An Impression

I remember the first time I saw a Renoir – I mean really saw one as opposed to glancing at one and moving on.  I was probably about eleven at the time and I remember standing in a gallery with the afternoon light slanting through the windows looking up at this huge canvas and being transfixed.  It was the painting In The Garden (Dans le Jardin) and of a couple seated at a table holding hands with a backdrop of leaves.  I was completely swept up in the romance.

Eight years on and I still love Renoir, so I went to the From Paris: A Taste For Impressionism exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts. It showcased art from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts and included art by Manet, Degas, Monet, Sisley and Morisot, as well as Renoir and was arranged in a series of rooms by genre (still life, landscape etc.)

I know that Impressionism has been done and done and done again.  I know that in every greetings card shop there's a Japanese Footbridge and in every dentists waiting room there are ballerinas by Degas.  But that's because they are good.  I apologise for my gross over simplification of the history of art, but pre-Impressionism art was often concerned with realism, symbolism or a story and a lot of work from the 20^th and 21^st Centuries is chiefly about concepts or form.  For me, Impressionism is different.  It's a feeling that you can't put into words, a moment of light on water.

The highlights for me were Monet's Geese in the Brook, which looked exactly how a country afternoon feels, Toulouse-Lautrec's Waiting and Thérèse Bérard, which captures all the dark eyed thoughtful innocence of the quintessential Renoir heroine.  It doesn't seem to matter how many prints you see of French 19^th Century art, it just doesn't seem to ruin it in the flesh.  The exhibiton only has a few more days, but if you get the chance, go.

Thérèse Bérard, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
from all-art.org