19. Импрессионисты

The main task was to paint what they saw and how they saw. They painted their pictures in the open air. There were other innovations: they rejected dark colors and preferred pure bright colors. Black was no color for them.

To explain their name we should remember the first exhibition in 1874. There were paintings by Claude Monet. One of the pictures was called “Sunlight impression”. A newspaperman who wrote about this exhibition called all artists whose works were represented impressionists.

Artists of this group were different, of course, but they all were opposite the official art. They undertook the attempt to catch the ever-changing colors and record them on canvases. Special motives were not to be found in the pictures.

As for the origin of the collection these paintings were bought from the artists by Russian merchants who were art amateurs. Their names were Morozoff and Shshukin. Their houses in Moscow were decorated with paintings of French impressionists. After the revolution they had to leave everything. The collections were nationalized and taken to the museum.

Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). He expressed the methods and principles of impressionism in portrait. He painted mainly portraits of his contemporaries. Many of them were female portraits. This genre demanded that he should work in his studio.

Renoir caught the spontaneous moments and half-smile of his models. There are six works of Renoir in the Hermitage. Now you can see one of his famous portraits in the Hermitage (“Jeanne Samary”). Using small strokes, bright light colors he created the impression that the girl is wearing the lace dress. She was a young actress of “Comedy France” where she played parts of young maids. She died young and if it wasn’t for Renoir’s portrait she would be no more than a name only. “A Girl with a Fan”. Her name was Aldensina Fornes. She was a daughter of an owner of a cafe in Paris that artist used to visit. She had dark hair. Renoir painted her hair having used all other colors but black. “Child with a Whip”. In his paintings he expressed his optimistic attitude to life and to the world around him. He created an image of woman of Paris. His women are completely different from the women by Titian. Renoir worshipped femininity.

Edgar Degas (1834-1917). He was one of participants and organizers of almost all exhibitions. He devoted himself to genre scenes. He created series of pictures, ballet dances, horserace, woman doing ordinary everyday things, automatic casual movement (professional dancers, women who repeated their movements day after day). That was what Degas depicted in his works. He worked mostly in his studio. We have on display: “Woman at Her Toilet”, “Kneeling Woman”, “Woman after the Bath”, “Woman Doing Her Hair” and “Dancer’s Head”.

Claude Monet. “Waterloo Bridge” (“London Fog”). Claude Monet makes his tasks even more complicated in attempt to grasp twilight. He went to London to paint his pictures unlike many other artists who went to Italy. But we can’t call genre of his pictures cityscape though one can see outlines of the bridge, carriage, people on boats on the Thames River, chimneys of factories but first it makes the impression of London fog. Monet gave 2 names to his picture: “Waterloo Bridge” and “London Fog” Alfred Sisley (1839-1899) He was an Englishman by origin but he painted only Paris suburbs. He created series of airy landscapes: “A Village on the Seine”, “A Windy Day in Veneux”, “The Sea Bank”. Camille Pissaro His main subject was Paris and its streets. He was inspired by this city. The Hermitage owns his “Boulevard in Montmartre” and “Square of French Theatre in Paris”. Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)

He’s also associated with the art of impressionism. His first significant work is “The Age of Bronze”. It’s the original gypsum for the bronze sculpture.

The most popular works of Rodin in the Hermitage is the sculptural groups “The Eternal Spring”, “The Poet and His Muse”, “Cupid and Psyche”, “Romeo and Julia”. There are also other smaller sculptures by this master.