Art Eyewitness Review: Manet/Degas at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

Manet/Degas

Metropolitan Museum of Art

September 24, 2023 - January 7, 2024

Reviewed by Ed Voves

Original Photography by Anne Lloyd

Every ten years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents an epic, "once-in-a-lifetime" exhibition devoted to Impressionism. Occasionally, the curators at the Met show two "show-stopper" Impressionist-era exhibits in quick succession. 2023 is one such banner year. 

Van Gogh's Cypresses had hardly completed its three month run on August 27, than an even bigger blockbuster, Manet/Degas, took center stage at 82nd and Fifth Avenue. Building on the Met's rich holdings of paintings and works-on-paper by these celebrated French artists, the Metropolitan curators cast their net and hauled in spectacular loans from museums in the U.S. and Europe. The Musée d’Orsay – where a version of Manet/Degas was shown a few months earlier – was particularly generous in sharing its treasures. 

Manet/Degas can trace its pedigree to an "ancestry" of Impressionist exhibitions which no other U.S. museum can match. 

The succession of "once-in-a-lifetime" shows at the Met began with the centennial retrospective, Manet, in 1983. I made it to this exhibit, elbowing my way through throngs of art lovers to behold Manet's final masterwork, A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, which was making a very rare visit to the U.S. from London's Courtauld Institute.

Al Mozell, Photo (1983)

 Gallery view of the 1983 Manet retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Ten years - and a few months - later, two spectacular Impressionist exhibits were shown at the Met in 1994. These were Degas Landscapes and Origins of Impressionism. I missed seeing these shows, but, on the basis of studying the catalog of Origins, it is a certitude that they were in the grand Met tradition.

                                       Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)                                        Édouard Manet's Lola de Valance,1862

In 2003, Manet/Velzquez traced the Spanish roots of French 19th century art, and in 2013, Impressionism: Fashion and Modernity matched the haute couture of the age of Manet and Degas with some of the most beloved paintings by these masters of Impressionism and colleagues including Claude Monet and Gustave Caillebotte.  

I won't try to further describe these earlier Met exhibits because I'm going to need a full supply of superlatives for Manet/Degas. Given the enthusiastic response at the press preview, the Met's exhibition history is about to repeat itself. I am already bracing myself for the "throngs of art lovers" which I encountered back in 1983, 2003 and 2013.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023 )

 Gallery view of the Manet/Degas exhibit

 showing Édouard Manet’s The Balcony, 1868–69

The relationship of Édouard Manet (1832-1883) and Edgar Degas (1834-1917) is a classic case of the attraction of opposites. Manet was charismatic, competitive and radical in politics and in art. Degas, an introvert by nature and often abrasive in his personal opinions, was generous in his support of fellow painters, especially women artists like Mary Cassatt.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) 

Edgar Degas’ Visit to the Museum, 1879-90

It is to be expected that many visitors to Manet/Degas will debate the relative merits of the two French artists. The Met exhibition is exceptionally thorough in its inclusion of major works from all stages of their respective careers. If one is inclined to make comparisons, with a "Best Artist" award in mind, there are plenty of paintings and drawings to support a judgement, pro or con, Manet or Degas.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Gallery view of the Manet/Degas exhibit showing Edgar Degas'

 The Bellelli Family, 1858-69, on the far wall.

It is better, I feel, to consider the relationship of Manet and Degas as one of synergy, not competition. They addressed similar or contrasting themes, if not in tandem, then certainly in reaction - to each other and to the world around them. Appraising each other's works and acutely conscious of the spirit of their times, Manet and Degas played pivotal roles in creating the matrix of modern art.

The careers of Manet and Degas are entangled by irony. Manet paved the way to Impressionism while refusing to participate in the Impressionist salons held between 1874 to 1886. Degas was one of the most energetic organizers of these group exhibitions, yet he regarded himself a "realist" and a disciple of the great advocate of meticulous drawing, Jean August Dominique Ingres. What Ingres would have thought about Degas' late-career monotype prints, some of which come close to abstract art, can hardly be imagined.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Detail of Edgar Degas’ Racehorses before the Stands, 1866–68

Degas' early works, as we will discuss, certainly show the influence of classical French art. But, by the time he died in 1917, old and nearly blind, Degas had created some of the most innovative works of art of the nineteenth century. Manet, despite his early death, left a formidable body of paintings and prints. While some are surprisingly indifferent in quality, others like his portrait of Emile Zola are worthy rivals of the Old Masters.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Édouard Manet’s Emile Zola, 1868

Manet/Degas abounds in its presentation of Impressionist masterpieces, works you've seen time and again in reproduction. I thought at times that I was walking through the pages of an art history text rather than a museum gallery!

