The Paris Opera was a who’s who of society, and the attendees were as much on display as the performers.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Loge, 1874, oil on canvas, 80 x 63.5 cm (Courtauld Gallery, London). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

The subject sprawls on a blue chair in this painting that challenges assumptions about childhood and perspective.

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris

Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

 A citizen of the world

If, as one art historian recently stated, Camille Pissarro was the glue that held Impressionism together, then Mary Stevenson Cassatt had similarly adhesive qualities. [1] Giving the lie to the stereotype that Americans were provincial—even barbarous—in their artistic tastes, Cassatt was anything but that; a cultured woman, educated in London, Paris and Berlin and fluent in French and German, she spent four years at the Pennsylvanian Academy of the Fine Arts before studying in France under Jean-Leon Gérôme, Thomas Couture and others.

Dog (detail), Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war she continued her travels, spending time in Italy and Spain, before settling in Paris once again in 1874, the year of the first Impressionist Exhibition. In the Salon of that year she exhibited a work that Degas, for one, admired. Over the following years, though, Salon success eluded her, largely, or so she judged, due to the prejudices of the all male selection jury.

It is understandable then that by 1877, when Degas invited her to join them, Cassatt would be drawn to this group of artists who were exhibiting independently and for whom gender did not appear to be a barrier for inclusion; certainly the quantity and quality of Berthe Morisot’s works in the first exhibitions were a match to those of the men. The same too can be said for the eleven paintings that Cassatt would exhibit in the fourth Impressionist Exhibition—included among them are some of her most celebrated paintings, notably Reading Le Figaro, Woman in a Loge, In the Loge and Little Girl in a Blue Armchair.

Little Girl in a Blue Armchair

Produced in 1878, it shows a girl sprawled on a blue armchair in a room with three other chairs of a matching design. She stares at the floor unaware or unconcerned about the portrait that is being painted of her. On the chair opposite her a lapdog dozes, a dark patch that neatly balances the dark tones of her clothing. There are no tables or ornaments, nothing to offer the viewer or the girl, who appears tired and bored, any distractions, only two large windows that are closed and heavily cropped by the upper edge of the canvas.

Girl sprawled on blue armchair (detail), Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

The dominance of the overstuffed furniture with its vibrant blue upholstery captures an odd sense of restlessness and languorousness, both matched by the girl’s pose. A parent would tell her to sit up properly and there is a rebellious, devil-may-care attitude in her comfortably lounging form. She has been dressed with due observance to fashion, the tartan shawl matching her socks and the bow in her carefully arranged hair; her shoes are spotless and the buckles sparkle; literally dolled up. All this primness however is of absolutely no concern to the girl whose unselfconscious pose presents as Petra Chu puts it: “a radically new image of childhood.”

Chairs (detail), Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

That a woman produced the image is, of course, no coincidence. The nursery in middle class homes was a space that was rarely if ever visited by men; child-rearing being an exclusively female occupation, little wonder then that few male artists painted babies or young children. But, of course, it is not in a nursery that we find ourselves, but a drawing room, clean to the point of sanitized, a room in which, just like her costume, the girl seems out of place, swamped by the massive abundance of chairs, a point emphasized compositionally in that each overlaps the other. The upshot of all this is to create a feeling—if not so extreme as alienation—then certainly a sense of disorientation, one that seems to capture, as subtly and incisively as any artist before her, the huffing and puffing tiresomeness a child feels within the social constraints of an adult’s world, a world that seems almost oppressively gendered.

Girl (detail), Chairs (detail), Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 129.8 cm (The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

The girl herself was the daughter of a friend of Degas’s and the painting is often cited as an example of Degas’s influence on Cassatt. The two certainly had much in common, if only in terms of their backgrounds. Both were born into the upper-middle-class, the children of bankers, and both had strong connections to America, Degas’s mother and grandmother were American and he had stayed with his family in New Orleans in 1872–73.

The similarities in their work, certainly in this period, are also striking. In its asymmetrical composition, the casual, unposed treatment of the sitter, the weightiness and solidity of its forms in contrast to that grey mercurial dollop of negative space, its use of cropping and loose brushwork, as well as the interest in the private moment that we find so often in his pastels, the hallmarks of Degas’s work can clearly be found in Little Girl in a Blue Armchair.

