Edouard Manet (1832-1883), The railroad1873. Huile sur toile, 93,3 × 111,5 cm. Washington, National Gallery of Art © Photo courtesy of National Gallery of Art, Washington
World – On April 15, 1874, an exhibition opened in Paris that was destined to change the history of art. At number 35 Boulevard des Capucines, in the photographer Nadar’s laboratory, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Paul Cézanne and 24 other artists challenged tradition with an alternative exhibition to the official Salon. Thus was born Impressionism, one of the movements most loved by contemporary spectators, and that date is today considered the dawn of the avant-garde era.
One hundred and fifty years later, the Musée d’Orsay commemorates the event with a large exhibition organized in collaboration with the Orangerie Museum and the National Gallery of Art di Washington. From March 26 to July 14, 2024, Paris 1874. The impressionist moment will reconstruct that crucial moment in a journey of 130 works. There will be works exhibited in Nadar’s studio, compared with paintings and sculptures that participated in the official Salon, to highlight the bold novelty and the impact that the art of the painters of light could have on the public of the time. Unexpected points of contact also emerged between impressionist painting and the proposals of the Salon, a sign that something new was also breaking the rigid conventions of the academy.
Claude Monet (1840 – 1926), Poppy Field, 1873, Oil on canvas, 50 x 65 cm, Paris, Collection Musée d’Orsay
But what exactly happened in Paris in the spring of 1874? What meaning can we give today to that exhibition that has become legend? And why of those 31 artists only seven went down in history? Starting from these questions, the curators investigate the origins of the movement, against the backdrop of an era of great transformations. In a country just emerging from two major conflicts – the Franco-German War of 1870 and the violent civil war that followed – artists explore new avenues. A small “clan of rioters” paints scenes of modern life, or landscapes flooded with light, sketched outdoors with quick brushstrokes and a technique never seen before. “What they seem to be looking for, above all, is impression,” notes one observer.
The Musée d’Orsay project will highlight the contradictions and reconstruct the research underway in the fateful spring of 1874, underlining the radical modernity of the protagonists of this adventure. “Good luck!”, a critic encouraged them, because “something always emerges from new things”.
Claude Monet, Print, Rising Sun, 1872, Olio su tela, 65 × 50 cm | © Marmottan Monet Museum, Paris