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Édouard Manet’s Olympia, 1863-65

Exhibit "A" in Manet/Degas is Olympia,.Manet's uncompromising nude is still a work which can stop you in your tracks.But, situated among other great paintings by Manet and Degas, it no longer exhales the breath of scandal. Rather, in the words of the great art critic, John Canaday, Olympia "a picture of a common girl, happens to be one of the most elegant paintings of its century ..."

Olympia was also uncompromisingly honest, as we can see in the expression of Victorine Meurent, who modeled for Manet. These are eyes that have seen how the world  - the real world - works.

As Canaday further noted, Manet's challenged the smug hypocrisy of France under the regime of Napoleon III. Manet was simply being truthful about the society of his era. Paris in the mid-1800's had 200 officially registered houses of prostitution, some of which were sponsored by the French government for the benefit of foreign dignitaries like the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. 

The French political and cultural elite were not pleased to see the reality of life so clinically revealed.  Manet was subjected to prolonged censure and condemnation which cast a shadow over his prospects for years to come. 

Degas, after a false start doing allegorical paintings, followed Manet's example. His portrait of a working class woman drowning her sorrows in a glass of absinthe, is one of the great examples of high art serving as social commentary.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Detail of Edgar Degas' In a Café (The Absinthe Drinker), 1875–76

Both Manet and Degas aspired to be a "painter of modern life", a form of social activism outlined in the 1863 essay by Charles Baudelaire, whom we shall meet later. The Manet/Degas exhibition brilliantly illustrates how these two artists of genius approached that role.

Early in the 1860's, Manet met Degas at the Louvre where the later was working on an etching after a portrait by Velazquez. There could not have been a better way to foster a friendly rivalry than a shared fascination with the art of the great seventeenth century Spanish master. 

"Good clean work," Manet declared approvingly of Velazquez' painterly technique, "It puts you off the brown-sauce school."

"Brown sauce" or "gravy" was the dismissive rebuke which young artists of the 1860's hurled at the somber-toned, heavily varnished paintings favored at the annual Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. On that point, Manet and Degas could agree, but only a few years later, an incredibly cruel and thoughtless act by Manet imperiled their relationship.

One evening, Degas attended a musical recital during which Manet's wife, Suzanne, a talented pianist, performed. Degas decided to surprise the Manets with a double portrait of them, painted from memory. Suzanne was shown at the keyboard with Manet lounging on a sofa absorbed by the music. It was a touching gesture from a man who usually guarded his emotions.

Edgar Degas 

 Monsieur and Madame Édouard Manet, 1868–69

Courtesy of Kitakyushu Municipal Museum

Manet was not impressed by the painting and - after Degas departed - he slashed the portrait of Suzanne with a penknife, discarding what he considered a "defamation" of his wife's features. Manet then portrayed Suzanne in a similar pose - no doubt to show Degas how it should have been done. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Édouard Manet’s Madam Manet at the Piano, ca. 1868-68

Needless to say, Degas was deeply hurt by this act. He demanded the "offending" painting back and returned a still life that Manet had given him.

Historians are still puzzled by this incident. Degas' portrait of Manet was not particularly accomplished, especially when compared to the superb sketches which Degas often made of Manet. Perhaps the likeness of Suzanne Manet was not up to Degas' usual standards, either. But the painting had been created from memory, no easy task, and it was given as an act of friendship.

Only an artist possessed of self-assured arrogance and undoubted talent could have reacted in such an insensitive way to Degas' generous gift. Perhaps the brutalizing effect of the criticism Manet had received over Olympia was a factor in his appalling treatment of Degas.

Making the "best of a bad business", the Met's curators replicated the oblique slash on Degas' painting as one of the signature images of the exhibition. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Gallery view of the entrance to the Manet/Degas exhibition, 

showing self-portraits by Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas

This "slash" motif is - literally - a brilliant stroke. But it is more than a clever way  of evoking a serious, if temporary, hiatus in the relationship of Manet and Degas. Rather, this slash symbolizes the era in which these two artists lived. The age of Impressionism, the 1870's and 80's in France, was a period of war and social strife, of cannon fire and crashing banks.

