I only ‘discovered’ Berthe Morisot a couple of years ago, but I really like her paintings, especially this one, On the Balcony, which is of her sister and niece on a balcony in the Passy suburb of Paris, looking out at the city – shown in the distance. It’s a small painting in oil, 1871 – 1872, now held in the Ittleson Collection in New York.
She was one of the French Impressionists and was married to Edouard Manet’s brother, Eugene. Her paintings are often studies of women, either out of doors, as in this one, or in a domestic setting.
I love the paintings of Edouard Manet, one of the French Impressionists. It is so hard to pick just one painting to show his work, but I’ve chosen A Bar at the Folies Bergère, which to my mind is just marvellous.
I’ve seen this in the flesh, as it were, at the Courtauld Institute at Somerset House on The Strand in London. It’s a lot smaller than I imagined it would be. It’s an ambiguous painting as some see the barmaid as not just selling her wares but as a prostitute and the man reflected in the mirror as a potential client. It’s also intriguing because it’s difficult to tell if the scene in the background is a mirror reflecting what is in front of the barmaid, but then her reflection is not in the right place, nor are the bottles matched up.
I love all the details and colours of this painting as well as the overall effect. I love the atmosphere it creates , with the barmaid isolated, lost in her own thoughts in a crowded room. She is the still point in a busy, noisy place.
Non-fiction books often take me a while to read and Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists is no exception; not however, because it’s difficult to read or boring, but simply because I decided to read it slowly. The Impressionists were a mixed bunch, including Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, and Caillebotte. I feel I got to know some of them more than others and have only just skimmed the surface of their lives, which is understandable in a book covering so many people.
The Private Lives of the Impressionists tells how the early leaders of the group met when students in the studios of Paris. There was Monet, from an affluent family background originally from Normandy, Pissarro a Portuguese Jew from a very different background, born in the Dutch West Indies, Cezanne, a strange and intense student from Aix-en-Provence. The group widened with the addition of Renoir, from a working family (his father was a tailor from Limoges), Sisley the son of an English merchant and a Frenchwoman, and Bazille the son of a wealthy Montpellier wine-grower. They rebelled against the Salon and were pilloried and criticised for their work. They struggled to make a living, although now their paintings sell for millions.
Manet, whose father was a judge and mother the god-daughter of the King of Sweden, was not really a part of their group , although over the years he supported them but never exhibited at the Impressionists exhibitions. To say that Manet was a complex character is an understatement and I’m going to read a biography devoted to him alone at some point. I’d also like to know more about Pissarro, Berthe Morisot and Renoir in particular.
This book follows their lives and loves and how their art developed over 26 years between 1860 when they first met and the introduction of their work to America in 1886. The Epilogue summarised what happened to each artist as the end of the century approached and the Paris art scene changed completely.
I now feel rather sad to have come to the end but there is a bibliography, essential for non-fiction books in my view, listing other books on the artists. If I’m being picky I’d criticise the bibliography because it’s arranged a-z by author – I’d prefer it to be arranged the individual artists. I’d also have liked more illustrations, but there are plenty of books on Impressionism. I’d also love to travel the world to see their paintings – in London, Paris, and the US – well maybe I’ll manage the London galleries.
These are some of my favourite paintings, some of which are in this book.
Bar at the Folies Bergere by Manet
Red Roofs, 1877
La Loge by Renoir
This is the eleventh library book I’ve read this year – still on target to complete the Support Your Local Library Challenge.
I don’t need to borrow any more books, but I had to go to the library to return The Gargoyle (see here) and of course then I couldn’t leave without at least looking at the books. This week I concentrated on non-fiction as I already have a few novels on the go. I read non-fiction much more slowly than fiction, so I don’t read many.
The photo below shows part of my local library’s non-fiction section. It’s not large but it has a good selection of books and I always find something of interest there.
