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A Rambling Amateur Review of the Metropolitan Museum’s Art Show in Houston, in 3 Part Harmony Part Two
Part One, Part Three

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Quick sight of a late nude, nicer than most I've seen (less stiff, more gentle), florals, and a startling portrait of a young boy with a captured look of pure boyish joy that leaps out at the viewer.  Renoir, I think, for someone who prided himself for going with the flow, being a "feather in the wind," wrote more than most of the other impressionists (excepting maybe monet's letters to his wife alice, which is a different thing) about art and making art, and he was quite adamant about his views.  One of these was that thin paint could elicit as much richness and nuance of color and feeling as that applied thickly.  In Renoir's case, who could possibly argue?  But I think it goes more to the quiet competitiveness in this thin man.  Obviously all the major impressionists were not only friends through out their lives, but were intimately aware of each other's painting nuances.  Monet even went out of his way to avoid going with Renoir on a second painting tour in the south of France, wanting to break more completely from Renoir's influence and go his own way.  Renoir, if he'd been with Monet, would probably have had a lot to say about that effort  :-)

There are so many wonderful books on Renoir, with easily the biography by his son, the eventual great cinema artist, Jean Renoir, being my favorite.

The richness of the closeness of their relationship is constantly portrayed with myriad details of the elements of a daily life that now seem so historically interesting yet always so humanly enviable.

Also interesting is an occasional comparison reading of some of the recollections by one of the impressionist's most important collectors, Ambroise Vollard.  By great luck, I'd read, in a close time frame, a recollection of one of Vollard's first visits to Renoir (if not his first) by first Jean Renoir, then Vollard.  The latter by an esteemed collector recalling the simple nature of the surrounds of the artist visited (and a great love of the art found) and the first, of a child recalling the interruption and near inconvenience of an otherwise business as usual peaceful day.

For those able, there's an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago (I have a few subscribers there that may already know this) of Vollard's collection entitled, Cezanne to Picasso:

http://www.artic.edu/aic/exhibitions/picasso/

My longest existing framed print I still have hanging (circa 1976) is of Renoir's 1882 "The Meadow."  Sheila & I also saw, at the Met in New York, the original of "By The Seashore" of the young woman in a wicker chair high above a beach with cliffs in the background.  I'd framed it in gold wood for Sheila back when I had a frame & poster shop at Dobie Mall across from UT many years ago.  It's also still up on our walls.

Berthe Morisot & Mary Cassatt

In the same small room with Renoir hung one painting each by Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.  There was only one painting by each represented that I notice.  When I go back I'll look again, plus try to note the names of the paintings (I was swallowing, not chewing, rushing to get as much in as I could.)

The Cassatt was very nice but not of the top stunning work she did I think.  But as I say, very nice, good flourishes and a good captured look, believable, watchable.  But I've seen some absolute stunners exhibited at the MFA Houston in the past that leave no doubt about this American in Paris' art.  Originally from Pennsylvania I believe, and I can see why impressionist art is still so popular in that area of the country.

Something of the people and land there must lend itself to it.

I saw my first Cassatt's and Morisot's and really my first impact originating Monet at the Kimbell Art Museum on an Art History day trip from the University of Houston Downtown campus to Ft. Worth (http://www.kimbellart.org/).  After being shocked to find that October (November?) in Fort Worth was about 20 degrees cooler than Houston, and about 50 % less humid (I was a climatically sheltered child :-), I was finished off by the most spectacular exhibit of these two lady's work I didn't even know existed.  The impact of their light color, fluid easy strokes, and Monet's impossible texture (how could anyone paint like that!), had to mix and stir within me for nearly 24 years before I decided I could at least try my hand at the persistent memory of the feeling their work gave me that day.

Morisot.  Something about her dogs me still.  I even have a direct reference to her influence in my  January Artist Statement of this year on my website.  I started a biography of her months and months ago, last year some time! (by Margaret Shennan) and hesitate pressing on with it too quickly.  I recognize part of the fear.  Like the biography of Pissarro by Irving Stone, "Depths of Glory," and Renoir's biography by his son, Jean, I don't want it to end.  But I will finish her book too, eventually  :-) The richness of the detail of place and time and Morisot's movement into and around the circles of art and artists of this incredible time, at times, takes my breath away.

What I think I was saying I was looking for, in my Artist Statement of earlier this year, and what I saw in the superb Morisot on view from the Met in Houston, is retaining (in my merging of styles from Monet and others) the sense of, if not the visible stroke, then of pure ease of spontaneity, even within the layerings of thick paint.  I know John Singer Sargent it is said had to work very hard at times to achieve that ease of effect, usually in long wondrous full strokes of paint, but something about Morisot's work evokes that feeling for me more fully.  Stand back from the painting on display and you see the image and play of light beautifully rendered with soft sensitive edges.  Approach and you feel and see the sure strong paint strokes flying off the canvas above the delicate hues behind them.  Beautiful.