The incident of the defaced painting likely occurred in 1868 or 1869. A year later, Manet and Degas joined France's National Guard, defending Paris during the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71. Their rapprochement was one of the few positive results of that disastrous war for France.

Despite the heroism of the National Guard, German siege artillery smashed the defensive positions surrounding Paris. The fall of Paris in February 1871 was followed by the uprising of left-wing radicals and embittered Parisian workers known as the Commune. The revolt was crushed by the newly-installed Third Republic with the loss of 30,000 fatalities. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Gallery view of Manet/Degas showing

 Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian, ca.1867–68.

Manet recorded the street fighting and subsequent executions in a series of prints, but, curiously, he reused the figures of a firing squad from his paintings of the execution of the Emperor Maximilian in Mexico in 1867. The version of Manet's depiction of Maximilian's death from the National Gallery in London (above) is on view in Manet/Degas.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) 

Detail of Édouard Manet’s The Barricades, ca. 1871, published 1884

In conflating the execution of Maximilian with that of the Communards, Manet was not being the least bit derivative. Instead, he was making a statement. The deaths in one war often lead to another - and he would be proven correct, as the effects of the Franco-Prussian War contributed directly to the outbreak of World War I.

Manet's interest in contemporary events was matched by his comrade from the siege of Paris. Degas, however, chose a less dramatic subject, but one of immense importance: the day-to-day workings of the capitalist economic system. 

In the autumn of 1872, Degas traveled to New Orleans. Degas' family had large-scale investments in the U.S. cotton industry. Degas uncle, Michel Musson, was an important cotton broker in New Orleans. After visiting his uncle's office, Degas painted two scenes, rare, accurate depictions of business operations, modern for its time. The first is of greater historical significance, the second  important for artistic reasons.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Edgar Degas' A Cotton Office in New Orleans, 1873

Degas' first painting is a carefully composed study of his uncle's cotton brokerage in action. The placement and interaction of the office staff and local businessmen  are so perfectly posed as to appear choreographed. The features of each man is delineated with precision and insight recalling the famous portrait drawings by Ingres from the 1820's and 30's. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Detail of  A Cotton Office in New Orleans

The second, less famous work was Cotton Merchants in New Orleans, now in the collection of the Harvard Art Museum. Seemingly without incident, this oil painting on linen shows the influence of Japanese art on Degas, Manet and many other French artists who came of age after the opening of Japan to the West in 1853. The dramatic cropping and placing the pictorial action in the foreground of the painting make participants of those who study it more than observers. Here, in this picture, we can see the first stirrings of modern art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) 

Edgar Degas' Cotton Merchants in New Orleans, 1873

Degas ventured to New Orleans to appraise his family's business prospects rather than to study art. He had every reason to be concerned. Cotton was no longer "king" as it had been before the Civil War in America. Hardly had Degas returned to France in the spring of 1873 than a world-wide economic panic began. The brittle finances of France were particularly hard-hit. The Degas family bank eventually sank in a sea of red ink in 1876.

 France during the age of Impressionism confronted adversity at every turn. In addition to repeated bank failures and the humiliating defeat of the Franco-Prussian War, the populace of France faced a litany of daily woes. Even the wine harvests were blighted - by a parasitic insect, the Phylloxera aphid, unwittingly imported from America!

The environmental effects of industrialization was even more damaging. Factory chimneys and plumes of smoke issuing from locomotives are a background feature of many Impressionist paintings. These are the tell-tale signs of erosion of the quality of life in France, which can be traced demographically. After inching upward earlier in the nineteenth century, the average life expectancy in France stalled in 1850 at the age of 43 and did not reach 45 until 1900

Manet lived eight years longer than the national average, but the 1870's and 1880's was a time of troubles for French men and women of all classes. The haunted eyes and careworn expressions on the faces of many of the individuals painted by Manet and Degas confirm this. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Edgar Degas’ Violinist and Young Woman, ca. 1871 

Two other protagonists in the Impressionist saga, very important to Manet, shared his fate of having their lives cut short, while being at the height of their creative powers. These were Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) and Berthe Morisot (1841-1895).