Non Fiction Books
I came home with three books (I was very restrained remembering all my unread books):
I don’t read much poetry but The Poems of Thomas Hardy, selected and introduced by Claire Tomalin caught my attention as I’ve read several of Hardy’s novels, but none of his poetry. Hardy wrote over a thousand poems and this selection traces his experiences of life and love. This reminded me that over a year ago I started to read her biography of Hardy, which I’d put down for a while to read more of Hardy’s own works before finishing it. Time to get back to it soon.
Impressionism by Paul Smith. I’ve become very interested in the Impressionists since taking a short course recently. The course concentrated on the sites they painted rather than their lives. To supplement that I’m already reading Sue Roe’s The Private Lives of the Impressionists. This book looks at the social, political and intellectual contexts in which Impressionism came about. Plus it has many colour illustrations of their paintings.
Lost For Words by John Humphrys. I like John Humphry’s style – this book is about the “mangling and manipulation of the English Language”. He thinks language should be “simple, clear and honest” and provides examples of cliches, meaningless jargon and evasive language (which I detest).
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Samuel Johnson 1709-84
This week I’ve been reading where my inclination took me. I’ve been tempted to re-read old favourites through thinking and writing about the books I read five years ago, particularly the Iris Murdoch books and then looking at books on my bookshelves set me off again.
But in the end I concentrated on my current reading and finished The Hidden by Tobias Hill. I need to think about it more before writing about it. I also read a bit more of both Suite Francaise and The Various Flavours of Coffee, and also started Tartan Tragedy by Antonia Fraser, although I’ve not read much of it yet. This is set on a remote island in the Scottish Highlands. There is a forbidding stone house, a family feud, Scottish nationalism and a couple of suspicious deaths. Jemima Shore, on holiday is drawn into the mystery.
From Scotland I moved to France, reading the opening pages of Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier in preparation for the discussion on 14th February over at Cornflower’s book group. I haven’t managed to get the same edition as Cornflower’s as I’ve borrowed the book from the library. There were several copies held in the County Reserve stock (kept in the basement of the building next door to the library), one in French. My copy is a Penguin Twentieth Century Classic, published in 1966 with no introduction. From the back cover:
A classic of immaturity and adolescence … told with lucidity, grace and even magic.
The only novel by a brilliant young man who was killed in action in 1914 at the age of twenty-seven, it is a masterly exploration of the twilight world between boyhood and manhood, with its mixture of idealism, realism and sheer caprice.
I was wondering about “Meaulines”, not sure what it means or how to pronounce it. “Le Grand Meaulines” is what the boys called Augustin Meaulines. Fortunately there is a footnote on page 18 by the Translator (Frank Davison), explaining that he has not translated the title because no English adjective conveys all the shades of meaning of “grand” which takes on overtones as the story progresses. It could mean the tall, the big, the protective, the almost grown up – even the great Meaulines, or “good old Meaulines” and it is pronounced like the English word “moan”.
Here’s a coincidence: the front cover of this book shows a detail from Small Meadows in Springby Alfred Sisley, who I had never heard of until last Thursday at the first of a five week WEA course on the Impressionists. Sisley was influenced by the Barbizon School of painters. He moved to Moret-sur-Loing next to the Forest of Fontainebleau in 1880 and painted Small Meadows in 1881. It’s now in the Tate. Sisley, a French landscape painter born in Paris of English parents was one of the founders of the Impressionist School of painting. A definite French trend seems to be going on here – first Suite Francaise, then Le Grand Meaulnes and now the Impressionists. This could be a distraction from my current reading as I want to know more about the Impressionists now.
I’m wondering where my inclination will take me next week – my intention is to read more of Suite Francaise and Le Grand Meaulines and to finish Tartan Tragedy, but maybe I’ll be tempted into starting something completely new, looking at the lives and works of the Impressionists, or I’ll be drawn back into reading an old favourite.
Manet painted this in 1882, oil on canvas.
BooksPlease 