Maybe we need to create an “ism” right now John… to haul us out of the current slump? [Where do we find a good ism when we need one?] Grin. Certainly now more than ever artists need to be casting around for a new more innovative approach to the marketplace.

I too thought it was interesting that Katz refers to the recession. I guess the state of the economy is going to figure largely in all commercial enterprise… and art is no different. I just wonder if art ever passes hands any more because it is beautiful or thought provoking or the collector simply can’t live without it… or whether collecting art is always purely a cold commercial calculation.

A recent post card auction here pointed precisely to the latter with good prices reached for (dare I say it) household names… whilst perhaps the better work executed by less collectable artists languished unbid on. It seems so cynical to me… and must leave artists with a sour taste knowing that this is the prime motivation of the market place. Ever the idealist… I know. LOL

Interesting, isn’t it, that Katz refers to the “recession” as cutting into the early Impressionists’ sales. Sound familiar? The main point though is that the work was new and different. After at first being rejected by the establishment it required a coming together of forces to turn things around: the determination of the artists, unswerving loyalty of a dealer or dealers, a glimmer of attention and interest from some part of the marketplace, social and cultural trends. On the other hand, through the 20th century we saw an explosion of “-isms” one after another as dealers, critics, curators, academics, and collectors frantically leaped at the next new movement and rejected the “old” in their terror at possibly missing the boat.

“The respite offered by Durand-Ruel to the poorest of the Impressionists, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley (whose father’s business had collapsed in the war) had temporarily evaporated; sales had plummeted in the recession. Even Degas was in trouble after the death of his father had entailed the Degas estate. An auction of Impressionist work arranged by Renoir and held at the Hotel Drouot ended in farce and near riot. So derisory were the bids that the artists were forced to purchase many of their own works”

It couldn’t have been easy.

How interesting that you knew Jean Renoir! Seems inconceivable doesn’t it? But in reality… the age of impressionism was not all that long ago… and never really ended I guess. There are many artist today who still practice the ideals of Impressionism… albeit with varying degrees of success as you so rightly point out. LOL

But I am wondering who can really judge… art is art… it is in the eye of the beholder a personal form of creative expression and remains in a constant state of flux. Corot once said to Pissarro… “We don’t see in the same way… you see green and I see grey and silver.”

And Albert Wolff the art critic of the important daily Le Figaro once disparagingly remarked “the impression the Impressionists achieve is that of a cat walking on a piano keyboard or a monkey who might have got hold of a box of paints”

It’s all subjective. Some things never change. LOL

Is anyone else having problems with posting comments here?