despite his refusal to join me Societe, set the standard

for the latter. If Romanticism had vested artists with

the power symbolically to breach the Enlightenment

fissure between subject and object or word and thing,

THE INT RA NS IG ENT ART IST 155

, I

I

I i

; I

Manet instead chose to expose these scissions through

an art that called attention to its status as fiction; the

refusal of tonal modeling and perspective, the pur­

poseful cultivation of visual ambiguity, and the

disrespectful highlighting of revered art historical

sources are all the well-known devices by which Manet

refused academic closure. Yet it is equally well known

that in rejecting Romantic symbolism, Manet did

not adopt what may be called the J acobin tradition­

art as the purposely tendentious iteration of a pre­

determined political position. On the contrary, as T. J. Clark has shown in his study of Manet's Argenteuil,

les canotiers [see plate 3 and chapter 5], what we most

often find in Maner's work is an avoidance of the ex­

plicit signs of politics or class achieved through

blankness of human expression and an odd unread­

ability of gesture, posture, and physical place. Yet

Manet has not thereby given in to abstraction, to the

willful effacement of the norms of anatomy and com­

position, but instead offers a different kind of ration­

ality based upon the consonance between the flatness

of the canvas, the flatness of those vertical and hor­

izontal stripes of paint that comprise a woman's dress

or a man 's chemise, and a flatness actually perceived

in the world-in the peculiar mass-produced cos­

tumes and places of urban entertainment or subur- .

ban leisure. Clark claims that Argenteuil, les canotiers

is massively finished; it is orderly and flawless, and the word "restrained" applies to it as much as the word "natural": it is not offered to the viewer as something already made and self-evident, there to be looked at and not questioned (this is true of land­scape and figures alike). What Manet was painting was the new look of a new form of life-a placid form, a modest form, but one with a claim to plea­sure .... This woman looks out circumspectly from a place that belongs to people like her. How good it is, in these places, to find a little solitude on Sundays! How good, how modern, how right and properY

Maner's art, it may generally be said, elided the op­

positions that comprised contemporary ideology :

work/leisure, city /country, artifice/authenticity,

156 STEP HE N F. EISENMAN

public/ private- in short a whole rhetoric of binaries

that seemed to assure political and class stability.

Manet questioned this stability and did so with a

Modernist style that compelled conviction. His paint­

ing revealed an undeniable finish, solidity, composure

and simple rationality that signaled a real knowledge:

a knowledge that could not be overlooked by a people

who took so seriously their own reasonableness. Now

it seems to me that the Impressionist followers of

Manet similarly succeeded in eliding ideological op­

positions while still offering something that could ap­

proach knowledge . The evidence of that knowledge

is in the pictures, for example, in the decomposition

of figures and their resurrection as shapes; the evi­

dence of the new painters' success in eliding com­

forting social oppositions provide the aporias that

dominated criticism of the new art, that is, the free

space between Impressionist and Intransigent.

What I have described as the evasive posture of the

new art began to erode after r876. The polarization

in that year, between radicals such as Clemenceau and

so-called Opportunists (who sought a more oppor­

tune time for the granting of amnesty) such as Leon

Gambetta, made it difficult for artists to find any ide­

ological free space to cultivate for themselves. Merely

to seek such a posture was to be Intransigent. Was the

Societe anonyme attempting to discourage Intransi­

gent interpretations of its art when in early 1877 they

decided to designate their upcoming group show an

Exhibition of Impressionists? Charles Bigot, writing

on April28, r877, in La R eYue politique et littiraire be­

lieved so:

The public baptized them the "Intransigents," and the name did not appear to be repugnant to them: they have undoubtedly discovered, however, that recent political events have rendered this name com­promising; they have definitively adopted the name "Impressionists. "43

Indeed, it was only in r877 that the Impressionists

pushed forward with their plan, originally announced

in r874, of publishing a journal through which their

would be publicized and their views articulated. art d R . . , d . h enoir's frien Georges tvtere was entruste wtt

~e task of writing and editing L'Impressionniste. It

was the third number of this journal, dated 21 April,

that contained the Impressionists' own account of

their choice of a name, the account from which all

others derive:

Some journalists ... have been asking for fifteen

days why the artists showing on the rue le Peletier

have taken the name Impressionists. It is very simple.

