'Private Lives' paints portraits of the Impressionists
The Private Lives of the Impressionists, By Sue Roe, HarperCollins, 356 pp., $29.95
In 1873, a group of obscure artists, rebelling against the French art establishment, formed a cooperative society and declared themselves "les Independantes." Their first exhibition, held the next spring, displayed vibrant images of everyday scenes: a harbor at sunrise, seen from a hotel window; a plowed field; a dance class; a box at the opera. The public and the critics were horrified.
Solemn renderings of historical, mythological, and biblical scenes -- now, that was art. The work of "les Independantes" was dismissed as unfinished wallpaper, paintings that barely created an "impression."
Today, an Impressionist exhibition is a blockbuster affair. The pleasure in reading Sue Roe's "The Private Lives of the Impressionists" comes from forgetting the ways in which we usually think of these artists. The men and women whom we first meet as students in Paris in the early 1860s are the proverbial struggling, misunderstood artists; some of their experiences seem straight from Puccini's opera "La Bohème," as when Monet and Renoir share lodgings and pool their meager earnings from portrait painting to pay for shelter, a model, and coal for the stove.
Covering the period from 1860 to 1886, the book explores how the group formed, worked together, and dispersed. The title does not do justice to its scope; for the Impressionists, boundaries between public and private were fluid, and home, friendship, livelihood, and art were all intertwined.
The Impressionists were irresistibly drawn to the glitter of Parisian boulevards, the conviviality of the bars and cafes in working-class Montmartre, the radiance of the countryside. In the spirit of her subjects, Roe emphasizes setting. These were years of upheaval, conducive to experimentation in the arts. Paris, a medieval city, was suddenly becoming modern. Roe discusses Baron Haussmann's urban renovations, the Franco-Prussian War, the emergence of the Third Republic, the Paris Commune.
As never before, commerce thrived, classes mingled, and possibilities for pleasure and entertainment multiplied. Art dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel , described by Renoir as a "missionary" for radical painters, began opening galleries and "networking" with artists. The cafes served as incubators for the movement; here artists could meet, talk, and begin to see themselves as a group. They were united by a preference for contemporary subjects, a fascination with the dance of light and color, and, not least of all, ambition. Even the iconoclastic Manet craved a place in the annual Salon des Beaux-Arts exhibition and sought a French Legion of Honor.
However eccentric they appeared at the time, the Impressionists were not solitary figures; they struggled to reconcile their artistic goals with ordinary responsibilities. Roe covers many everyday matters -- we learn about love affairs, marriages, family tensions, illnesses , and unremitting money worries.
What stands out finally is the perseverance of these artists; amid all the pressures, they kept learning from and inspiring one another. The book's most memorable scenes are of art making: the young Monet, influenced by Manet and Bazille , working outdoors to "create the sense of a fleeting glimpse"; Pissarro encouraging Cézanne to use blocks of color to express geometric form; Manet painting entrancing portraits of Berthe Morisot . Roe captures the mix of personalities, circumstances, and talents out of which arose a revolution.
