Impressionism: Cassatt's At the Opera
The 1st Impressionist Exhibition, 1874Although the idea originated with Claude Monet, Degas is largely responsible for organizing the very first Impressionist exhibition. After much debate, the artists—including Degas, Monet, Renoir, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley, Boudin, and even the young Cézanne—along with many other lesser-known figures, chose to call themselves the Société Anonyme des Artistes. This group included painters, sculptors, printmakers, and others.
The exhibition opened in Paris on April 15, 1874. It was held at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, on the top floor and former studio of the photographer, Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, better known as Nadar. He was a friend of several of the artists and well-known for his portraits of the Parisian literari.
"Tongue-Lickings" or Tongue-In-Cheek?
Although the first Impressionist exhibition was well attended, the critics were merciless. Trained to expect the polished illusions of the Salon painters, they were shocked by the raw, unblended, ill-defined paint used by Degas, Renoir, Monet and company. The satirical magazine, Le Charivari published an account of a visit with Joseph Vincent, an accomplished and conservative painter:
Upon entering the first room, Joseph Vincent received an initial shock in front of the Dancer by M. Renoir.
'What a pity,' he said to me, 'that the painter, who has a certain understanding of color, doesn't draw better; his dancer's legs are as cottony as the gauze of her skirts.'...
Unfortunately, I was imprudent enough to leave him [Joseph Vincent] in front of the Boulevard des Capucines, by [Monet].
'Ah-ha! he sneered.... Is that brilliant enough, now!' 'There's impression, or I don't know what it means.' 'Only be so good as to tell me what those innumerable black tongue-lickings in the lower part of the picture represent?'
'Why, those are people walking along,' I replied.
'Then do I look like that when I'm walking along the Boulevard Capucines?' 'Blood and Thunder!' 'So you're making fun of me!' '...What does that painting depict?' 'Look at the Catalogue.' 'Impression Sunrise.' 'Impression--I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it...and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape!'"
–Quoted from: Linda Nochlin, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874-1904: Sources and Documents (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966), 10-13.
And on it goes, ever more sarcastically. The article was titled,
"Exhibition of the Impressionists," and the term stuck. From then on,
these artists were called Impressionists.
Paris as Spectacle
Paris as Spectacle
During each of the previous political revolts (1789, 1830, 1848, and again in 1871), sections of Paris had succumbed to the revolutionaries. These successes were due in part to the political sympathies of the citizens of Paris, but the crooked narrow lanes of the medieval city also played a role. During times of conflict, urban mobs would blockade the maze that were the streets of Paris. Such barricades proved very effective and made Paris all but uncontrollable at times.
Think back to Eugene Delacroix's painting of 1830, Liberty Leading the People. Marianne (Liberty) is shown rising over a barricade of this sort. Napoleon III, the great-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, now ruled France. He asked an administrator, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, to modernize Paris—to bring clean water and modern sewers to the fast growing city, to light the streets with gas lanterns, to construct a central market (Les Halles), and to build parks, schools, hospitals, asylums, prisons, and administrative buildings. But the most ambitious aspect of Haussmann's plan was to literally reshape the city.
Think back to Eugene Delacroix's painting of 1830, Liberty Leading the People. Marianne (Liberty) is shown rising over a barricade of this sort. Napoleon III, the great-nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, now ruled France. He asked an administrator, Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann, to modernize Paris—to bring clean water and modern sewers to the fast growing city, to light the streets with gas lanterns, to construct a central market (Les Halles), and to build parks, schools, hospitals, asylums, prisons, and administrative buildings. But the most ambitious aspect of Haussmann's plan was to literally reshape the city.
Haussmann's reconstruction of Paris
For his role in changing the Paris cityscape, Haussmann would acquire the nickname "the demolisher." He plowed over the ancient, winding streets of the city. In their place, he created broad straight boulevards that were impervious to the barricade—and, equally important, they could better accommodate the free movement of troops.
The avenues also allowed for the easy flow of commerce and so were a boon for business. Napoleon III had dreamed of a new imperial city whose very streets spoke of the glory of the French empire. Haussmann delivered.
