Does Art Still Shock?

What is shock art? According to Wikipedia it is "...contemporary art ...disturbing imagery, sound or scents to create a shocking experience." However, I contend that art has been shocking the viewers for much longer. After all, being contemporary can mean contemporary to the times.

Consider Daumier's "Rue Transnonain" (1834)

Then there was Manet.  For example, consider the effect in 1863 of  his "Luncheon on the Grass." 

In the early 20th Century, there was Duchamp's "Fountain." (1917)

  Today, these works created a hundred years ago or so, do not carry the same effect on the public.

So, what shocks today? Journalists have written that maybe we've reached the end of what can be described as shock art. What do you think? Are artists no longer able to shock us?







 

The Magic Show: What do You Think?

Have you ever been to an art exhibit and found yourself intrigued by a certain painting? So much so that you needed to look at it awhile to allow the mind to interpret what the eyes were seeing? It's that sense that something is "off."

Intriguing the viewer's mind has been the goal of many talented artists. They are like magicians who use sleight of hand to capture the attention of the audience. I thought it would be fun to demonstrate a subtle form of this sleight of hand in a few well-known paintings. (click on image to enlarge)

Degas' painting: "The Bar at the Folies Bergère"


Look carefully. Is that the same girl in a mirror or a different girl?

Manet's painting: "The Waitress"


Where is the person in the top hat sitting?

Degas' painting: "Ballet Rehearsal"


Are we seeing another room in the background or is that a mirror reflecting the rest of the room?

Intriguing, yes?

Manet or Monet - Who's Who?

I was telling a friend about seeing a "Manet" and she said, "Don't you mean Monet?" I can understand the confusion. Two French impressionist painters with similar names, living at the same time who were also personal friends. It can seem confusing, so let's see if we can find the differences that distinguished Manet from Monet.

Since Edouard Manet (1832-1883) was born first, we'll start with him. Manet created the foundations for Impressionism. He walked the line between Realism and Impressionism. He painted directly from models to canvas as Realism required, but as an Impressionist, he worked quickly and completed the painting in one seating. He did not suffer the tedium of waiting for a layer of paint to dry and then adding another layer. No. Instead he applied the exact color directly and, if he didn't like it, he scraped it off and tried again.(Portrait of Berthe Morisot, Impressionist Artist)




By contrast, Claude Monet (1840-1926) was not interested much in the subject or model and preferred to consider the colors of the object. In other words, it wasn't a tree or grass. It was a square of green, a rectangle of blue, or a line of red. Monet would paint the same scene be it his gardens, a church or a stack of hay as changing bits of color.

How to tell whose work it is? If it is painted with dabs of color, you are looking at a Monet. If instead you are looking at models in a loosely painted style, it's a Manet.

Now, try your hand at identifying if the paintings below are Manet or Monet.

Desboutin: More than a Model

If Marcellin Desboutin (1823-1902) is remembered at all, it is usually in respect to his role as a model for Manet and Degas. (Below are images of him as painted by Manet and Degas, respectively.)



However, Desboutin was much more than a model. He was a well-known and well-regarded artist in his own right.


In spite of his scruffy appearance (self-portrait, left), he was high born, well educated and an exceptional painter and printmaker. As a painter, he exhibited with the Impressionists in the Salon des Refuses. However, it was mainly as a printmaker that Desboutin was best known in the Impressionist era.

He was 50 years old when he studied etching. By his own account, he had squandered his fortune and lost a mansion in Italy. He came to Paris and settled into the penniless Bohemian life of an artist. Once he learned etching, he was able to support himself to some degree by creating and selling portraits.

Desboutin portraits were usually an edition of 20 and included portraits not only of Manet and Degas but also Renoir, Morisot (see Archives, Jan. 2010), Zola and Duranty. His artist friends considered his work to be wonderfully spontaneous and exceptionally good. Desboutin captured the immediacy that the Impressionists preferred over the stiffly posed portraits of previous times. Here are a few of his prints: (click to enlarge)





Two interesting facts were discovered in my research: In 1890 Desboutin along with Rodin, Carriere and Meissonier, was a founder of Society of Beaux-Arts and at a robust 74 years of age he was honored with the Gran Prix at the Exposition Universelle.

For all of the recognition and honors paid to Desboutin during his life, the lasting recognition of him centers on the paintings by Manet and Degas where he is referred to as "the artist-model." Interesting how time will remember someone, yes?

The Impressionist's Hero: M. Durand-Ruel

Last week the blog was about Theo Van Gogh, who did everything he could to promote and sell the art of Vincent as well as the other Impressionists. As I mentioned then, the art world purchased art and gave commissions to artists whose work reflected the stringency of the Academie de Beaux-Artes. By 1860, certain artists began to rebel against the rigidity of being told what and how they were to paint.

These artist started their own exhibitions in the Salon de Refuse. Their exhibits in Paris were considered outrageous and even scandalous. The art was ridiculed and, for the most part, no one was interested in buying the art. Against that background, these artists found support in many ways from Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922).

Paul's father had been art dealer and in 1865, Paul took over the business. He believed deeply in the Impressionists. He supported the artist by buying the art outright*, gave stipends to the artists, and held solo exhibitions. Eventually, some artwork sold, but not in any serious way in France.

However, during 1886 and 1887, he launched exhibits in the United States and experienced great success. He so appreciated the open-mindedness of the Americans for impressionism that he was quoted as saying, "The American public does not laugh. It buys!"

From 1870 until his death, Paul became the best known art dealer for French Impressionism in the world. Most of the Impressionists struggled financially. Imagine how much worse it would have been without M. Durand-Ruel's support!
*Between 1891 and 1922, Paul Durand-Ruel purchased close to 12,000
pictures, including more than 1,000 Monets, approximately 1,500 Renoirs, more than 400 each by Degas and Sisleys, about 800 Pissarros, close to 200 Manets and appx. 400 Mary Cassatts. "...My craziness has become wisdom. To say that if I had died at sixty years old, I would have died crippled in debt, insolvent amongst undiscovered treasures…”