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?

You wrote: “There are probably more than two discussions that could be potentially had… and I’d wager a bet that Gauguin was not the only one to ask the fundamental question. In all likelihood anyone who ever created anything… invented something… or spent time pondering the meaning of life itself… probably had this one question in mind.”

You’re quite right, of course, Jean. I referenced Gaugin because it’s the title of one of his greatest masterpieces, done during his years in Tahiti:

http://www.alloilpaint.com/impression/gauguin/gauguin89.jpg

I’m not sure if anyone else has articulated the essence of art in quite this way.

You wrote: “[The Impressionists] paid a heavy price to protect that creative freedom and guaranteed themselves a place in history as the poorest artists of all time in their own time.”

It’s interesting and germane to the discussion, I think, that the Impressionists for the most part were very much business-minded, and indeed organized and promoted their salons in order to put their work in front of the public, since they were being excluded from the Academy exhibitions. Far from being idealists who chose a path of impoverished outsiders in order to pursue their experimentation, they had faith in the commercial potential of their work. Indeed, this was the thing that linked them together, more than stylistic approach. In the beginning they took a critical drubbing, but later on their began to find their markets, thanks in large part to their dealer, Durand-Ruel, who introduced them to more adventurous and speculative Russian and American collectors. Sisley died in poverty, but it may have been due more to his own character, but others, such as Renoir, Monet, and the post-impressionist Cezanne did achieve financial security through their art.

(As a side note, my wife and I were friends with Renoir’s son, the film director Jean Renoir, and his wife Didot, and visited them at their charming French Provincial-style house in Los Angeles. You can only imagine the feast that was hanging on their walls. I enjoy going to the L.A. Museum of Art and seeing Renoir pere’s painting of Jean as a boy, dressing in a hunting outfit. It tickles me that I actually knew the subject of an Impressionist painting.)

The real irony, I think, is that while numerous Impressionists found their way into the mainstream of fashion in their lifetimes, Impressionism itself became a kind of catch-all term for a lot of very bad art in ours. Much of it has little to do with the serious inquiries of the original Impressionists into light and optics, and instead has become about daubing and smearing that masks an inability to draw.

Forgive me, Jean, for taking up so much space here.