Japanese prints

The influence of Japanese prints is also a shared feature. Notice how in Degas’s famous L’Absinthe our eye is led in and up through the opposing diagonals of the marble-topped tables which seem almost to be floating. A similar effect is created by Cassatt in the blue furniture, to such an extent that we are left uncertain whose point of view we are looking from—a child’s at eye level or an adult’s from above. The composition, however, still coheres, the space and its various junctures having been carefully conceived to create a balanced whole.

Edgar Degas, L’Absinthe, 1876, oil on canvas, 92 x 68 cm (Musée d’Orsay, Paris)

These startling similarities may be accounted for by the fact that Degas had a hand in painting the background, a practice that seems shocking today. Cassatt seemed not to mind, though, writing several years later of how Degas “advised me on the background, he even worked on the background.” The last part she underlined suggesting that she even considered it a privilege. It was common practice for male artists to take a patronizing approach to their female counterparts. “Manet sermonizes me”, Berthe Morisot complained to her sister Edma. It is inconceivable, however, to think that either Degas or Manet, whose influence is certainly in evidence in Cassatt’s lavish use of cobalt blue and in the tonal treatment of the girl’s legs, would or could have painted such an image.

The splendid legacy

Like Manet and Degas, Cassatt spent time in Italy copying the great works there, including, in her case, those of Correggio. Perhaps there is something of that old master’s dreamy bambini in the pose of the little girl too. Either way, running alongside her distinctly modern artistic vision, the classical tradition she was trained in is never far away. She could be quite snobby about it in fact. She thought little of Paul Durand-Ruel, for instance, the greatest of the Impressionist dealers, for knowing next to nothing about Italian art. This did not put her off providing him with contacts when he traveled to New York with Impressionist works, including two of her own, which he exhibited in the spring of 1886. “Had it not been for Durand-Ruel, caviar would have been a good deal rarer,” Renoir once said to his son.

Yet, in the international success story of Impressionism, Cassatt is also owed her due. For among the contacts she gave Durand-Ruel was the sugar magnate Henry O. Havemeyer, whose wife Lousine was a close friend of hers, having studied art together in Paris. As the couple’s artistic consultant for the rest of her life Cassatt played a central role in the development of one of the greatest private collections ever amassed in America. Today New York’s Metropolitan holds hundreds of paintings bequeathed by the Havemeyer family, including, the Museum claims, “the most complete group of Degas’s works ever assembled” and twenty works by Mary Cassatt, a woman remarkable not only for helping shape contemporary tastes in American connoisseurship, but also, over the course of her long artistic career, for producing work of extraordinary quality that helped transform American art itself into a world-class enterprise.

Burne-Jones paints the imaginary, mythic, beautiful universe of the legend of Merlin and Nimue.

Edward Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin, 1873–77, oil on canvas, 186.7 x 110.5 cm (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

How did ultramarine go from being more expensive than gold to one of the cheapest pigments for artists? Follow the journey of this vibrant blue color, ultramarine, one of the most celebrated and sought-after pigments in art.

Joanna Russell from the National Gallery’s Scientific Department looks at the use of ultramarine blue in The Wilton Diptych and Renoir’s Umbrellas. The Chemistry of Colour series explores some of the weird and wonderful ways pigments were historically produced, and how we can identify them today.

Not your average vacation picture: Dyce’s family in a scientifically-observed landscape, timestamped with a comet.

William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate Britain, London). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

Comet (detail), William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A comet in the sky

William Dyce’s Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th, 1858 captures an historical moment with remarkable clarity. The painting shows the artist’s wife, his wife’s two sisters, and his son on a lonely stretch of beach at Pegwell Bay, near Ramsgate on the south coast of England. The day is particularly important as one can see Donati’s Comet in the sky. Discovered by Giovanni Donati on June 2, 1858, it was one of the brightest comets to appear during the 19th century. The comet had reached its perihelion, or the point where it is closest to the sun, just a few days prior to the date recorded in the painting.

William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Pre-Raphaelite attention to detail

What is most incredible about the painting, however, is the minute attention to detail. A true Pre-Raphaelite in his approach, Dyce illustrated the intense “truth to nature” that characterizes much of the art of the period. This attention to detail had been championed by the critic John Ruskin in the first volume of his famous Modern Painters, published in 1843. In it, Ruskin advised artists to,

go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing; believing all things to be right and good, and rejoicing always in the truth.

