Books and Art

The Fashion Review. Ulisse Caputo (Italian, 1872-1948). Oil on canvas.

Interested in light and its painted representation, Caputo was receptive to the ideas issued by a new generation of international impressionist artists such as Zuloaga, Zorn and Whistler. The influence of Impressionism lightened the rather dark palette brought from Naples.

Blue Girl Reading (1935). Frederick C. Frieseke (American, 1874-1939). Oil on canvas.

Frieseke enjoyed an early reputation as a figure painter who, inspired by the figural subjects of Renoir, employed the Impressionist devices of sparkling color and dappled light. Yet many of his compositions also express a highly decorative, patterned aesthetic more akin to the works of Nabi artists like Vuillard.

Portrait of Rodo Reading (1893). Camille Pissarro (Danish-French, Impressionism, 1830-1903). Oil on canvas.

In 1871, Pissarro married Julie Vellay, with whom he would have seven children. Rodo was the fourth son. They lived outside of Paris, where Pissarro painted scenes of village life and the natural world. Like many of his contemporaries, he preferred to work in the open air rather than the studio. 

Young Woman with Lowered Eyes (1869). Jean Frédéric Bazille (French, Impressionism, 1841-1870).

Admired by artists, critics, and scholars for the freshness and directness of his canvases and for the way in which he assimilated both radically new and academic techniques, Bazille may have become one of the greatest artists of the Impressionist generation had he lived longer.

Purity. Andrew Atroshenko (Russian, Romanticism, Impressionism,  born 1965). Oil on canvas.

“Purity and simplicity are the two wings with which man soars above the earth and all temporary nature.” — Thomas a Kempis 

Girl Reading (by a Window), 1903. Edmund Tarbell (American, Impressionism, 1862-1938). Oil on canvas.

Tarbell specialized in delicately finished, pearly interiors, and devoted a significant part of his career to capturing images of young women pursuing domestic activities, such as sewing or reading, in elegantly decorated rooms filled with antiquarian or oriental objects.

Girl with a Guitar (Daydreams), 1916-17. Richard E. Miller (American, Impressionism, 1875-1943). Oil on canvas. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, Univ of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Miller’s early works featured well-drawn figures with more loosely rendered backgrounds, but after he settled in Giverny, his work became brighter and he developed a style where his figures were well modeled, but the backgrounds were often patterns of small brush strokes.

The Red Table (1916). Leon De Smet (Belgian, 1881-1966). Oil on canvas.

De Smet’s style is characterised by an impressionistic and pointillistic touch. He is renowned for his ability to build up a composition with swift, short brushstrokes and undertone colors while always maintaining balance. 

In the Loge (1878). Mary Stevenson Cassatt (American, Impressionism, 1844-1926). Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The canvas depicts a fashionable lady dressed for an afternoon performance at the Comedie Français, a theater in Paris. The lady peers avidly through her opera glasses. At upper left, a man trains his gaze upon her. Cassatt explores the very act of looking, breaking down the traditional boundaries between the observer and the observed, the audience and the performer.

Les Orangers (The Orange Trees), 1878. Gustave Caillebotte (French, Impressionism, 1848-1894). Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

One brass patio chair is occupied by the artist’s brother, Marital, Jr. He sits, reading a publication, in the shade of one of the large, boxed orange trees. Zoe, the artist’s cousin, stands on tip toe, leaning on the box base of another orange tree, reading as well. Above and to the right of Zoe, lying asleep on the path is a brown and white dog.

Dancers at the Old Opera House (c.1877). Edgar Degas (French, Impressionism, 1834-1917). Pastel. National Gallery of Art, Washingon, DC.

At the ballet Degas found a world that excited both his taste for classical beauty and his eye for modern realism. He haunted the wings and classrooms of the magnificent Palais Garnier, home of the Paris Opéra and its Ballet, where some of the city’s poorest young girls struggled to become the fairies, nymphs and queens of the stage.

La Lettre (1908). Jean Béraud (French, 1849–1935). Oil on canvas.

Béraud was a student of Léon Bonnat, and exhibited his paintings at the Salon for the first time in 1872. He painted many scenes of Parisian daily life during the Belle Époque in a style that stands somewhere between the academic art of the Salon and that of Impressionists. He received the Légion d’honneur in 1894. 

Alice in Studio in Shinnecock Long Island Sun. William Merritt Chase (American, Impressionism, 1849-1916). Oil on canvas.

In 1886 Chase married Alice Gerson, a family friend who had modeled for him before and for Alice in Studio. Chase conducted many summer workshops, most at Shinnecock, an area of beaches and dunes. He and his family spent their summers there in a home designed by the architects McKim, Meade and White.

Portrait of a Young Beauty. Federico Zandomeneghi (Italian, Impressionism, 1841-1917). Pastel.

Like his close friend Edgar Degas he was primarily a figure painter, although Zandomeneghi’s work was more sentimental in character than Degas’. He also admired the work of Mary Cassatt and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and his many paintings of women in their domestic routines follow their example. He took up working in pastels in the early 1890s, and became especially adept in this medium. 

La Débâcle (1892). Theodore Robinson (American, Impressionism, 1852–1896). Oil on canvas. Scripps College, Claremont, California.

At Giverny, Robinson painted what art historians regard as some of his finest works. These depicted the surrounding countryside in different weather, in the plein air tradition, sometimes with women shown in leisurely poses. An example of his mature work during this period is La Débâcle (1892).