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Europe 1800 - 1900
Course: Europe 1800 - 1900 > Unit 5
Lesson 3: Impressionism- A beginner's guide to Impressionism
- What does “Impressionism” mean?
- How the Impressionists got their name
- Impressionist color
- Impressionist pictorial space
- Japonisme
- Degas, The Bellelli Family
- Degas, At the Races in the Countryside
- Degas, The Dance Class
- Degas, Visit to a Museum
- Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers
- Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street; Rainy Day
- Caillebotte, Man at his Bath
- Morisot, The Cradle
- A summer day in Paris: Morisot's Hunting Butterflies
- Cassatt, In the Loge
- Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair
- Cassatt, Woman with a Pearl Necklace in a Loge
- Cassatt, The Loge
- Cassatt, The Child's Bath
- Mary Cassatt, The Coiffure
- Cassatt, Breakfast in Bed
- How to recognize Monet: The Basin at Argenteuil
- Monet, The Argenteuil Bridge
- Painting modern life: Monet's Gare Saint-Lazare
- Monet, The Gare Saint-Lazare
- Monet, Cliff Walk at Pourville
- Monet's Wheatstacks (Snow Effect, Morning): Getty conversations
- Monet, Poplars
- Monet, Rouen Cathedral Series
- Monet, Water Lilies
- How to Recognize Renoir: The Swing
- Renoir, La Loge
- Renoir, The Grands Boulevards
- Renoir, Moulin de la Galette
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Madame Charpentier and Her Children
- Renoir, Luncheon of the Boating Party
- Renoir, The Large Bathers
- Impressionism
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Renoir, La Loge
Pierre Auguste Renoir, La Loge, 1874, oil on canvas, 31 1/2 x 24 5/8 in. (80 x 63.5 cm) (Courtauld Gallery, London) Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris, Rachel S. Ropeik This painting was exhibited by Renoir at the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris (1874). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Is she a wife or a mistress? Men of the upper class during this time would have a mistress as a status symbol to display their wealth. From the way the critics were talking about the symbols in the painting, and the viewer in the 1870s understanding the symbols, I think they were saying she was a mistress. What do you think?(6 votes)
- It seems most likely to be a mistress and my reasons for it is as follows. One, if she was his wife, I believe the painter would have gave them more of a sense of unity with one another as in the painting the two seem emotionally distant. If she was his wife I would have believed here to have a pair of binoculars herself or they would have participated in the act of spying and gossiping with each other. Two, if the painting did depict a couple, the central figure would not be the woman, but rather both, but as you can see the main subject is the woman. The husband plays a supporting role and is more in the background of the painting.(8 votes)
- I searched Google for "Nini Fish-Face" () but couldn't find much info on who she was. Does anyone know more about this person? A link to an external resource would be appreciated. Thanks! 2:32(5 votes)
- Apparently her name was Nini Lopez. She posed for Renoir several times, the first time for this painting. The name Nini might be a nickname or a short version of her name.