Many young artists of the day, including John Everett Millais and William Holman Hunt, were influenced by Ruskin’s ideas and worked to bring as much naturalistic detail as possible into their paintings.

Dyce’s son at left, and his wife’s two sisters (detail), William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Art and science

The observations of nature exhibited by artists like Dyce were also present in another Victorian preoccupation, science, and in particular, the burgeoning study of geology. Charles Lyell had published his Principles of Geology in three volumes between 1830 and 1833, and the entire scientific community was interested in the controversial attempt to reconcile the implications of geological time with the Bible.

Landscape (detail), William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A little more than a year after the day captured in Dyce’s painting, On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was published, opening a floodgate of debate over the issue of religion versus scientific observation. The geologically unstable cliffs along much of England’s south coast were (and still are) a paradise for those in search of fossils, including the famous fossil hunter Mary Anning of Lyme Regis, who is credited with the discovery of the first plesiosaur skeleton. The preserved remnants of geological time evident in places like Pegwell Bay provided the Victorians with much to think about.

Figures collecting shells (detail), William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The light

In Dyce’s painting the angled light of the late afternoon setting sun emphasizes the striations in the towering cliffs above the shore. The detail delineates every variation in the rock. Pools of water, algae covered rocks and stretches of sand exposed by the low tide create opportunity for discovery at every turn. The figures are also extremely detailed. Two of the women in the foreground have their attention focused on collecting the shells left by the receding water, while the other woman and the child stare off in the distance.

William Dyce was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. After studying at the Royal Academy Schools in London and in Rome, Dyce became well known for his paintings, and between 1837 and 1843 was Superintendent of the Government School of Design. He later won a competition to complete fresco paintings for the newly rebuilt Houses of Parliament, a project that occupied him almost until his death. However, Dyce was also interested in intellectual and scientific pursuits, for example, writing a prize-winning essay on electro-magnetism in 1830.

Foreground with figures (detail), William Dyce, Pegwell Bay, Kent – a Recollection of October 5th 1858, c. 1858–60, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 88.9 cm (Tate, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Dyce’s Pegwell Bay, Kent is a painting that evokes many time-honored themes. The variety of ages in the figures may represent the passage of time, while the setting sun and the autumnal chill in the air serve as a reminder of death.  However, this lonely stretch of beach is also a metaphor for many of the new issues that concerned the Victorians, such as the implications of scientific discovery. It is an image as timeless as the tide itself.

The botanical accuracy of this painting is impressive, but its production wasn’t without its challenges for Millais.

Sir John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm (Tate Britain, London). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker

A Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece

Ophelia is considered to be one of the great masterpieces of the Pre-Raphaelite style. Combining his interest in Shakespearean subjects with intense attention to natural detail, Millais created a powerful and memorable image. His selection of the moment in the play Hamlet when Ophelia, driven mad by Hamlet’s murder of her father, drowns herself was very unusual for the time. However, it allowed Millais to show off both his technical skill and artistic vision.

John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Tate Britain, London)

The figure of Ophelia floats in the water, her mid section slowly beginning to sink. Clothed in an antique dress that the artist purchased specially for the painting, the viewer can clearly see the weight of the fabric as it floats, but also helps to pull her down. Her hands are in the pose of submission, accepting of her fate.

Ophelia’s face (detail), John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Tate Britain, London)

She is surrounded by a variety of summer flowers and other botanicals, some of which were explicitly described in Shakespeare’s text, while others are included for their symbolic meaning. For example, the ring of violets around Ophelia’s neck is a symbol of faithfulness, but can also refer to chastity and death.

The hazards of painting outdoors

Painted outdoors near Ewell in Surrey, Millais began the background of the painting in July of 1851. He reported that he got up everyday at 6 am, began work at 8, and did not return to his lodgings until 7 in the evening. He also recounted the problems of working outdoors in letters to his friend Mrs. Combe, later published in the biography of Millais by his son J.G. Millais.

“I sit tailor-fashion under an umbrella throwing a shadow scarcely larger than a halfpenny for eleven hours, with a child’s mug within reach to satisfy my thirst from the running stream beside me. I am threatened with a notice to appear before a magistrate for trespassing in a field and destroying the hay.”

