A painter like the Frenchman Claude Monet, worshiped today, was considered at the end of the 19th century a little -mounting radical artist. His work was rejected by the very conservative jury of the Academy of Fine Arts of Paris, a state institution, which decided which piece did fulfill the art ideals established by the French government to be able to be exhibited in the great art exhibition of the French capital. Young people like Monet rebelled against the official artistic canon and began a revolution in the arts, breaking with the standards and creating an innovative movement in painting, which would be known as impressionism. The Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts, in Mexico City, offers from Tuesday a tour of the beginnings of that movement and its artistic contribution, in which it is its great sample of the year: 45 works brought from the Dallas Art Museum. Creations of Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot and Camille Pissarro are exhibited alongside Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse’s paintings. The nineteenth -century art rebels walk as a proud revolutionaries in this huge art party that breaks into the imposing rooms of the great center of Mexican culture.
“When most people hear the word impressionism, perhaps you can imagine stitches of Claude Monet or small dancers of the artist Degas. It seems that these works were always popular, which were always hung on the walls of prestigious artistic institutions like this, that there was always a market, that these artists were famous in its time. And, nevertheless, the story could not be further from reality. Artists who formed because his style of modern art in 1874 was too controversial, too radical, too innovative to be supported by the Academy of Fine Arts, ”says Nicole R. Myers, director of Cuaduría and Research of the Dallas Art Museum (DMA). Myers enthusiastically offered Monday morning a walk through this exhibition and the importance that these artists have had in art. “If you were a young artist and with difficulties, there was no other place to show your work to the public, so that the press criticizes it, to find clientele, collectors to buy it, to make a living. This type of current exhibition, where you buy an entry, enter and see these thematic exhibitions, was invented in 1874 by this radical group of artists that today is known as the impressionists,” he reports this doctorate in the art of the art. Fine Arts from the University of New York.
The Exhibition of Mexico City, which will be open until July 25, begins with the artistic production of the 1870s and explores who formed this group, what was controversial and contemporary in their works. It was not easy for these creators to open a space in the art world, because the public did not understand their proposal. Or, as Myers affirms, the people who saw their works felt “offended”, considered that it was a “trap”, because they sold tickets to attend exhibitions that portrayed, for example, images of the Paris of the Industrial Revolution, postcards of the Light City, the speed of the machine, the modern life. “The impressionists organized eight exhibitions in a period of 12 years, between 1874 and 1886, but impressionism did not end with their last exhibition. In fact, some of the most innovative aspects of their artistic production were the core of almost all modern artistic movements of the early twentie 1870. That is not a story that is often told, that people know or even appreciate, ”says the curator.
The exhibition, entitled The Impressionist Revolution: From Monet to Matisse of the Dallas Art Museum And that it is one of the largest of the year in the Mexican capital, it is divided into four parts that guide the visitor in the development of impressionism and its impact on modern art. Begins with the precursors, under the title of Rebels with cause. Here the artists are shown who in 1874 decided to organize their own exhibitions, breaking the force shirt of the official aesthetics. Among the greats of this part of the sample is El Pont Neuf, of Monet, which captures the bustle of Paris with rapid and unfocused brushstrokes, and Place du Théâtre français: Efecto de Niebla, From Camille Pissarro, which shows the city wrapped in a winter mist. It follows Field noteswhich explore the innovative techniques that the impressionists developed when painting outdoors, with works such as The Sena River in Paris, from Paul Signac y Good valley, Search de Bordighera, of Monet. “They demonstrate how these artists captured light and movement with fragmented brushstrokes and complementary colors,” they comment from Fine Arts.
The space called Side effectswhich tells how impressionism influenced artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. Works such as Wheat Gavillas, by Van Gogh and Under the oven (Under the Pandano) of Gauguin. The last part is Forever, that explores how the legacy of impressionism laid the foundations for movements such as cubism, fovism and expressionism. Here are the works Lifting nature: bouquet of flowers and fruitful, of Henri Matisse, y Fishing boats in l’esteque, of André Derain. I think many artists, such as Monet, Picasso and Degas, for example, experienced a kind of crisis and thought that perhaps what they did was not permanent. Maybe it was too superficial. Perhaps I would not resist the passage of time or be on the walls of museums. It is curious now, remembering it. But that was a real fear that they had: that what they were doing was too ephemeral, which was modernity in every way, ”says Myers. They are those rebels of the nineteenth century art, despised at the time, who walk since Tuesday as proud revolutionaries in the imposing rooms of the Palace of Fine Arts.