9781422271780

MASTERS OF ART

PLATE 4 (left) Still Life with Bottle, Carafe, Bread, and Wine (1862) Oil on canvas, 16 1 ⁄ 8 x 23 1 ⁄ 2 inches (41 x 60 cm) Monet painted this still life in the traditional style. This painting was influenced by his attendance at the Académie Suisse.

PLATE 5 Trophies of the Hunt (1862) Oil on canvas, 41 x 29 1 ⁄

2 inches (104 x 75 cm)

This work, painted when Monet was still studying at Gleyre’s atelier , is an indication of the academically based influence under which he produced his first works. It is painted in the traditional tonal structure and representational presentation, which was the only valued approach at that time. It was against this restrictive practice and exhibitionist intention that the young painters who later became the independent group, of which Monet was a member, rebelled. The values of this painting indicate that Monet already had control of his technique and was capable of academic draftsmanship, despite the short training that he had received. It may not be an inspiring work, but it is clearly competent. Gleyre, commenting on one of Monet’s paintings, observed, “Not bad! Not bad at all, that thing there!” was perhaps the subconscious reason that he called his painting, in the first exhibition of the independent group in 1874, Impression: Sunrise, and Impressionists became the name by which the group was subsequently known. Louis Le Roy, a well-known critic, wrote a review of the exhibition, which he entitled “The Exhibition of the Impressionists,” not the name that the group had chosen nor did it represent the content of the exhibitors’ work.

In May of 1859, Monet visited Paris, went to the Salon, and admired the work of the Barbizon painters Daubigny and Troyon. He also attended the Académie Suisse, where he met Pissarro and visited the Brasserie des Martyrs, where the Realist group gathered around Courbet. During the winter, he saw a number of Delacroix’s paintings at a loan exhibition. In the fall of 1860, he was called up for military service and chose to serve in Algeria “because of the sky.” He was excited by the light and color he found there. He was, however, sent home on sick leave in 1862, and his family bought him out of the army, so he never completed his military service. In the summer of the same year, while painting

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