Reeds (detail), John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Tate Britain, London)

Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Elizabeth Siddal painting at an easel, pencil on paper, 1850s, 25 x 20.3 cm (private collection)

The hazards of being an artist’s model

His problems did not end when he returned to his studio in mid-October to paint the figure of Ophelia. His model was Elizabeth Siddal who the Pre-Raphaelite artists met through their friend Walter Howell Deverell, who had been impressed by her appearance and asked her to model for him.

When she met the Pre-Raphaelites Siddal was working in a hat shop, but she later became a painter and poet in her own right. She also become the wife and muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Millais had Siddal floating in a bath of warm water kept hot with lamps under the tub. However, one day the lamps went out without being noticed by the engrossed Millais. Siddal caught cold, and her father threatened legal action for damages until Millais agreed to pay the doctor’s bills.

Millais becomes a success

Ophelia proved to be a more successful painting for Millais than some of his earlier works, such as Christ in the House of his Parents. It had already been purchased when it was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1852. Critical opinion, under the influence of John Ruskin, was also beginning to swing in the direction of the PRB (the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood). The following year, Millais was elected to be an Associate of the Royal Academy, an event that Rossetti considered to be the end of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Leaves and flowers near Ophelia’s hands (detail), John Everett Millais, Ophelia, 1851–52, oil on canvas, 76.2 x 111.8 cm (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Tate Britain, London)

The execution of Ophelia shows the Pre-Raphaelite style at its best. Each reed swaying in the water, every leaf and flower are the product of direct and exacting observation of nature. As we watch the drowning woman slowly sink into the murky water, we experience the tinge of melancholy so common in Victorian art. It is in his ability to combine the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites with Victorian sensibilities that Millais excels. His depiction of Ophelia is as unforgettable as the character herself.

Excerpt from Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene VII:
There, on the pendent boughs her coronet weeds
Clambering to hang, an envious sliver broke;
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,
And, mermaid-like, awhile they bore her up;
Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and indued
Unto that element; but long it could not be
Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,
Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.

This portrait of Napoleon III’s favorite horse tells an important story of art theft and repatriation.

Alfred De Dreux, The Emperor’s Horse, 1853, oil on canvas, 100.01 x 81.28 cm (Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Speakers: Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Steven Zucker

In this landscape of the town Pontoise, Pissarro emphasizes the modest people that make up its rural community.

Camille Pissarro, The “Royal Palace” at the Hermitage, Pontoise, 1879, oil on canvas, 54.29 x 65.72 cm (Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Speakers: Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Beth Harris

Morisot’s loose brushstrokes and abstracted forms transform an ordinary scene into a incredible work of Impressionist painting.

Berthe Morisot, Young Woman Watering a Shrub, 1876, oil on canvas, 40.01 x 31.75 cm (Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Speakers: Dr. Theresa A. Cunningham, Assistant Curator of European Art and the Mellon Collections, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Steven Zucker

In subject and form, Degas breaks away from academic tradition and instead creates a sculpture that reflects modern Paris.

Edgar Degas, Little Dancer Age Fourteen, model executed in wax c. 1880; cast in bronze 1922, bronze, silk, cotton, 97.79 x 36.83 x 36.2 cm (Mellon Collection, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond). Speakers: Dr. Sylvain Cordier, Paul Mellon Curator and Head of the Department of European Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Beth Harris

Ensor earns his title as “the painter of masks” with this intriguing work.

James Ensor, The Intrigue, 1890, oil on canvas, 89.5 x 149 cm (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp). Speakers: Dr. Herwig Todts, Senior Research Curator, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and Dr. Beth Harris

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Recent scientific research reveals the stunning original hues of the Van Gogh’s Irises.

Irises, 1889, Vincent van Gogh. Oil on canvas, 74.3 x 94.3 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Speakers: Devi Ormond, Associate Paintings Conservator, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles and Beth Harris, Executive Director, Smarthistory

What is the life of a painting after it is painted? Getty scientists explore this question by studying the colors of Van Gogh’s iconic Irises. Learning what has happened to it over a century since its creation. Unveiling new scientific evidence supporting long held scholarly theories about the painting.

Getty has joined forces with Smarthistory to bring you an in-depth look at select works within our collection, whether you want to learn more at home or make art more accessible in your classroom. This video series illuminates art history concepts through fun, unscripted conversations between art historians, curators, archaeologists, scientists, and artists, committed to a fresh take on the history of visual arts.

“Irises” is featured in the exhibition “Ultra-Violet: New Light on Van Gogh’s Irises,” part of the larger initiative “PST ART: Art & Science Collide.”