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Édouard Manet’s Repose (Portrait of Berthe Morisot), ca. 1871

 

Berthe Morisot was an intimate friend and, most probably, an unrequited lover of Manet. There was obviously some degree of "chemistry" between them. And there are so many sensational portraits of Morisot by Manet in the Met's exhibition that it might justly have been entitled Manet/Degas/Morisot!

Charles Baudelaire's name might well be tagged on to the title, too, so important were his ideas and observations on the place of the artist in modern French society. But we will reserve the contributions of Baudelaire, Morisot and others to the inter-woven careers of Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas for an additional essay to appear shortly in Art Eyewitness. 

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023)

 Gallery view of Manet/Degas, showing a seascape by Édouard Manet

 and Edgar Degas’ New Orleans scenes

To close this present review, let us avail ourselves of Degas' verdict on Manet and apply it to him as well. And while we are at it, let us accord this accolade to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musée d’Orsay. 

Manet, Degas declared as he left the funeral service for his friend and rival "was greater than we thought." 

Greater than we thought.

True for Manet. True for Degas. And true for the curators of Manet/Degas.  

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved                                                                                           

Original photography, copyright of Anne Lloyd

Introductory Image:                                                                                                                       Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of the entrance to the Manet/Degas exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York.

Al Mozell, Photo (1983) Gallery view of the 1983 Manet retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photo courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Édouard Manet’s Lola de Valance, 1862. Oil on canvas: 48 1/8  x 36 ¼  inches (123 x 92 cm) Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023 ) Gallery view of the Manet/Degas exhibit showing  Édouard Manet’s The Balcony, 1868–69.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Edgar Degas’ Visit to the Museum, 1879-90. Oil on canvas: 36 1/8 x 26 3/4 inches (91.8 x 68 cm) Museum of Fine Arts Boston.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of the Manet/Degas showing Edgar Degas' The Bellelli Family, 1858-69, on the far wall.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Detail of Edgar Degas’ Racehorses before the Stands,1866–68. Oil on paper mounted on canvas: 18 1/8 x 24 in. (46 x 61 cm) Musée d'Orsay.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Édouard Manet’s Emile Zola, 1868. Oil on canvas: 57 1/2 x 44 7/8 inches (146 x 114 cm) Musée d'Orsay.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Édouard Manet’s Olympia, 1863-65. Oil on canvas: 51 3/8 x 75 3/16 inches (130.5 x 191 cm) Musée d'Orsay.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Detail of Edgar Degas In a Café (The Absinthe Drinker), 1875–76. Oil on canvas: 36 1/4 x 26 15/16 in. (92 x 68.5 cm) Musée d'Orsay.

Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) Monsieur and Madame Édouard Manet, 1868–69. Oil on canvas: 25 9/16 x 27 15/16 in. (65 x 71 cm) Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art Photo: Courtesy of Kitakyushu Municipal Museum

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023 Édouard Manet’s Madam Manet at the Piano, ca. 1868-68. Oil on canvas: 15 3/16 x 18 15/16 in. (38.5 x 46.5 cm)

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of the entrance to the Manet/Degas exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art., showing self-portraits by Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of Manet/Degas showing Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian, ca.1867–68. Oil on canvas: 76 in. x 9 ft. 3 13/16 in. (193 x 284 cm) The National Gallery, London.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Detail of Édouard Manet’s The Barricades, ca. 1871, published 1884. Lithograph on chine colle: 18 5/16 x 13 1/8 in. (46.5 x 33.4 cm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Edgar Degas' A Cotton Office in New Orleans, 1873. Oil on canvas: 28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in. (73 x 92 cm) Musée des Beaux-Arts, Pau, France.  

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Edgar Degas' Cotton Merchants in New Orleans, 1873. Oil on linen: 23 1/8 x 28 ¼ in. (58.7 x 71.8 cm) Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Edgar Degas’ Violinist and Young Woman, ca. 1871. Oil and crayon on canvas: 18 ¼ x 22 inches (46.4 x 55.9 cm.) Detroit Institute of Arts.    

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Édouard Manet’s Repose (Portrait of Berthe Morisot), ca. 1871. Oil-on-canvas: 59 1/8 x 44 7/8 inches (150.2 x 114 cm) Rhode Island School of Design.

