Jeremy Hacker
Book Report

Title: How to look at Impressionism
Author:  Françoise Barbe-Gall
Frances Lincoln Limited 2013
303 Pages
Art, Art History

I can’t help but imagine artists such as Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Caillebotte who gave impressionism its rise to have been quite sarcastic. I don’t mean this to be taken negatively, but rather view these artists as having chosen humorous sensibility as a response to repetition and staleness. While I think that modern art is either hit or miss and struggles with the same problems of repetition, sometimes relying on shock too heavily, the question almost always lingers as to how, why, and what standards of judgments we/I place on art, and what art even is. With these questions in mind, the artist is left with either freedom of experimentation, or to consciously or unconsciously follow the constituent collection of form and content which create a particular genre of art. It’s not a farfetched idea in thinking that modern art and its attached ideas were born from these sarcastic, impressionism artists, and what Françoise Barbe-Gall has done in How to look at Impressionism, is to recreate a narrative which starts from the rise of impressionism, in a poetic, fluid and carries us into what concludes as the heir of impressionism.

Françoise Barbe-Gall studied art history at the Sorbonne and Ecole du Louvre and is now currently a professor at the Ecole. She has written other books such as How to Talk to Children About Art, and How to Look at a Painting, showing that she has a passion for sharing her love for art and ways in which to view art more succinctly. Françoise is a co-founder of CORETA, a cultural association which she lectures at to promote further knowledge of art. It’s safe to say she knows her art, especially French art.

How to look at Impressionism is a historical narrative which uses key paintings in a series of themes in order to recreate the motifs of impressionism. The themes in order are: getting out of the house, seizing the moment, seduced by appearances, simplifying painting, immersing yourself in nature, and the heirs of impressionism. For each painting, Françoise formally analyses the work, and then gives her own flavor and interpretation, providing rich historical context about the art, its author, and social ideas circulating at the time. Each painting is displayed as a whole in one section, and then broken up and enhanced in another. In this context I was exposed to a closer examination than a normal internet search would uncover. What struck me the most in these close examinations was how indistinct each brush stroke is and what it’s trying to represent. There’s a painting by Renoir called Flirting with the Sun, in which a sailboat shines brightly white on the lake, and there appears to be red and blue figures lying on the boat floor. In the close-up, it just looks like 2 smears of red and 3 spears of blue. This crystallizes part of which impressionism is, for me, in that our perception creates meaning through these quick flashes of light and color, and the artists is attempting to recreate this process through one which doesn’t try to sugar coat what the eye sees. I can’t help but imagine a serious art critic of the time foaming at the mouth in seeing such lackadaisical brushstrokes, which actually creates quite good painting.

I’ve never read a “how to look at art” book before because it seems odd to have someone explain how to look at art to me, but I’ve come to realize how different a painting is once you become familiar with some ideas embedded in its paint. This sentiment made me realize that in reading a book which helps you view art, you must be conscious of how much power the narrator has in influencing your opinion. I think it’s impossible to escape a truly objective viewing of an art piece, and I don’t necessarily find that particular viewing all that interesting, but I do think it’s important to attempt your own personal interpretation of art, particularly impressionism, which at times feels blurry and dizzying. Françoise assuages part of this concern, by which she describes a painting by Monet called Impression, Sunrise, “There is nothing there to understand. All reasoning disintegrates in the face of the simple sweetness of the moment.” (1). This helped paint another picture for me of impressionism, because my initial thoughts was that these paintings were carefully designed to each deliver some latent social commentary, but what we get is a moment in time being frozen by an artist’s impression of a moment. These artists weren’t necessarily interested in creating masterpieces, they just wanted to explore and live in these moments, portraying new ideas and new experiences. The word impressionism itself implies thoughts or feelings without much evidence. This clear cut definition brings a contender forward quickly, mainly the viewer who expects art to be a well formulated, well thought out, and carefully constructed.

“In the pastoral peace and silence of the moment, which seems to hold the promise of an eternal spring, the railway heralds the opposite-the flight of time.” (2) What Françoise is referring to with this elegant statement is Monet’s, A Train in the Countryside, which displays one of the most prominent themes prevalent in impressionism and modernism-the railway. It’s in this painting and Caillebotte’s, The Bridge of Europe [English], I realize a sense of yearning in impressionism-a desire to hold onto the moment, and a recognition of the swiftness and harshness of time. With the train interjected so cleanly and smoothly into the curvaceous hillside of Monet’s painting, and the straight rigid lines of a bridge pointing toward the city, I see perspective so clearly and obviously grasping ahold of my vision. I am guided by the artists to follow their perspective and see in this moment the passing of time and quickly changing world.

After the introduction to the each theme, Françoise presents a popular counter painting which impressionism responds to. For the third theme, seduced by appearances, it is Jules Lefebvre’s, La Verite, which comes under examination in its idealized depiction of a naked woman, and its academic richness in technical skill and form. I appreciated Françoise’s analysis of these counter works because they did not slander them, particularly, but rather gave something to put impressionism in relation to which helps understand what makes a particular art style unique and worth examining. Directly flipping this page showing Lefebvre’s painting, we see Renoir’s, Study, Torso, the Effect of Sunlight, which immediately throws rigidity to the wind and feels as unfiltered as possible. “They were in effect choosing to convey a different kind of truth, no less tyrannical in a sense, than that of the moralists of the past. Theirs was the truth of accurate perception…” (3) This passage which introduces the third theme made me instantly think of realism, and got me questioning what separates impressionism from realism. I think what the impressionists were trying to do was somewhat realism, but rather than paint the reconstructed moment into actuality, they focused on those parts of an impression which captured the eye, thus losing the fine details around the edges.

For the theme of, simplifying painting, Françoise claims, “Impressionism marked the death of the subject as it had thus far been defined,” (4) which melds seamlessly into the next chapter, immersing yourself in nature. It’s no surprise with modernity that impressionism adopted its loss of individuality. With the growing cities, distances shortened, and time speeding up, I look at Manet’s, Bar at the Folies-Bergere, which shows a waitress in a crowded ballroom/bar, eyes glazed and staring at nothing, and realize that look on her face doesn’t merely just represent somberness, but shows keenly that lack of individuality, in which Manet has masterfully depicted modernism and French culture in a moment of time through paint. I’d seen this painting before and interpreted as her just wanting to go home, or wishing to be one with the crowd, but hadn’t realized it could be the face of modernity, lost among a crowded milieu.

Overall I enjoyed this book and was impressed by the interpretations Françoise brought forward. In almost every painting she had a story fabricated to explain what was going on and how she saw it. This immersion in each painting seems sparked my imagination and helped form a better picture of what impressionism is to me. As for my opening paragraph, I can’t help but think those questions would bore these artists, as they were more interested in preserving time rather than appeal to critics.

Citation

• Barbe-Gall, Françoise. How to Look at Impressionism. London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2013. 12. Print.
• Barbe-Gall, Françoise. How to Look at Impressionism. London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2013. 79. Print.
• Barbe-Gall, Françoise. How to Look at Impressionism. London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2013. 119. Print.
• Barbe-Gall, Françoise. How to Look at Impressionism. London: Frances Lincoln Limited, 2013. 163. Print.