As you look closer, Ensor’s chaotic abstraction transforms into a dynamic battle scene between good and evil.

James Ensor, The Fall of the Rebel Angels, 1889, oil on canvas, 108.8 x 132.8 cm (Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp). Speakers: Dr. Herwig Todts, Senior Research Curator, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp and Dr. Beth Harris

VISITFLANDERS has joined forces with Smarthistory and the Center for Netherlandish Art at the MFA Boston to bring you a series of video conversations with curators on important Flemish paintings by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, Peter Paul Rubens, and James Ensor.

Roger Fenton, The valley of the shadow of death, 1855, salted paper print, 28 x 36 cm (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Roger Fenton’s Crimean War photographs represent one of the earliest systematic attempts to document a war through the medium of photography. Fenton, who spent fewer than four months in the Crimea (March 8 to June 26, 1855), produced 360 photographs under extremely trying conditions. While these photographs present a substantial documentary record of the participants and the landscape of the war, there are no actual combat scenes, nor are there any scenes of the devastating effects of war.

The Library of Congress purchased 263 of Fenton’s salted paper and albumen prints from his grandniece Frances M. Fenton in 1944, including his most well-known photograph, “Valley of the Shadow of Death.” This set of unmounted photographs may be unique in that it appears to reflect an arrangement imposed by Fenton, or the publisher, Thomas Agnew & Sons, and yet is a set of prints that was not issued on the standard mounts sold by the publisher. It is possible that this collection is comprised of a set of prints kept and annotated by Fenton himself.

Map of Crimean War battles (Gabrielle Ziegler for Historymaps, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The Crimean War

The Crimean War (1853–56) was fought primarily on the southern tip of the Crimea, a peninsula extending into the Black Sea, barely connected to Ukraine. It was the location of Russia’s great naval base at Sevastopol, the destruction of which was the primary objective of Great Britain and France. In addition, Great Britain and France maintained a naval presence in the Baltic Sea, which forced Russia to divert troops from the Crimea for the defense of St. Petersburg.

There is no simple explanation for the cause of the Crimean War. The motives and ambitions of a few individuals drew Russia into conflict with several nations, cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, and reshaped the political structure of Europe for the next fifty years. Russia and Turkey became embroiled in a dispute over the Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire after Turkey granted concessions to France that appeared to infringe on the rights of Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christians. Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, perceiving the Ottoman Empire to be in its twilight, also harbored ambitions to extend Russian territorial boundaries towards the Mediterranean through the annexation of Ottoman territory. Contributing to the belligerency of both Russia and Turkey was the international support that each nation presumed it could rely on.

Concerns about the shift in the balance of power in Europe and the overt motives of the tsar brought Great Britain, France, Austria, and even Sardinia into the conflict. Of particular interest to Great Britain was the maintenance of open trade or access routes to India and the East which meant preventing Russian expansion to the Mediterranean Sea. One could easily suggest that the Crimean War resulted from many misplayed hands due to poor decisions based on shifting allegiances and insufficient understanding of the different motives of each nation.

Roger Fenton, Camp of the 4th Dragoons, convivial party, French & English, 1855, salted paper print, 16.8 x 17 cm (Library of Congress)

For some of the combatants, the commitment to the ideals of honor and glory outweighed their preparation for the realities of war. By 1854 the British army had experienced close to forty years of relative peace. Consequently, there were few battle-hardened veterans among the British forces in the Crimea. During this time, drastic measures were taken to reduce the cost of supporting a standing army. Most of the British army’s commanding officers last saw action during the Napoleonic Wars, in particular, at Waterloo (1815), or had since purchased their commissions. Some British units, at their commanding officers’ expense, adopted flashy, brightly colored uniforms. The officers of these units seemed to enjoy the pomp-and-circumstance of the parade-ground more than they understood the mechanics of war. The troops were, nonetheless, highly disciplined units. Overall, the successful battlefield tactics of the Napoleonic Wars were still the focus of the soldier’s training. While the technology of weaponry was improving, the standard conduct of war was slow to evolve. Recent engagements involving the British in India, Afghanistan, and South Africa and the French in Algeria had done little to alter the typical battle plan, although the French were better prepared as a result of their campaigns in North Africa.