There is indeed little information about who she was.(7 votes)
- Was impressionism originally called impressionism when it began in the 1800s? Or is that a newer title for this style of painting?(2 votes)
- The term "Impressionism" was taken over from a critic ridiculing the 1874 group exhibition, which has become known as the "First Impressionist exhibition". The critic appropriated the name from the title of a painting by Claude Monet "Impression, "Soleil levant", to describe the painters who came together to expose their works in the atelier of Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. Not long after this public derision, these painters (among whom people as Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley and others) started to refer to themselves and the informal group as "Impressionist painters" and thus is still in use today. We can fairly state that Impressionism as such starts in 1874 with their first exhibition, the criticism and their pride in the public's impossibility to see the revolutionary style of painting to it's worth.(5 votes)
- Did Renoir ever marry?(2 votes)
- This La Loge painting by Renoir hangs in the New York residence office of Melania Trump, Donald Trumps wife. Yes, that Donald Trump. Do the Trumps own the original painting that is in this discussion? Is the painting that hangs in Melania Trump's office a copy or the original? Thank you for your help.(1 vote)
- The original canvas that we discussed is in the Courtauld Gallery, London. Learn more here: http://courtauld.ac.uk/gallery/what-on/exhibitions-displays/archive/renoir-at-the-theatre-looking-at-la-loge(3 votes)
- what is the value of the oil painting?(0 votes)
Video transcript
(piano music) Voiceover: So, here we are looking
at La Loge, which is a painting by Pierre Auguste Renoir in the
Courtauld Galleries in London and it's from 1874, which is the magical
year of the beginning of the Impressionist Exhibitions, which actually they
just started out as paintings that weren't accepted at the official
yearly exposition of paintings, and then all the Impressionists said, "Well, if you're not going to accept
our paintings we'll start our own show," and that was the year, 1874. Voiceover: Yeah, they were
desperate for some recognition. Voiceover: They needed
someone to look at them. Voiceover: Yeah. This was a time
when they were no real galleries for contemporary art and
they wanted people to see it. Voiceover: Interestingly enough,
though we may not think of it this way this would have been shocking at
the time, the way this was painted. Voiceover: Oh it's
incredibly loosely painted. Voiceover: Very much so, and
it's this scene of modern life. It's not a classical story, or
a religious story or anything. It's two people out at the theater as
you would go to the theater in the 1870s. Voiceover: I guess the loge was a level of
the theater just like it is today. Right? Voiceover: They were kind
of in like an opera box, and this is very much
what people would do. You'd sit in the loge and the woman
always sat in front by the railing, and you can see she has her right arm
resting on this cushioned railing. Then the man would sit behind
her and look at other people. Voiceover: Right. Voiceover: He's not looking
down toward a stage at all. Voiceover: No, he's looking around
to see who else is at the theater. Voiceover: Exactly. Voiceover: And who they're with. Voiceover: It was a very gossipy society. I suppose it's not that different
from our celebrity tabloids obsession. You know who's out with
who and who's wearing what. Voiceover: It's like the whole painting
though is really this pyramid shape of black and white stripes
formed by her dress. What a great dress. Voiceover: I know. The thing that always impresses
me about this painting is that it is very loosely
painted, but you get a lot of
detail of what she's wearing and her pearls and her corsage and her
earrings and the flowers in her hair. He manages to get that all in
there without giving you exact
detailed contours of everything. Voiceover: So, she's
really upper class, right? I mean this is an expensive
dress, it looks to me. Voiceover: It was an expensive dress,
but she's probably not his wife. The women who wore the most ostentatious
dresses were actually sort of these upper class courtesans who would
be trotted out on the arm of their patrons which is probably who
this man is in the background. The woman who posed for this was
actually a fairly famous artist's model whose nickname I always like, which
was Nini Fish-Face. (laughing) Voiceover: That doesn't sound very nice. Voiceover: Well I think
she has a lovely face. Voiceover: She's beautiful. What's important to remember as
we're talking about this, for me, is that we look at this and
this just looks like two
people dressed up at the opera and we easily lose sight of what
it was like in Paris in the 1870s. Issues of class and dress and all these
codes that are kind of lost to us now but that we really need
to decode the painting. Voiceover: It's very enjoyable just to
look at the sumptuousness of her dress but then also thinking about the idea
that this was a scene of modern life. Voiceover: This way that she's on display. She immediately becomes
a specific kind of woman. Voiceover: Yes, and the status symbol
and social class that's inherint in that. Voiceover: But without that modesty of
a middle class woman who would have gone to the opera and without also probably
a kind of modestly and uprightness of a truly aristocratic woman. So she becomes a very specific type. Voiceover: But I love thinking
that a contemporary viewer
of this would have known that right away. Voiceover: Immediately. Voiceover: And people had this
whole body of knowledge at the time of what social class you belonged to based
on how you presented yourself in public. Voiceover: And it might be interesting
also then to go out into our own world, out into the streets of London and
think about the ways that we read people based on what they wear
and who they're with. (piano music)