They have finally put the word Impressionist over

the entrance door to their exhibition in order to avoid

being confused with any other group and because the

word clearly and forcefully represents them before

the public .... This name reassures the public because

the "Impressionists" are sufficiently well known so

that no one will be fooled about the manner of works

on display .... All these artists, I assure you, are

sincere; if what they create is bad, it is not their fault

because they could not make it either better or differ­

ent. "Impressionists" they are, and their works are

the result of sensations they have experienced. I can

hardly understand it when artists can doubt, even for

an instant, the sincerity of the works shown on the

rue le Peletier.44

Riviere's explanation of the naming of the Impres­

sionists was an effort to protect the group from aca­demic imitators by claiming that their style was the

ineluctable result of individual sensations, and at the

same time to shield them from charges of political

subversion. In the same issue of L'Impressionniste,

Riviere directed remarks "Aux Femmes":

But you have a husband .... Your husband, who is

perhaps a Republican, enters into a rage against those

revolutionaries who sow discord in the camp of the

artist .... He rails against political routine and against

administrative routine ... but he looks at painting

through the prejudicial routine of old canvases. 45

Riviere and Renoir apparently had it in their minds

to direct their words and pictures at a very particular

Republican audience. In early 1877, Renoir made a

pilgrimage to the offices of La Republique franfaise,

the Opportunist journal edited by Leon Gambetta, in

order to plead for the insertion of a notice favorable

to the group. Riviere later recounted how Renoir, un­

able to find Gambetta in his office, made his request to Challemel-Lacour, cofounder of the journal, who

answered by exclaiming, "What! You ask me to speak

about some Impressionists in our journal! That's im­

possible, it would be scandalous! Do you forget , you are revolutionaries?" Renoir was apparently dis­

comfited by this response and left without saying an­

other word. Immediately, however, he ran into Gam­

betta, who asked him the reason for his visit. Riviere

wrote, "When Renoir repeated to him the remarks of

Challemel-Lacour, Gambetta laughed and said, 'You,

one of the revolutionaries. Ah, well, and us, what then are we?'" 46 Renoir's appeal and Gambetta's mocking

response suggest that Renoir had largely succeeded

in putting distance between himself and Intransigent

politics, and that Gambetta was ready to accept the

artist into the camp of Opportunism. Gambetta was

no longer a radical and neither then was Renoir. The

ground was being prepared for the assimilation of Im­

pressionism into the mainstream of French cultUre.

The subsequent critical fortunes of Impressionism

fall beyond the limits of this essay, but a kind of epi­

logue is in order. In January r882 President Gam­betta's minister of art, Antonin Proust, awarded

Edouard Manet the Legion of Honor. Shortly there­

after, a columnist for the popular L'Illustration won­

dered at the effect the election would have upon the

"irreconcilables of the brush" and the "Bellevillois of

the canvas." The author continued,

It is the triumph of the Nouvelle-Athenes over the

School of Rome. The Intransigents of painting have

triumphed. Ah, but not quite! They have knitted

their brows, passed their fingers through their beards.

Manet decorated is no longer Manet ... The painter

Degas one day remarked, "He is better known than

Garibaldi." "Manet," exclaimed a nouvel athinien who

was not the young Forain, "Oh well , may he rest in

peace! He is only an Opportunist with color!" 47

THE INTRANS IGENT ARTIST 157

Here indeed was Gambetta's and Proust's triumph.

Manet the Intransigent, Manet the Communard, was

now Manet the Opportunist. The award to Manet was

followed up by other liberal initiatives, including the

acquisition of five paintings from the estate of

Courbet, and a plan by Proust to "democratize" the

Ecole des Beaux-Arts by eliminating the Rome prize

and replacing the "autocratic" heads of the three

painting ateliers, Gerome, Cabanel, and Lehmann,

with a rotating group of ten or twelve instructors,

among them Manet. 48 The Impressionists had by

now adopted the name Independents, perhaps, as

Joel Isaacson suggests, to paper over serious personal

and political divisions within the group, but also to

promote a stance of artistic purity.49 This combina­

tion of political retreat and aestheticist celebration is

revealed most clearly in a letter of early 1882 from

Renoir to Durand-Rue! concerning plans for a new

group exhibition:

To exhibit with Pissarro, Gauguin and Guillaumin

would be the same as exhibiting with a Socialist.

