Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile (1870-1904)

Fascinating exhibition at Tate Britain looking at French artists working in Britain in the late 19th century.

I have needed a show looking at this period of the exile from the Franco-Russian War and the Commune for a while. Lots of the biographies of French artists at the time mention that they went to England to escape the war but they rapidly move on to when they returned to France making the time spent here sound like a weekend break.

Although the main title of this show mentions the Impressionists they are not the only artists that the show looks at so don’t expect eight rooms of Monet’s. The first section does focus on Monet, Pissarro and Sisley along with the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. It does have to be noted though that the term Impressionist was not applied to them until after this early period of the show. The show also looks at Alphonse Legros who became a professor at the Slade, the sculptors Jules Dalou and Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

The artist who caught my eye most in this show was James Tissot who stayed in Paris during the war working as a stretcher bearer. There was a harrowing description of an execution written by him and sketched. He then came to London in 1871 and I’m not surprised that, after the horrors that he’d seen, he settled into painting the lovely society/fashion pictures we now know him for. I became slightly obsessed with a pink and red dress which seemed to appear over and over again including four times in one picture.

The show also looked at how French painters painted the atmospheric effects of fog on the Thames around the turn of the century. This included a number of the pictures painted by Monet from 1899 to 1901 painting from the Savoy Hotel and a terrace outside St Thomas’s hospital. Oddly enough, due to a bus diversion, I got exactly the same view of the Houses of Parliament at dusk.

The final word was given to Andre Derain who was encouraged by the dealer Ambroise Vollard to paint London in 1906. His bright, strangely coloured pictures use the same views as Monet but point to the future of painting.

Closes on 7 May 2018

Reviews
Times
Guardian
Telegraph
Evening Standard

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B was
Read more

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my
Read more

Courtauld summer school day 1

Image
Today has been my first day of this year’s week at the Courtauld Institute’s summer schools. This year I am doing “Painting in Renaissance Venice” which is being led by Michael Douglas-Scott. It was nice to see some familiar faces and there are at least five of us who did Michael’s course last year. Today has been two lectures. Firstly setting out the background of Venice in this period looking at how the city had set up a myth of itself, the role of the Doge. the nature of the Republic and the role of citizens. The second lecture looked at why the nature of Renaissance was different in Venice. There was still a sense of the coming of antiquity and humanism but in Venice it fused with the Gothic and Byzantine rather than replacing it. The day ended with a choice of gallery talks. I went to one on the second floor of the Courtauld on the coming of Modernism. In essence it looked at the Impressionists and discussed what they were reacting against and what themes they portrayed. All in a
Read more