As with nearly every urban renovation, a percentage of the population was displaced. Haussmann forced citizens from their homes as these buildings were torn down to make way for the clean lines of the new city. The wealthy were quickly accommodated. The new boulevards were lined with fashionable apartment houses. It was, as usual, the poor that really suffered.
The Paris Opera
The avenues also allowed for the easy flow of commerce and so were a boon for business. Napoleon III had dreamed of a new imperial city whose very streets spoke of the glory of the French empire. Haussmann delivered.
As with nearly every urban renovation, a percentage of the population was displaced. Haussmann forced citizens from their homes as these buildings were torn down to make way for the clean lines of the new city. The wealthy were quickly accommodated. The new boulevards were lined with fashionable apartment houses. It was, as usual, the poor that really suffered.
The Paris Opera
Let us turn next to the Paris opera house, one of the jewels of the newly reconstructed city. This is the site where Degas's ballet imagery was sketched. The opera is key to understanding the somewhat perverse culture of voyeurism and spectacle among the prosperous classes, a culture that profoundly affected Degas and his contemporaries.
Marvin Trachtenberg & Isabel Hyman have called the huge new Opera house, "the new cathedral of bourgeois [middle, really upper-middle class] Paris.... The glittering centerpiece of the new Paris.... ...was meant to be much more than a theater in the ordinary sense.
Marvin Trachtenberg & Isabel Hyman have called the huge new Opera house, "the new cathedral of bourgeois [middle, really upper-middle class] Paris.... The glittering centerpiece of the new Paris.... ...was meant to be much more than a theater in the ordinary sense.
For Charles Garnier [an architect of the Ecole des beaux-arts], it was a setting for a ritual in which the spectators were also actors, participants in the rite of social encounter, seeing and being seen." The division of the structure supports his vision.
Look at the cross-section. The dome sits above the audience and orchestra, the high roof over the stage. Behind the stage are the rehearsal rooms where Degas often sketched.
But the single largest area, from the front facade to the seats below the dome, is reserved for the foyers and the grand stairs hall. This area was, in essence, a second stage. Far more ornate then the performance stage, the lobbies of the Paris opera was where the social dramas of the rich were enacted.
But the single largest area, from the front facade to the seats below the dome, is reserved for the foyers and the grand stairs hall. This area was, in essence, a second stage. Far more ornate then the performance stage, the lobbies of the Paris opera was where the social dramas of the rich were enacted.
Strolling along the new boulevards or posing in the opera's grand foyers, the ruling classes paraded their wealth. The flâneur, a new denizen of the city, was a man of leisure (itself a by-product of the capital generated by industrialization). Walking the streets not for work or need, but for the pleasures of observation, the flâneur was at home in the opera.
At the opera
The gaze of the observer, whether on Napoleon's grand new boulevards or in the opera, was very much structured by issues of economic status. An image that clearly shows the complex relationship between the gaze, public spectacle, gender, and class privilege is the remarkable painting by Mary Cassatt, At the Opera (1878-1879).
The gaze of the observer, whether on Napoleon's grand new boulevards or in the opera, was very much structured by issues of economic status. An image that clearly shows the complex relationship between the gaze, public spectacle, gender, and class privilege is the remarkable painting by Mary Cassatt, At the Opera (1878-1879).
Cassatt was a wealthy American artist who had adopted the style of the Impressionists while living in Paris. Here she depicts a fashionable upper-class woman in a box seat at the Paris opera (as it happens, the sitter is Cassatt's sister, Lydia). Lydia is shown holding opera glasses up to her eyes; but instead of tilting them down, as she would if she were watching the performance below, her gaze is level. She peers straight across the chamber perhaps at another member of the audience. Look closely and you will notice that, in turn, and in one of the boxes across the room, a gentleman is gazing at her. Lydia is then, in a sense, caught between his gaze and ours even as she spies another.
Where and When
Paris, France
1874-1886
1874-1886
Check this out as well
Virtual visit to the Palais Garnier
Garnier's Paris Opera in Google's Streetview
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.jpg "Newman, Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1950-51")
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