Notes Originally published in The New Painting: Impressionism,

1874-1886, exh. cat. (San Francisco: The Fine Arts Muse­ums of San Francisco, 1986), 51-59.

For their insightful criticisms and generous suggestions, my sincerest thanks extend to David James, Occidental Colleges; Richard R. Brettell, the Art Institute of Chicago; Fronia E. Wissman, the Fine Arts Museums of San Fran­cisco; John H. Smith, University of California, Irvine; Thomas Crow, Princeton University; and M. Lee Hendrix, the J. Paul Getty Museum.

All translations are the author's except where otherwise indicated.

1. Three examples: Theodore Duret, H istoire des peintres

impressionnistes (Paris, 1939), 20; Lionello Venturi, Les

Archives de l'impressionnisme, vol. 1 (Paris and New York, 1939), 22; John Rewald, The History of Impres­

sionism, 4th rev. ed. (New York, 1973), 336-38. 2. Paul Tucker has recently recounted the facts of the first

Impressionist exhibition and the implicit nationalism of

158 STEPHEN F. EISENMAN

\

What is more, Pissarro would probably invite the

Russian Lavroff, or some other revolutionary. The

public does not like what it feels is political, and I do

not want, at my age, to be a revolutionary .... Free

yourself from such people and show me artists such as Manet, Sisley, Morisot, etc., and then I will be

yours because then there will no longer be politics, only pure art. 5°

What had once been an art whose simultaneous re­

ductiveness and rationality signified the elision of

aesthetic traditions, now embraced !'art pour f'art.

What had once been an art that explored a dynamic

free space between conflicting ideologies now

sought an apoliticism that was in fact deeply politi­

cal. The autonomy of 1874 became by 1882 the aes­

theticism that affirmed an Opportunist status quo.

The pattern of this transformation-from auton­

omy to affirmation-is by now a familiar part of

twentieth-century art history, but its origins may be

traced to the burial of the Intransigent and the birth

of the Impressionist.

Monet's Impression, solei/levant in "The First Impres­sionist Exhibition and Monet's Impression, Sunrise: A Tale of Timing, Commerce and Patriotism," Art His­

tory 7, no. 4 (December 1984): 465-76. See also Anne Dayez et a!., Centenaire de l'impressionnisme, exh. cat. (Paris: Grand Palais, 1974).

3· The identity of this painting remains in doubt. See Tucker, "First Impressionist Exhibition," 470-71, and Rewald, History of Impressionism, 339 n. 23.

4· Cited by Jacques Letheve, Impressionnistes et symbolistes

devant !a presse (Paris, 1959), 64-69. 5· These reviews are reprinted in Dayez eta!., Centenaire,

259- 61, 264-65. Tucker cites nineteen reviews of the exhibition: "Six were very positive; three were mixed, but generally positive; one was mixed but generally neg­ative; four were negative; five were notices or an­nouncements" ("First Impressionist Exhibition," 469, 475-76 n. 20).

6. Rewald, History of Impressionism, 390. The author does not document his suggestion that the name was defini­tively adopted in February. See also Barbara Erlich

ld probably invite the

1er revolutionary. The

eels is political, and I do

revolutionary ... . Free

nd show me artists such

: . , and then I will be

I no longer be politics,

.vhose simultaneous re­

signified the elision of

!braced !'art pour l'art.

hat explored a dynamic

cting ideologies now

as in fact deeply politi­

oecame by r8 82 the aes­

>pportunist status quo.

:mation- from auton­

now a familiar part of

r, but its o rigins may be

transigent and the birth

·ant in "The First lmpres­:t's Impression, Sunrise: A and Patriotism," Art His­

~) : 465- 76. See also Anne 'impressionnisme, exh. cat.

,g remains in doubt. See Exhibition," 470-71 , and

1ism, 339 n. 23. pressionnistes et symholistes

64- 69. .n Dayez et al., Centenaire,

:s nineteen reviews of the ::>sitive; three were mixed, .s mixed but generally neg­five were notices or an­:ssionist Exhibition," 469,

:ism, 39o. The author does that the name was defini­See also Barbara Erlich

White, Renoir, His Life, Art, and Letters (New York, 1984), 74· The phrase "Exposition des impression­nistes" does not appear on the title page of the ac­companying catalogue but was placed above the door of the entrance to the galleries on the rue le Peletier. See G. Riviere, "Explications," L'Impressionniste (21 April 1877): 3; cited in Venturi, Archives, vol. 2, 322.