Anne Lloyd, Photo (2023) Gallery view of the Manet/Degas exhibition, showing a seascape by Édouard Manet and Edgar Degas’ New Orleans Cotton Office scenes.

 

Art Eyewitness Review: Giuseppe De Nittis at the Phillips Collection

 

An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis 

The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

 November 12, 2022–February 12, 2023

Reviewed by Ed Voves

The Impressionist movement was a brief moment, at least in terms of the group presentations of the "new painting." In just over a decade, 1874-1886, eight exhibitions of Impressionist painting were held. 

Most of the Impressionist painters, by contrast, were remarkably long-lived.  Degas lived to 1917, eighty-three years at his passing. Monet reached the age of eighty-six, just managing to complete his series of water-lily "Grand Decoration" in 1926. Renoir, though crippled by arthritis, continued to paint until he died in 1919, aged seventy-eight.

Giuseppe De Nittis was not so fortunate. De Nittis, a brilliant artist in landscape and genre paintings, was struck-down by a massive stroke in 1884. He was just thirty-eight. 

The tragic brevity of De Nittis' life is one factor why he is so little known. But there is another reason. De Nittis, born in the Puglia region of southern Italy, lived and worked in an era when contemporary Italian visual art was little regarded.  Paris, not Rome or Florence, was the capital of the art world during the 1800's. Cultural historians, intent on charting the course of Modernism, seldom focus on the contributions of Italian artists until the rise of Futurismo, just before World War I.

Ed Voves, Photo (1923)

Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis

 at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

The Phillips Collection, in Washington D.C., is mounting an exhibition which is finally giving Giuseppe De Nittis his due. It is a splendid exhibit, with 73 works of art on view, 32 paintings coming from the museum in Barletta, Italy dedicated to his oeuvre, the Pinacoteca De Nittis.

Also on display in the Phillips exhibition are several major paintings and prints by Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Gustave Caillebotte. These leading French Impressionists befriended De Nittis and occasionally worked alongside him during his all too-brief career.

An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis is on view at the Phillips Collection until mid-February 2023, and will not be traveling to any other American museums. There is a note of urgency for art lovers to visit the Phillips soon. Exhibitions of Italian art from the 1800's are rare events and another opportunity to view De Nittis' paintings in the U.S. is not likely to happen again for some time.

Unknown photographer, Giuseppe De Nittis, 1875 

Giuseppe De Nittis was born in 1846 in Barletta, located in the remote region of Puglia, at the "heel" of Italy on the Adriatic coast. De Nittis showed precocious talent in art, which his parents encouraged. The timing for starting a career in the Italian art world, however, was not propitious. 

"Italy" as a nation did not exist. The southern part of the boot-shaped peninsula was ruled by the Bourbon dynasty, while the Hapsburg rulers of Austria-Hungary dominated the north. After a long struggle beginning in 1848, Italian independence and political unity, powered by the enterprise known as the Risorgimento, was achieved in 1871.

Giuseppe De Nittis, The Road from Naples to Brindisi, 1872 

As Italy's unification loomed, De Nittis reached the age of twenty-one in 1867. Unity, however, did not equate to economic vitality or to a new Italian Renaissance in the arts. Italy was and remained a poor country, especially in the southern provinces like Puglia.

By all accounts, the young De Nittis was a headstrong rebel. He was dismissed from the art academy in Naples in 1863 for insubordination. Although there was a visionary group of young artists in Florence, the Macchiaioli, De Nittis did not join their ranks. When the time came to decide where he should base his artistic career, De Nittis made the fateful choice to leave Italy and make his way to Paris.

There really was no other place for De Nittis but Paris, the summit of the art world. Supremely talented in drawing and oil painting, De Nittis was also interested in printmaking, which he soon mastered and later became very proficient in pastel. Most importantly, De Nittis was dedicated to working en plein air, sketching and painting in all weathers. Nature was his academy.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' Approaching Storm, ca. 1869 

"Nature I am so close to her ...," De Nittis wrote in a tone of almost religious rapture. "I know the atmosphere well, I know all the colors, all the secrets of the air and the sky in their intimate nature. Oh, the sky! I have painted so many pictures! Skies, skies only, and beautiful clouds."