As the war got underway in the Crimea, the Times war correspondent, William Howard Russell, sent home dispatches about the glorious victory at the Battle of the Alma (Sept. 20, 1854). However, the combined allied forces, comprised mainly of French, British, and Turkish troops, were unable to completely subdue a strategically positioned, albeit archaic, Russian army. To the dismay of some, the invading armies failed to immediately pursue the retreating Russian forces. It quickly became evident that the failure to achieve the anticipated swift conclusion to the fighting in the Crimea was not for lack of bravery. Rather, mismanagement and disease, chiefly among the British forces, and to some extent the French, prevented the swift prosecution of the war. Casualties in the aftermath of Alma were due more to disease and the treatment of wounds than to mortal wounds suffered during combat. And soon Russell’s reports were tempered with criticism.

British coverage of the war and Thomas Agnew’s enterprise

Roger Fenton, William H. Russell Esqr., the Time special correspondent, 1855, salted paper print, 20 x 17 cm (Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

As the landscape of war shifted from engagements on open battlefields to the entrenchment of the siege of Sevastopol (October 1854–September 1855), war correspondent William Howard Russell began a relentless attack on the official conduct of the war. His accounts of the difficulties of the soldier’s life in Balaklava struck a responsive chord with readers on the home front. Thomas Agnew, of the publishing house Thomas Agnew & Sons, sensed a commercial opportunity. He proposed sending a photographer to the Crimea to provide evidence that would mitigate the negative reports appearing in the newspapers. Thomas Agnew’s proposal was strictly a private, commercial venture that needed only the sanction of the government to allow it to proceed.

The British government made several official attempts to document the progress of the war through the relatively new medium of photography. In March of 1854 an amateur photographer, Gilbert Elliott, photographed views of the fortresses guarding Wingo Sound in the Baltic Sea from aboard the Hecla, the same ship that was to carry Fenton to the Crimea eleven months later. Elliott’s photographs, though praised for their clarity in contemporary accounts, apparently have not survived. A more substantial effort to photograph the war, lasting from June to November 1854, came to a tragic end. Richard Nicklin, a civilian photographer, was lost at sea, along with his assistants, photographs, and equipment, when their ship sank during the hurricane that stuck the harbor at Balaklava on Nov. 14, 1854. In the spring of 1855, contemporary to Fenton’s time in the Crimea, another government-sponsored attempt was made. Two military officers, ensigns Brandon and Dawson, were hastily trained by London photographer J.E. Mayall, after which they were sent to the

Roger Fenton’s background

Roger Fenton was born in 1819 into a family of comfortable means. Large landholdings, a banking enterprise, and other commercial ventures allowed Fenton the freedom to pursue his own personal interests.

There is much conjecture about how and where Fenton spent his time in the early 1840s. Around 1840 he began to study painting in the studio of Charles Lucy, a member of the Royal Academy in London. It is generally accepted that from 1841 to 1843 or 1844 he was in Paris and may have studied painting at the studio of Paul Delaroche. He apparently made frequent trips between London and Paris between 1843 and 1847, during which time he married Grace Maynard (1843). Perhaps in response to the additional responsibilities of beginning a family, or possibly realizing that he lacked the necessary skills to become a successful painter, Fenton completed his studies for a career in law and began practice as a solicitor (ca. 1851).

One reason frequently given for the likelihood that Fenton studied at the studio of Delaroche is that three of France’s foremost early photographers may have emerged from that studio. It has been suggested that Fenton was introduced to photography either as an art form itself, or as an aid to art, by Delaroche. Possibly as early as 1847, though more likely around 1851, Fenton appears to have begun experimenting with photography while continuing to paint. Between 1849 and 1851 he had three “genre” paintings accepted by the Royal Academy, without any particular distinction. This may have led him to make the final break with painting in 1851.

Roger Fenton, Moscow, Domes of Churches in the Kremlin, 1852, salted paper print, 17.9 x 21.6 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

In 1852 Fenton journeyed to Russia to take photographs for civil engineer Charles Vignoles, documenting the construction of a suspension bridge over the Dnieper River in Kiev in Ukraine. While in Russia, Fenton photographed buildings and views in Kiev, St. Petersburg and Moscow. He used the waxed-paper negative process of Gustave Le Gray.

Roger Fenton, Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and royal children at Buckingham Palace, 1854, albumen print, 11 x 12.7 cm (Royal Collection Trust, London)

Early in 1854 Fenton began to photograph the British Royal family, making frequent visits to various Royal residences, taking portraits as well as tableaux vivants (living pictures staged by Royal family members of works of art). Later that year he entered into an agreement with the British Museum to photograph art and artifacts from its collections.