7. David Hume, Essay Concerning Human Understand­

ing, Original!deas, vol. 2 (1817), r6; cited in The Ox­

ford English Dictionary, ed. James A. H. Murray, vol. 5 (Oxford , 1978), 110.

8. Richard Shiff, Ce{anne and the End of Impressionism

(Chicago, 1984), 19, 239 n. 24.

9. Emile Littre, Dictionnaire de Ia langue franfaise, vol. 2 (Paris, 1866), 36; cited in Charles F. Stuckey, "Monet's Art and the Act of Vision," Aspects of Monet, ed. John Rewald and Frances Weitzenhoffer (New York, 1984), 120; also cited in Shiff, Ci{anne, r8.

1o. Charles Baudelaire, Oeuvres completes, ed. Claude Pi­chois, vol. 2 (Paris, 1976), 698.

I 1. John Ruskin, The Complete Works, ed. E. T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn, vol. 15 (London, 1904), 27; cited in Stuckey, 108.

12. Theodore Duret, "Salon de r87o," Critique d'avant-

garde (Paris, 1885), 8; cited in Shiff, Ci{anne, 22. '3· Dayez eta!. , Centenaire, 265. I4. Shiff, Ci{anne, 4· I). Dayez eta!., Centenaire, 265. I6. Tucker, "First Impressionist Exhibition," 474· 17. Letheve, Impressionnistes et symholistes, 72 . I8. Jules Claretie, "Salon de 1874 a Paris," L'Art les artistes

franfais contemporains (Paris, 1876), 260; Ernest Ches­neau, "Le plein air, Exposition du boulevard des Ca­pucines," Paris-journal, 7 May 1874; cited in Dayez et al. , Centenaire, 268.

I9. E. Littre, Dictionnaire de Ia langue franfaise: Supple­

ment (Paris, 1897), 204; Centre National de Ia Recherche Scientifique, Tresor de Ia langue fran faise: Dictionnaire de Ia langue de XIXe et XXe siecle,

ZJ89- 196o, vol. ro (Paris, 1983), 490; The Oxford En­glish Dictionary, vol. 5, 435· The following account of Intransigentism is largely based on C. A.M. Hen­nessy, The Federal Republic in Spain: Pi y Marga! and

the Federal Republican Movement, z868-74 (Oxford, 1962). See also Friedrich Engels, "The Bakunists at Work: Notes on the Spanish Uprising in the Summer of 1873," in Marx, Engels, Lenin: Anarchism and An­

archo-Syndicalism (New York, I 978), 128- 46. 20. The Intransigents' platform was never very clear, al­

though it may generally be said to have been based upon a separation of church and state, land reform, di-

rect democracy, price controls, nationalization of banks, and Cantonal independence. The Benevolents, however, were equally unable to draft a precise social program (much to the chagrin of their supporters in the International, Marx, Engels, and Lafargue), with the result that neither faction was able to claim lead­ership of the growing revolutionary movement. Hen­nessy asserts that the bulk of Intransigent support came from the proletariat of Madrid and Cartagena but that its leadership was mixed in its class and political backgrounds, including the moderate general Con­treras, the socialists Cordoba y Lopez and Luis Blanc, and the antisocialist Roque Barcia (Federal Republic in

Spain, rp). 21. "The Commune's aim is not an unrealizable utopia,

but simply the autonomy of the Commune," La Re­

denci6n social (9 Aprilr871); cited in ibid., '49· 22. Le Temps, 23 February 1873. See the subsequent re­

port (24 February) that ex-Communards were re­ported to be arriving in Spain in the guise of journal­ists. See also Hennessy, Fecj!ral Republic in Spain, 181.

23. Cited in Venturi, Archives, vol. 2, 290. 24. Albert Wolff, "Le Calendrier parisien," Le Figaro, 3

April 1876. 25. Armand Silvestre, "Les Deux Tableaux de Monsieur

Manet," L'Opinion nationale, 23 April r876; cited in Frant;:oise Cachin eta!. , Manet, exh. cat. (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983), 32; Marie Ber­haut, Caillebotte, sa vie et son oeuvre (Paris, 1978), 25 r.