Along with being a gifted artist and student of nature, De Nittis was gregarious and generous, just the kind of companion-in-art to be embraced by Manet and Degas. These are the traits celebrated in the Phillips exhibition. Yet, it must be emphasized that De Nittis was a complicated individual, a revolutionary at heart, but also an ambitious, career-savvy young man. 

Initially, on reaching Paris, De Nittis showed particular interest in the art of influential genre painters like Ernest Messonier. De Nittis worked as Messonier's studio assistant while he found his bearings in France. He aso signed a contract with the art firm, Goupil, who marketed Messonier's paintings.

Depictions of Le Beau Monde, Napoleonic battle scenes and bucholic landscapes paid very well indeed. Acceptable works like these also provided access to the French government-sponsored Salon. De Nittis was determined to gain entrance to the Salon. And in a remarkably short time, he succeeded. 

Giuseppe De Nittis, Return from the Races, 1875 

A fine example of the genre paintings which made De Nittis's reputation is Return from the Races. Painted around 1875, this sparkling scene of a delightful Parisian day has all the narrative incident and crisp detail beloved by mid-nineteenth century audiences. 

Also of note in Return from the Races is a feature which appears in a number of De Nittis' paintings. This is his clever way of balancing the activity of the human cast of characters in the picture, grouped for the most part in one sector of the canvas (often a corner), with a broad expanse of landscape. 

This "signature" element on De Nittis' landscapes is most memorably stated in a very early work, The Train Passes. This eye-catching, unconventional oil painting dominates the gallery where it is displayed. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis,

showing De Nittis' The Train Passes, 1869

Painted in 1869, The Train Passes is powerful work which distills the conflicting concerns of nineteenth century culture - the resolute belief in progress and disturbing thoughts over the threat posed by technology to human life - into a bold visual statement.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Detail of Giuseppe De Nittis' The Train Passes,1869

The train dominates the picture, yet is almost beyond our view, leaving a vast plume of acrid smoke in its wake. Two peasant women are hunched in the lower left-hand corner, working in the fields as human beings had done for millennia. Yet, in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, the baleful effects of the machine age have been added to the grinding physical toll of traditional labor.

The disturbing implications of The Train Passes make it a relevant work a century and a half after it was painted. Yet, it remained unsold during De Nittis' lifetime. It was donated by his widow to the municipal government of his hometown, Barletta, and is now displayed in the Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis.

Pictures of thorough-bred steeds, jockeys and well-dressed spectators were much more popular with wealthy patrons and De Nittis painted his share of horse racing paintings. This was, of course, a subject beloved by Manet and Degas. The Phillips exhibit devotes an entire gallery to the paintings of the races at Longchamp and Auteuil with major works in this theme by Manet, Degas and De Nittis. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' The Races at Auteuil, Paris - On the Chair, 1883

De Nittis' racing paintings more than hold their own in competition with the more widely-known works by the two French painters. I was particularly impressed by The Races at Auteuil, Paris ─ On the Chair, 1883. It is a work of great charm and human warmth, as well sly social commentary on the hauteur of the impeccably-clad gentleman, with his monocle and swagger cane.

Of the rising generation of French artists, Manet appears to have been the first to acknowledge De Nittis as a friend and colleague. An important painting by Manet, on loan from the Shelburne Museum, likely confirms his early embrace of De Nittis.

Édouard Manet, In the Garden, 1870 

Manet's In the Garden, painted in 1870, shows a beautiful young woman posing with a baby and a lounging man, whose facial features are difficult to discern. Some art scholars have identified the woman as Edma Morisot, artist/sister to Berthe Morisot. But the resemblance really does not match and the fact that De Nittis owned and cherished this work calls this identification into question. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' Figure of a Woman (Léontine), 1880 

De Nittis married a lovely, vivacious French woman, Léontin Gruvelle in 1869. The features of the woman in In the Garden more closely resemble Léontin than Edma Morisot. Léontin gave birth to a baby girl, who died soon after in 1870. Manet's painting most likely represents the De Nittis family, or at least uses them as models for a family group, before the sad passing of their infant daughter. 

Exact identification aside, Manet's In the Garden shows that De Nittis was moving away from the Messonier orbit into that of the dynamic painters who would launch the Impressionist movement in 1874. De Nittis and Degas became very close friends, and Gustav Cailbotte would stand as godfather for the De Nittis' second (and healthy) child, Jacques.

