D'Orsay And Paris 1874: Inventer l'Impressionisme

College friend Tawana and her daughter Cara arrived mid-week, staying at a nearby hotel. They had their own visit priorities, but we spent considerable time together, at museums, walking around, and eating. The eating will require its own post. We visited the D'Orsay together and particularly its Paris 1874 exhibition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the exposition that kicked-off Impressionism. (Wes stayed back in Fayetteville (so French), guarding the fort.)

Monet's Boulevard of the Capucines, 1872; pre-

Impressionist, although he spent the Franco-Prussian

war in England, had seen the later Turners, and thus

got the idea...

A pre-Impressionist Berthe Morisot; more on her
below

So the goal of every artist in the 1870s was to exhibit
at the Salon, the long-standing annual juried show of the year's
best...juried in accordance with the very conservative tastes and 
principles of the day...having been rejected on numerous enough 
occasions in the past, the soon-to-be-called Impressionists
banded together and held their own show, the catalog from
which is above

The Orsay's presentation of all this was so smart...first they show
you, in this hall, some of the paintings submitted or actually exhibited
at the Salon of 1874 

Including this (rejected) Manet scene in front of the Opera Peletier;
Manet was ever closely associated with the Impressionists, but never
formally joined with them...

This one, outside the Gare St. Lazaire, was accepted, though bitterly

criticized (for its subject matter) in the press; Mallarme, certainly

the most influential intellectual of the day, famously came to Manet's

defense...

An array of Berthe Morisot works at the time; five years ago we attended

the opening of the Orsay's great retrospective of her work; one of the

two early female Impressionists

In the next big hall are some of the works that were included in the
1874 Exposition; this Monet view of Le Havre clearly in the style
he came to be known for...

But it was this, his 1872 Impression soleil levant that gave
Impressionism its name, intended derisively at first in the press,
but it stuck; note the Turneresque sun

Monet's Gare St. Lazaire, a favorite

While the others finished the exhibition, I took to wandering,
looking for more favorites

Serious art history: three different tour groups looking at Millet's
Gleaners...

Courbet's Berlioz

Street scene

Love the Fantin-Latour groupies; Manet is the strawberry blonde

Iconic scene passing through the cafe on the 5th floor;
I have re-joined our little group; hoping for a snack

At the other end of the building

Manet's still shocking Luncheon on the Grass; still so poorly displayed...

Manet's portrait of Mallarme

News to me department: Monet also did a Luncheon
on the Grass scene, mid-1860s; frequenting the Louvre,
as all the artists of the day did, there was ample
opportunity to study the great Giorgione/Titian 
masterpiece

Resting en route to a late luncheon at Le Louis-Philippe