26. Le Moniteur universe!, 8 April 1876; cited in Letheve, Impressionnistes et symbolistes, 79·

27. Louis Enault, "Mouvement artistique: L'exposition des intransigeants dans Ia galerie de Durand-Ruelle [sic)," Le Constitutionnel, ro Aprilr876. "Si nos sou­venirs sont fideles, c'est a l'Espagne que nous devons ce vocable nouveau, dont ]' importation est plus recente que celles des mantilles, et moins agreable que celle des castagnettes. Ce sont, je crois, les republicains du midi de Ia peninsule qui employerent pour Ia premiere fois, cette expression, dont on ne comprit pas parfaitement Ia valeur tout d 'abo rd .. . . Les intransigeants poli­tiques n'admettent aucun compromis, ne font aucune concession, n'acceptent aucun temperament .... Le terrain sur lequel ils entendent elever leur monument do it leur offrir ]'image d 'une table rase."

28. Marius Chaumelin, "Actualites: L'Exposition des in­transigeants," La Ga{ette [des itrangers), 8 Aprilr876. "On les ad 'aborde appeles ' les peintres du plein air, ' ce qui indique assez bien qu'ils ont horreur de l'ob­scurite. On les a decores du doux nom 'd ' impression­nistes,' pour faire plaisir, sans doute, a Mile Berthe

THE INTRANSIGENT ARTIS T 159

: r

. )

L f· I

Morisot et aux autres jeunes peintresses qui ont em­brasse leurs doctrines. Mais il y a un titre qui leur con­vient beaucoup mieux: celui d 'intransigeants . ... Ils ont en haine les traditions classiques et ambitionnent de reformer les lois du dessin et de Ia couleur. Ils prechent Ia separation de l'Academie et de l'Etat. Ils reclament I' amnistie pour 'I' ecole des taches' dont M. Manet fut le fondateur et d 'ou ils sont to us sortis."

29. Jack D. Ellis, The Early Life of Georges Clemenceau

(Lawrence, Kansas, 1980), 64. Clemenceau's Radical program, fully articulated during his election cam­paign of r88r, was an expansion of the celebrated "Belleville Program" of Leon Gambetta from r869. Clemenceau's text is translated and reproduced in Leslie Derfier, The Third French Republic, Z8J0-1940

(Princeton, 1966), 121-23. See also R. D. Anderson, France, z8J0-1914: Politics and Socieor(London, 1977), 88-99, as well as his extensive bibliography, r 87- 208. The internecine Republican struggles of 1876 are de­scribed in J. P. T. Bury, Gambetta and the Making of the

Third Republic (London, 1973), 263- 327. 30. Stephane Mallarme, "The Impressionists and Edouard

Manet," Documents Stiphane Mallarmi, ed. C. P. Bar­bier (Paris, 1968), 84.

3 r. Ibid., 79-80. 32. Ibid., 74-75 . 33· Ibid., 84. See also the remarks of Renoir to Ambroise

Vollard, Renoir: An Intimate Record (New York, 1 934), 47· "You realize then that for us the great task has been to paint as simple as possible; but you also realize how much the inheritors of tradition-from such men as Abel de Pujol, Gerome, Cabanel, etc., with whom these traditions,· which they did not comprehend, were lost in the commonplace and the vulgar, up to painters like Courbet, De Iacroix, Ingres-were bewildered by what seemed to them merely the naive efforts of an imagier d 'Epinal. Daumier is said to have remarked at the Manet exhibition, ''I'm not a very great admirer of Maner's work, but I find it has this important quality: it is helping to bring art back to the simplicity of play­ing cards." On the continuing affinity between Mod­ernist art and popular culture see Thomas Crow, "Modernism and Mass Culture in the Visual Arts," in Modernism and Modernior, ed. S. Guilbaut and D. Sol­kin (Halifax, 1983). See also T. J. Clark, The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Fol­

lowers (New York, 1984), 205- 58. 34· Mallarme, "Impressionists," 77· 35· Vollard, Renoir, 66. 36. Michael Fried, "Shape as Form: Frank Stella's New

160 STEPHEN F. EISENMAN

37· 38.

39·

40.

4!.

42.