The MFA Houston's permanent collection has other Morisot's and some are on view.  When you exit the Met show through the Met's traveling gift shop (items only from the Met not available in the Houston museum's gift shops, nice items) continue straight forward to the door directly to the north and you'll enter the Houston museum's permanent collection of impressionist work.  Not all of it's on display, but it rotates and there's a lot of interesting work.

Morisot's work on display in this north wing (at the time I went) is an outdoor scene in contrast to the Met's indoor image.  The best most delicate outdoor paintings of hers I've seen were in Paris at the Museum

Marmottan: http://www.marmottan.com/uk/ (this is the English opening page).

If you go, practice saying the museum's name as said by the French, Sheila and I confounded several people before a young couple, giggling with sideways glances, re-pronounced it for us.  They especially enjoyed our repeated attempts to get it right.  I thought it was pretty funny too, plus we got great directions.  Then we got to see some of the best Monet's and Morisot's I'd ever seen.

It was clear though, from the one brilliant Morisot from the Met in Houston, that her influence on me will continue to be deep and long lasting.

Pissarro

Samples of Pissarro's work were in the next small room.  As per the floor lay out provided by the MFA, the three adjoining small rooms total ran the length of the hall the Monet's were in.

Pissarro's work to me runs mostly either very good or ok.  Earlier exhibits at MFA Houston have had many more of the very goods I thought, but his selection of works from the Met was saved by the image of the Parisian boulevard seen from an upper story window.  These were done near the end of his life, and I can't help thinking he had finally accepted and incorporated some of his early childhood heritage of mercantilism and financial success.  According to Irving Stone's novelistic biography, Pissarro, an extremely kind hearted soul, was then and would probably today be an avowed socialist.  He grew up in a thriving family shipping business in the Caribbean though.  And this particular painting, like many done during these last years, finally seems to re-incorporate a feeling of strength and energy his much more peaceful earthier earlier pieces don't.

And I love many many of his earlier work, gardens and ladies dipping their feet in streams and dirt roads with a woodsman, people in the fields, household helpers.  These latter works are just different, an evolution that retains his well fought dignity for those who work and love and live as less harried rural people, yet takes some well moderated pride in the work and lives of those who then went on to live in the cities and what these people created there too.

There are some nice Pissarro's in the MFA's permanent collection too.

Well worth seeing.

Sisley

In the same room with Pissarro are a few Sisley's.

Poor Sisley, literally and figuratively.  One of the few, maybe the only core impressionist that still died poor, and like several others, prematurely.  I’ve always liked Sisley’s work.  My wish list on Amazon books has had a nice coffee table size book of his work on it for a long time, kinda expensive.  And there’s a couple of fairly nice Sisley’s at the Houston Met show.  One showing his wonderful work w/greys and one with an upbeat attempt to duplicate Monet’s and Renoir’s brighter colors.  Both are nice, but his forte is with greys I think.  In previous shows at the MFA Houston I saw some truly exquisite Sisley’s, grey with hints of pale colorings, soft light.  But I'll still always remember he was one of the male dancers in the trio of vertical paintings of dancing couples Renoir painted in the “early days.”  Youthful, full of sure hope.

I keep thinking his English background partially dampened his desire to create more vibrant work.  Maybe it’s just me.  I keep connecting the thought of his early background coloring his adult work the way the colors in my own work I finally realized are very much influenced by my mostly early years exposure to Hispanic southwest colorings.  In the 80’s when I did acrylic semi-abstracts, I merged the shape of shells and flowers into what I called “cups” and the colorings, in general, were bright reds on soft greens and occasionally someone would say, “oh, like O’Keefe.”

Though I kinda had heard of her I wasn’t real familiar w/her work til later (finally read a great biography of her growing up in the frozen midwest, living in skyscrapers in New York, and finally finding her heart in New Mexico.)  No, the reason we were similar, in terms of some of my color use and semi-abstraction, was the Indian, Mexican, southwest influence.  It had continued and still continues as a powerful influence in my work.  I think the same thing may have been going on with Sisley.

Something sad and grey from his background persisted.

Add to this what several writers have said re his remaining outside the Paris “loop” and he died just before he probably would’ve finally caught the coattails of his by then increasingly well known better compensated impressionist friends.  In the next room are paintings from an artist who died even more prematurely and more unrecognized in his lifetime, Van Gogh.

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