Impressionists Didn’t Invent Plein Air ~ The Art's Big Glass Of Wine

Thursday, October 27, 2022

Impressionists Didn't Invent Plein Air

By Christopher Volpe

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Jules Dupres, Fonaintebleau Oaks, 1840

Impressionism usually gets cited as the inspiration for painting outdoors, en plein air. But Impressionism doesn't deserve all that credit. In fact, plein air painting would probably still exist as it does today (or very close to it) if Impressionism never even existed.

Plein air's real debt is to the earlier French artistic movement that inspired the Impressionists themselves – the less well-known (at least in America) Barbizon enclave of painters. These "Men of 1830" (as subsequent artists referred to them) were so-named for the headquarters they chose, a sleepy rural town south of Paris called Barbizon, perched on the edge of pleasant Fontainebleau Forest.

Jean-Baptise Camille Corot, Scene in the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1846.

The Barbizon painters, not the Impressionists, were the first to paint finished observational paintings of nature in the field. They were also the first who could have benefited from the new technology of tubed paints, which were invented in 1841. But it's a misconception that tubed paints made plein air (or Impressionism) possible. Tubed paints were nice to have, but they were expensive at first, so plenty of artists went on using the small tied pig's bladders they'd been using for plein air work long before paint tubes were invented.

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18th c. painter Thomas Gainsborough's palette showing tied paint bladders, precursor to tubes, containing the artist's colors.

The painters of the Barbizon school were the first to celebrate the simple, earthy beauty of ordinary trees, rocks, and pools of water as they appear to the eye.

Charles-François Daubigny, The Pond at Gylieu, 1853

They were the first to consider local ponds, farms, fields, and wooded lanes as suitable subjects for finished paintings, the first to take as subjects worthy of "serious" art the sights and lives of "simple" country life.

Clairiere et Mare aux Viperes, Foret de Fontainebleau by | Narcisse Virgile DIAZ DE LA PEÑA | buy art online | artprice: Artprice.com

And this they did plein air, some 45 years before before the first Impressionist paintings were exhibited to nearly unanimous ridicule in the City of Light.

Jules Coignet, A Brabizon Lanbdsccape, 1830

Sometimes called "American Barbizon," the works of artists like William Morris Hunt, Henry Ward Ranger, Alexander Helwig Wyant, and Maria a'Becket.

American painters saw Barbizon paintings at least 10 years before the Impressionists began making inroads in America, via Boston. Things moved slow then; Barbizon deeply influenced George Inness during a trip to Europe in the 1860s (already 30 years after the fact); it took until 1874 for William Morris Hunt to bring the first Barbizon painting to America (Millet's The Sower, purchased from the artist for the equivalent of $60).

George Inness, Pine Grove of there Barberini Villa, 1876, Met Museum, Gift of Lyman G. Bloomingdale, 1898

Inness's imitators and heirs, whom we now call the Tonalists, drew inspiration, as did the master, from the Barbizon painters: chiefly Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Francois Millet, Jules Dupre, Charles-Francois Dubigney, and Narcisse Virgilio Díaz.

If there's any doubt concerning their debt to the French Barbizon painters, here's a comparison of one of Ranger's paintings next to one by Corot.

Left: Corot, Souvenir of Montefontaine, 1864. Right: Henry Ward Ranger (American, 1858-1916). Sunset on the Mystic River, Connecticut, 1915. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Edward C. Blum, 54.33 (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 54.33_transp1956.jpg)

The Tonalists were specifically interested in the moods of nature "at her most poetic." Most Impressionism isn't about mood at all; even Monet's misty Morning on the River Seine paintings are primarily about color, atmosphere, and light.

Claude Monet – Morning on the Seine, near Giverny, 1897

Impressionism didn't really hit the states until it started losing its edge in the late 1880s, but when it did, it dominated the U.S. art market for at least a decade. Its influence eventually spread across American painting from coast to coast. Tonalism quietly faded from sight during the 1920s as Impressionism seduced the next generation of plein air painters, and modernism exploded in the galleries, Gold Coast mansions, and progressive museum collections in the American cities.

American Impressionism really took root in the 1910s. We'll have a good look at some of their best work in a future post.

Aldro T. Hibbard, Snow Scene. CC

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Exhibition: "Van Gogh in America"

Detroit Institute of Art (DIA), Michigan
Through January 22, 2023

Vincent van Gogh, "Poppy Field," 1890

"Van Gogh in America" celebrates the DIA's status as the first public museum in the United States to purchase a painting by Vincent van Gogh, his "Self-Portrait" (1887). On the 100th anniversary of its acquisition, experience 74 authentic Van Gogh works from around the world and discover the fascinating story of America's introduction to this iconic artist, in an exhibition only at the DIA.

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