43·

44·

45·

Paintings," in New York Painting and Sculpture:

Z940-Z9JO, ed. Henry Geldzahler (New York, 1969),

403· Mallarme, "Impressionists," 86. Clement Greenberg, "Modernist Painting," in Modern

Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, ed. Francis Frascina and Charles Harrison (New York, 1982), 6. Theodor Adorno, "Commitment," in Aesthetics and Politics, ed. Ronald Taylor (London, 1980), 177. Emile Blavet, "Avant le Salon: L'Exposition des real­ists," Le Gaulois, 31 March 1876. "Les artistes qui, pour Ia seconde fois, en appellent directement au public, sont-ils des revoltes, comme on se plait ale dire, quand on ne les traite pas idiotement de communards? Non certes. Des dissidents, tout au plus, groupes, associe~ afin de montrer au public !'ensemble de leurs ten­dances et Ia variete de leur oeuvre dans d 'excellentes conditions de place et de lumiere que le Salon ne saurait leur offrir." Vollard, Renoir, 62-63 . Clark, Painting of Modern Life, 172- 73. Charles Bigot, "Causerie artistique: L'Exposition des 'impressionniste( " La Revue politique et littiraire (2 8 April 1877): ro45· "Le public les avait baptises les 'in­transigeants,' et le nom ne paraissait pas leur repugner: ils auront trouve, sans doute, que les derniers incidents de Ia politique en avaient rendu Ia qualification com­promettante; ils ont definitivement adopte le nom 'd 'impressionnistes.'" Venturi, Archives, vol. 2, 322-24. "Des journalistes ... demandent depuis quinze jours pourquoi les artistes qui exposent rue Le Peletier ont pris le titre d'im­pressionnistes. C' est bien simple. Ils ont mis a Ia porte de leur exposition le mot impressionniste afin de ne pas etre confondus avec d 'autres et parce que ce mot les designait d 'une fa~on fort claire pour le public .... Ce titre rassure le public, les 'impressionnistes' sont suffisamment connus pour que personne ne soit trompe sur Ia qualite des oeuvres exposees .... Taus les artistes, je le soutiens, sont sinceres; ils donnent toujours dans leurs oeuvres leur valeur exacte; si ce qu'ils produisent est mauvais, il n'y a pas de leur faute , ils ne sauraient ni faire mieux, ni faire autrement. Les 'impressionnistes' sont ainsi , leurs oeuvres sont le resultat des sensations qu'ils ont eprou­vees, et je con~ois peu que des artistes puissant met­tre en doute un seul instant Ia sincerite des oeuvres ex­posees rue le Peletier." Venturi, Archives, vol. 2, 322. "Mais vous avez un mari .... Votre mari, qui est peut-etre republicain, en-

Painting and Sculpture:

:lzahler (New York, 1969),

," 86.

~rnist Painting," in Modern.

ical Anthology, ed. Francis ison (New York, 1982), G.

titment," in Aesthetics and

(London, 198o), 177.

ion: L'Exposition des real-876. "Les artistes qui, pour !nt directement au public, eon se plait ale dire, quand ent de communards? Non, au plus, groupes, associes I' ensemble de leurs ten­oeuvre dans d 'excellentes lumiere que le Salon ne

Life, 172-73. rtistique: L'Exposition des 1ue politique et litteraire (28 ic les avait baptises les 'in­araissait pas leur repugner: ~, que les derniers incidents endu Ia qualification com­titivement adopte le nom

~-24. "Des journalistes ... jours pourquoi les artistes ier ont pris le titre d 'im­imple. I is ont mis a Ia porte pressionniste afin de ne pas :es et parce que ce mot les laire pour le public . . .. Ce :s 'impressionnistes' sont 1r que personne ne soit euvres exposees . . . . Taus sont sinceres; ils donnent ~s leur valeur exacte; si ce vais, il n 'y a pas de leur ni faire mieux, ni faire mnistes' sont ainsi, leurs ;ensations qu'ils ont eprou­' des artistes puissant met­la sincerite des oeuvres ex-

322. "Mais vous avez un ;t peut-etre republicain, en-

47·

tre en fureur contre un revolutionnaire qui seme Ia dis­corde dans le camp artistique .... II erie contre Ia rou­tine politique, contre Ia routine administrative .. . mais i1 regarde Ia peinture a travers les vieux tableaux." G. Riviere, Renoir et ses amis (Paris, 1921), 89-90. On Challemel-Lacour, seeM. Prevost and Roman D'A­mat, Dictionnaire de hiographie fran;aise, vol. 8 (Paris,