Fenton’s Crimean War photography

William Agnew, of the publishing firm Thomas Agnew & Sons, must have proposed Fenton as the photographer for a commercial publishing venture to the Crimea sometime before a hurricane claimed the life of the official government photographer in the Crimea in November 1854, for during the fall of that year Fenton purchased a former wine merchant’s van and converted it to a mobile darkroom. He hired an assistant, and traveled the English countryside testing the suitability of the van. In February 1855 Fenton set sail for the Crimea aboard the Hecla, traveling under royal patronage and with the assistance of the British government.

Roger Fenton, The artist’s van, 1855, salted paper print, 17.5 x 16.5 cm (Library of Congress)

While Fenton was in the Crimea he had ample opportunity to photograph the horrors of war. He had several friends and acquaintances, including his brother-in-law, Edmund Maynard, who were casualties of combat. But Fenton shied away from views that would have portrayed the war in a negative (or realistic) light for several reasons, among them, the limitations of photographic techniques available at the time (Fenton was actually using state-of-the-art processes, but lengthy exposure time prohibited scenes of action); inhospitable environmental conditions (extreme heat during the spring and summer months Fenton was in the Crimea); and political and commercial concerns (he had the support of the Royal family and the British government, and the financial backing of a publisher who hoped to issue sets of photos for sale).

Roger Fenton, Mortar batteries in front of Picquet house Light Division, 1855, salted paper print, 24 x 35.5 cm (Library of Congress)

Whether there was an explicit directive from the British government to refrain from photographing views that could be deemed detrimental to the government’s management of the war effort, perhaps in exchange for permission to travel and photograph in the war zone, or whether there was merely an implicit understanding between the government, the publisher, and the photographer is not known. Fenton photographed the leading figures of the allied armies, documented the care and quality of camp life of the British soldiers, as well as scenes in and around Balaklava, and on the plateau before Sevastopol, but refrained from images of combat or its aftermath. This tactic may have given him access to information and views that were otherwise off-limits to artists and war correspondents, like William Howard Russell, who were critical of the British government’s leadership and military officers’ handling of the war. In any case, while personally witnessing the horror of war, Fenton chose not to portray it.

Roger Fenton, Cossack Bay, Balaklava, 1855, salted paper print, 29.5 x 36 cm (Library of Congress)

Fenton made plans to photograph Sevastopol following the June 18th assault on the Malakoff and the Redan, the Russian’s primary defense works before the city. When the assault failed, he decided it was time to return to England. He sold the van, packed up his equipment, and by June 26th, ill with cholera, sailed out of the harbor at Balaklava. Fenton was, therefore, not present for the fall of Sevastopol (Sept. 9th) nor its subsequent destruction, which was recorded photographically by James Robertson. [1] While Russia retained control of the Crimea, the Allied armies achieved their primary objective, the destruction of Russian naval power in the Black Sea.

Fenton’s Crimean War photographs offer a wonderful record of a moment in time. They are documentary in the sense that they constitute a reality in a way only intimated by painting or wood engraving. They might also be considered the first instance of the use of photography for the purposes of propaganda, although they do not seem to have been exploited to this end. Clearly they were intended to present a particular view of the British government’s conduct of the war. However, by the time they were exhibited Sevastopol had fallen and the tide of war had turned.

After the Crimean War—Fenton and his photographs

The commercial venture that precipitated Fenton’s photographic assignment did not prove as lucrative as hoped. Sets of photographs went on sale in November of 1855, two months after the fall of Sevastopol. By December of 1856, the publisher, Thomas Agnew & Sons, disposed of their entire holdings of unsold sets, prints, and negatives at auction. The vivid, though understated, reality of war presented in the photographs may have led to a negative reaction by the viewing public, which ignored the aesthetic and technical qualities inherent in the photographs. When the Crimean War ended, so did the interest in its photographic documentation.