De Nittis' new friendships created problems for him however - quite significant ones in fact. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis, showing De Nettis' Vesuvius Eruption, 1872 

In 1872, De Nittis, with the encouragement of the Adolphe Goupil, returned to Italy to record a new volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius. De Nittis did daily drawings and oil sketches for two versions of the spectacular event. These brilliantly recorded the effect on the atmosphere of the molten ash projected upward from the inner recesses of the volcano. On one of the canvases, De Nittis also depicted a group of onlookers scurrying for safety as a huge black cloud of ash shrouds the sky above them.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Detail of Giuseppe De Nittis' Vesuvius Eruption, 1872 

De Nittis's painting was refused by Goupil. It was too naturalistic, too experimental for a conservative art dealer like Goupil, who no doubt did not want potential customers to feel the least bit threatened.

The Vesuvius paintings should have been "break-out" works, placing De Nittis in the first rank of contemporary painters. Instead, De Nittis faced the cross-roads of his career. Soon after Goupil rejected the Vesuvius picture, Monet, Renoir and Degas began planning what would become the first Impressionist exhibition. Should De Nittis join the new movement or continue to paint safe, picturesque genre scenes for Goupil?

Degas was enthusiastic for De Nittis to join. Others - Monet and Renoir - resisted including the foreign-born painter in the group exhibition. Eventually, at Degas' insistence, De Nittis was accepted - grudgingly. Five works by De Nittis were included in the 1874 Impressionist Salon but were poorly hung and none sold.

De Nittis parted company with the Impressionists and did not submit any works for the follow-up exhibitions. Even during the 1881 show, chiefly managed by Degas, De Nittis held aloof. 

De Nittis and Degas remained on close personal terms, however. De Nittis joined with Degas and his eccentric associate, Ludovic Napoleon Lepic (1839-1899) for innovative printing efforts. The Phillips exhibition devotes a small gallery to their experiments in prints, etchings, monoprints and monotypes. This is a fascinating "sideshow" to the emphasis on painting in the rest of the exhibit, but one which art lovers, especially those who recall MOMA's 2016 A Strange New Beauty exhibition of Degas's prints, will appreciate.

Giuseppe De Nittis, View Taken in London, ca. 1876

The brief duration of De Nittis' affiliation with the Impressionists calls into question how much of an Impressionist he actually was. Limiting his involvement with the group was hardly a misfortune, however, as he was absorbed with many projects. Among these were new ventures into painting urban views of Paris and London. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' The Place des Pyramides, 1875 

In the case of Paris, he recorded the efforts at rebuilding the "City of Light" after the German siege of 1870 and the destructive turmoil of the Commune the following year. The French government took notice and awarded De Nittis the Légion d’honneur in 1878.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' National Gallery and the Church 

 of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London), 1878

De Nittis made annual visits to London during which he combined genre painting with evocative study of the physical environment. London was a good place to record the "Two Nations" of Victorian Britain, self-assured members of the "upper crust" sharing the sidewalk in front of the National Gallery with beggars and "sandwich men" with their street advertisements.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Detail of Giuseppe De Nittis' National Gallery and the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London)

Increasingly, De Nittis focused his attention on the River Thames, rather than London's busy streets. The fogs and mists of the Thames contrasted dramatically with the Gothic Revival architecture of the Houses of Parliament. Here on the Victoria Embankment or the Westminster Bridge, De Nittis could observe London folk walking and working alongside the river and, in a real sense, living with the flow of the Thames, the enduring spirit of London.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis showing De Nettis' Study of Westminster Bridge 

When De Nittis delivered one of his London paintings to Goupil during the summer of 1875, one of the employees in the gallery wrote,

A couple of days ago we got a painting by De Nittis, a view of London on a rainy day, Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. I crossed Westminster Bridge every morning and evening and know what it looks like when the sun's setting behind Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament, and what it's like early in the morning, and in the winter with snow and fog.

Vincent van Gogh wrote these lines to his brother, Theo, adding, "When I saw this painting, I feel how much I love London."

That is exactly the sentiment that I felt when I viewed De Nittis' 1878 Study of Westminster Bridge at the Phillips exhibition. Unlike The National Gallery and the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London), also painted the same year,  there is not a person to be seen in the study of the bridge. But you could never say that not a "soul is stirring." 