1959), 210-211. Perdican, "Courrier de Paris," L'Illustration, 7 Janu­ary 1882. "C'est le triomphe de Ia Nouvelle Athenes sur !'Ecole de Rome. Les intransigeants de Ia peinture de­vraient triompher. Eh! bien, non, pas du tout. Ils ont france le sourcil, passe leurs doigts dans leur barbe. Manet decore n'est plus Manet ... disait, un jour, le peintre Degas: 'II est plus connu que Garibaldi!'­'Manet,' s'est eerie un nouvel athi nien qui n'est pas le jeune Forain, 'Alloas! Requiscatl Ce n'est qu'un op­portuniste de Ia couleur!'" Degas's sarcastic compar­ison between Manet and Garibaldi also is reported by

49·

50.

Jacques-Emile Blanche, Manet (Paris, 1924), 37; cited in Clark, Painting of Modern Life, 82. Henry Houssaye, "Le Ministere des Arts," Revue des

deux mondes 49 (1 February 1882): 619- 20. Joel Isaacson, The Crisis of Impressionism: z878-z882,

exh. cat. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Mu­seum of Art, 198o), 18. Venturi, Archives, vol. 1, 122. "Exposer avec Pissarro, Gauguin et Guillaumin, c' est comme si j' exposais avec une sociale quelconque. Un peu plus, Pissarro invit­erait le Russe Lavroff ou autre revolutionnaire. Le pub­lic n 'aime pas ce qui sent Ia politique et je ne veux pas, moi, a mon age, etre revolutionnaire .. .. Debarassez­vous de ces gens-la et presentez-moi des artistes tels que Monet, Sisley, Morisot, etc., et je suis a vous, car ce n'est plus de Ia politique, c'est de ]'art pur." The anarchist Lavroffhad been deported to London on 10

February 1882 on the order of Prime Minister Charles Freycinet.

THE INT RA NS IGENT ARTIST 161

Contributors

CAROL ARMSTRONG is Professor of Art and Ar­chaeology and Doris Stevens Professor of Women's Stud­ies at Princeton University. She is the author of Odd Man

Out: Readings of the Work and Reputation of Edgar Degas (1991), Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph in the

Book (1998), Manet/Manette (2002), and Cer.anne in the Studio: Still Life in Watercolors (2004), as well as coeditor (with Catherine de Zegher) of WOmen Artists at the Mil­

lennium (2oo6).

T. J. CLARK, who teaches at the University of Califor­nia, Berkeley, is the author of a series of books on the social character and formal dynamics of modern art, in­cluding The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France,

z848-z8Sz (1973), Image of the People: Gustave Courbetand

the z848 Revolution (1973), The Painting of Modem Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers (1985), and Farewell to an Idea: Episodes from a History of Modernism

(1999) . He is the coauthor (with lain Boa!, Joseph Matthews, and Michael Watts) of Afflicted Powers: Capital

and Spectacle in a New Age of War (2005). His most recent book is The Sight of Death: An Experiment in Art Writing

(wo6).

STEPHEN F. EISENMAN is Professor of Art History at Northwestern University. HeistheauthorofThe Temp-

tation of Saint Redan: Biography, Ideology, and Style in the

Noirs of Odilon Redan (1994), Gauguin s Skirt (1997), and The Abu Ghraib Effect (2007), as well as coauthor (with Richard Brettell) of Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Si­mon Museum (2oo6). The third, revised edition of his pop­ular textbook, Nineteenth-Century Art: A Critical History,

is forthcoming.

TAMAR GARB is Durning Lawrence Professor in the History of Art at University College London. She is the author of many books on nineteenth-century art, includ­ing Sisters of the Brush: Women s Artistic Culture in Late

Nineteenth- Century Paris ( 1994), Bodies of Modernity: Fig­ure and Flesh in Fin-de-Sii!cle France( 1998), and The Painted

Face: Portraits of Women in France, z8Z4-l9l4 (1997) .

NI C H 0 LAS GREEN, a Lecturer in Art and Cultural His­tory in the School of Art History and Music at the Uni­versity of East Anglia, was the author, most notably, of The Spectacle of Nature: Landscape and Bourgeois Culture in

Nineteenth-Century France (1990).

ROBERT L. HERBERT is Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Mount Holyoke College. Among his publications are Seurat s Drawings (1962), Im­

pressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society (1988),

331

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