Realists, Impressionists, Fauves, and Nabis, Oh My!

Artists don’t necessarily fit neatly into categories. Sometimes they aren’t in step with their times. Sometimes an artist’s work doesn’t neatly fit into a genre, and sometimes an artist may switch styles a number of times in a career. Labeling groups of artists or styles has limited usefulness, but it does help us to see trends in ideas and working methods, and can give us some insight into the artists’ thinking as well as the tenor of the times. 

Here’s a quick survey of some of the movements and styles in art that you can find in Van Gogh, Monet, Degas: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

 

Romanticism

JEAN-LOUIS-ANDRÉ-THÉODORE GÉRICAULT 
(French, 1791–1824) Mounted Jockey, c. 1821–22 
Oil on canvas. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 85.497

The artists most associated with the Romantic movement in art represented in this exhibition include Théodore Gericault and Eugène Delacroix. The Romantics were concerned with stirring emotions through artwork imbued with a personal response to the world. Often the Romantics were inspired by the power and immensity of nature in contrast to the smallness of the individual. Géricault combined an interest in classicism with an oftentimes dramatic, bravura execution and an emotional rendering of subject matter. His Mounted Jockey reflects this dramatic flair in the isolation of the subject against a stormy sky. The horse itself is rendered with a sense of the high-strung energy of a racehorse being held in check. 
 

Realism

EDGAR DEGAS (French, 1834–1917), The Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, model executed in 1880 (cast after 1922). Bronze, cloth skirt with tutu, satin hair ribbon. 
State Operating Fund and the Art Lovers’ Society, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 45.22.1

In Van Gogh, Monet, Degas we see many artists who were influenced by the Realist movement in French art and literature that began in the late 1840s. Championed by Gustave Courbet, who wrote the Realist Manifesto in 1861, the Realists were concerned with making artwork that showed the world as it actually was—which meant without idealization. Many of the most famous Realist works focused on rural life, poverty, and small town activities. Their subject matter was taken from the real world as it was, rather than from history, the Bible, or mythology. Courbet’s Portrait of Gustave Chaudey is included in the Van Gogh, Monet, Degas exhibition, but perhaps the most powerful work in the exhibition with roots in the Realist movement is Edgar Degas’ The Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, which was first exhibited in March 1881. While some members of the art world felt the sculpture, outfitted in real clothes and hair, reached new heights of realism, others criticized the sculpture as vulgar and felt uncomfortable when confronted by the depiction of a lower-class student dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet. 

Impressionism

CLAUDE MONET (French, 1840–1926), Field of Poppies, Giverny, 1885. Oil on canvas. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 85.499

Key artists of the Impressionist movement—Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley were working together as early as the 1860s developing the ideas that came to characterize Impressionist painting. Chief among them was working outdoors. Painting directly on the spot was valued as capturing a truer response to nature than working in the studio. The Impressionists, similar to the Realists, were also concerned with capturing scenes that related to contemporary life—though their subjects were generally middle-class leisure—the picnics, boating parties, family scenes, and gardens we associate with Impressionist art today. Impressionists were also interested in perception of color and light and their brighter palettes and broken brushstrokes sought to record light and atmosphere in a way that was not possible in academic, studio painting. 

Nabis

PIERRE BONNARD (French, 1867–1947), The Pont de Grenelle and the Eiffel Tower, c. 1912. Oil on canvas. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2006.44 

The Nabis were a group of artists that banded together in the 1890s. They were an organized group, a kind of secret society of painters, who took as their name the Hebrew word for prophet. The choice of the word Nabis reinforces the group’s belief in the revelatory power of the artist’s personal vision. Color and shape were used expressively by the Nabis to conjure emotions and create new experiences. Nabis artists included in the exhibition include Pierre Bonnard, Felix Vallotton, and Edward Vuillard. 
 

Fauvism

MAURICE DE VLAMINCK (French, 1876–1958), Sailing Boat, Chatou, c. 1906. Oil on canvas 
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 95.23

Following a 1905 exhibition of the wildly-colored work of these artists, a critic dubbed them the Fauves—wild beasts. Artists associated with the Fauve movement include Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet, Kees van Dongen, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Raoul Dufy. In addition to favoring bright, unnatural colors, the Fauves often emphasized contour lines and were interested in exploring the flatness of the surface in a decorative way. 
 

Cubism

GEORGES BRAQUE (French, 1882–1963), Fruit Dish and Fruit Basket, 1928. Oil and sand on canvas. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 83.11

Cubism was developed by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso around 1909-10 as a deliberate exploration of their mutual interest in trying to capture multiple simultaneous perspectives. The painstaking, deliberate work of Cézanne was a major influence on the development of cubism, as was African art and art of other cultures. The cubists broke objects down into geometric forms and then reassembled and rearranged them across the surface of the canvas. Although neither Picasso nor Braque has a purely cubist piece in Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, aspects of cubism are reflected in both of their included works. 


These are just a few of the major approaches to art to look for in the exhibition. There are plenty of other words (Post-impressionist, Neo-impressionist, Divisionist, and more) that can be used to describe works or artists in the show as well—with one thing, perhaps shared by all, an interest in creating art relevant to contemporary life and ideas.