That is exactly what we see here, the soul of a great city is stirring.  Westminster Bridge reaches out to us from the picture plane, bidding us join the countless souls who come together bringing the city to life each day.

That willingness to embrace life and empathize with our fellow human beings was the secret to De Nettis' life and work. But a zest for living only goes so far. De Nettis drove himself at a literally killing pace to keep up with the relentless pace of painting, printmaking, travel and entertaining. The effect of his plein air work exerted a particular strain on his health, as he commented to his friend, the art critic, Edmund de Goncourt.

On August 21, 1884, De Nittis suffered a massive stroke and died. On his easel was an uncompleted self-portrait, which certainly shows that De Nittis' masterful touch was reaching toward a new high point of achievement.  

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Giuseppe De Nittis' Breakfast in the Garden, 1884

The self-portrait does not appear in the Phillips exhibition but De Nettis' valedictory Breakfast in the Garden is on view. It is, to use a much abused adjective, a "stunning" work of art. 

Such is the resonance of Breakfast in the Garden, that it is impossible to deny that De Nittis sealed a part of his soul into this painting.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)

Detail of Giuseppe De Nittis' Breakfast in the Garden

Léontin, and their son, Jacques, watch a gaggle of ducks approach the table for a scrap of brioche. De Nettis has pushed back his chair, drained his cup of coffee and placed his napkin next to a vase of flowers. He is ready to go to work - but in reality he is departing on the next, the ultimate stage of his life's journey.

We know neither the day nor the hour. 

For Giuseppe De Nittis, his "day" ended much too soon. But before his "hour" had come, De Nittis created a body of work, art suffused with the joy of life and a sense of communion with his fellow human beings, still palpable after all the years since his passing.

***

Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved.                                               

Introductory image: Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. showing De Nittis' Breakfast in the Garden.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis at the Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

Unknown Photographer, Giuseppe De Nittis, 1875. it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_De_Nittis

Giuseppe De Nittis, The Road from Naples to Brindisi (formerly known as The Road from Brindisi to Barletta),1872. Oil on canvas: 29.5 x 54.3 cm. Anonymous loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis' Approaching Storm, ca. 1869. Oil on canvas: 57.5 x 91 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta. 

Giuseppe De Nittis (Italian, 1846-1884) Return from the Races, 1875. Oil on canvas: 58.1 x 114.6 cm. Philadelphia Museum of Art: Gift of John G. Johnson for the W. P. Wilstach Collection, 1906 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis, showing De Nittis' The Train Passes, 1869.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Detail of Giuseppe De Nittis' The Train Passes, 1869. Oil on canvas: 76.5 x 130.5 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta, Italy. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023)  Giuseppe De Nittis' The Races at Auteuil, Paris ─ On the Chair, 1883. Oil on canvas: 107 x 55.5 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta, Italy. 

Édouard Manet (French, 1832-1883) In the Garden, 1870. Oil on canvas: 44.5 x 54 cm. Collection of Shelburne Museum, Shelburne, Vermont. Gift of Dunbar W. and Electra Webb Bostwick, 1981-82

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis' Figure of a Woman (Léontine), 1880. Oil on canvas: 73 x 39 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta.

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis' Vesuvius Eruption (detail), 1872. Oil on canvas: 73.5 x 128.3 cm. Private collection, Naples. 

Giuseppe De Nittis (Italian, 1846-1884) View Taken in London, ca. 1876. Etching in sepia [proof before letters]: Plate: 14 x 21.7 cm Sheet: 22.5 x 28.8 cm National Gallery of Art, Washington The Ahmanson Foundation, 2013 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis' The Place des Pyramides,1875. Oil on canvas: 92.3 x 75 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Gift of the artist to the Musée du Luxembourg, 1883.

 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis' The National Gallery and the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London), 1878. Oil on canvas: 71 x 105.5 cm. Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Gallery view of An Italian Impressionist in Paris: Giuseppe De Nittis ,showing De Nettis' Study of Westminster Bridge, 1878. Oil on canvas: 78 x 132 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta. 

Ed Voves, Photo (2023) Giuseppe De Nittis's Breakfast in the Garden, 1884. Oil on canvas:  81 x 117 cm. Pinacoteca Giuseppe De Nittis, Barletta, Italy.