Roger Fenton, “Looking towards Mackenzie’s Heights, tents of the 33rd Regiment in the foreground,” Photographic Panorama of the Plateau of Sebastopol, 1855, salted paper print, 25 x 35 cm (Library of Congress)

On September 20th, 1855, an exhibit of 312 of Fenton’s photographs opened at the Water Colour Society’s Pall Mall East establishment in London. Thomas Agnew & Sons, Fenton’s publishers, issued 337 photographs on published mounts, individually or as parts of sets, between November 1855 and April 5, 1856. A “complete work,” consisting of 160 of the photographs, was issued under the title Photographs taken under the patronage of Her Majesty the Queen in the Crimea by Roger Fenton, Esq. Another 159 photographs were issued in folios under the following titles: Historical Portrait Gallery (30 photographs); Views of the Camp, scenery, etc. (50 photographs); and Incidents from Camp Life (60 photographs). Two sets of panoramas were issued, The Photographic panorama of the plateau of Sebastopol (11 photographs) and Photographic panoramas of the plains of Balaklava and valley of Inkermann (8 photographs). These published sets do not account for all the photographs said to have been printed.

In 1862 Roger Fenton gave up photography for good, auctioning off all of his equipment. Roger Fenton died in 1869 after a brief illness. The family fortune was all but depleted, his artistic endeavors lost, and himself nearly forgotten as a leader in the development of photography in England.

Later, historians of photography frequently recognized Fenton’s remarkable accomplishments. [2] During his brief 10 or 11-year career he did much to establish photography as an artistic endeavor. To his portraits, costume studies, landscapes, architectural views, and still life photographs he brought an aesthetic worthy of high art. Through his early training as a painter he was able to bring an artist’s eye for composition to his photographs that set him apart from other English photographers working at that time.

Written by: Woody Woodis, Cataloger

Forgoing the tradition of narrative painting, Whistler aspired to create a beautiful “symphony.”

James McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1861–63, 1872, oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). Speakers: Dr. Bryan Zygmont and Dr. Beth Harris

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862, oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Radical portraiture

The woman in white stands facing us, her long hair loose, framing her face. Her expression is blank, her surroundings indistinct; posed before some sort of pallid curtain, she appears almost as an immobile prop on a stage.

Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl epitomizes James Abbott McNeill Whistler’s departure from the established norms of the era, and was perhaps his most reviled work. When he submitted it to the 1863 Paris Salon, the jury rejected the painting and the artist instead showed The White Girl at Napoleon III’s exhibition of snubbed artwork, the Salon des Refusés. Though it certainly defied many time-honored artistic conventions and earned much derision from critics, The White Girl does show some echoes of older standards. After all, its creator had studied under Marc-Charles Gabriel Gleyre in Paris, learning to paint in the academic manner—thus it is unsurprising that in the representation of his mistress, Joanna Hiffernan, Whistler opts for the customary full-scale society portrait format and reproduces her features in a seemingly realistic and honest fashion.

Joanna Hiffernan in white dress (detail), James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862, oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The ways in which Whistler follows his own rules, however, far outnumber the few examples of accord, and they include the painting’s flattened and abstracted forms, distorted perspective, limited color palette, and penchant for decorative patterning. Though an intimate portrait, The White Girl is contrived and reveals no overarching mood or the personality of its sitter. While many of Whistler’s stylistic innovations are unique to the artist, he associated himself with other artists—such as Édouard Manet and Gustave Courbet, who also defied the traditions of academicism. The influence of Théophile Gautier is also apparent; in the 1830s, Gautier stated that art need not contain any moral message or describe any narrative, as art making is an end in and of itself—Whistler accepted this credo, “art for art’s sake,” wholeheartedly. In this light, The White Girl is less a faithful portrait painting and more an experimentation in color, pattern, and texture.

Edge of dress and flowers placed on a flat animal skin rug (detail), James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862, oil on canvas, 213 x 107.9 cm (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Flesh Color and Black: Portrait of Théodore Duret, 1883, oil on canvas, 193.4 x 90.8 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Whistler produced many portraits of similar format in the next decades, and continued to fine-tune his style and technique. In paintings such as Harmony in Grey and Green: Miss Cicely Alexander and Arrangement in Flesh Color and Black: Portrait of Théodore Duret, the artist exercised his need to balance the realist components of a picture with its more abstract needs, cherry-picking elements from the real world and reorganizing them in controlled, harmonious ways. Often these images feature a subdued palette, a lack of depth, unresolved backdrops, and irrational props that serve only as accents. His figures typically stand upon an unthinkably flat floor, appearing almost to hover like specters. As for Whistler’s signature, it evolved to take the form of a butterfly, applied to the surface in the manner of a mere decorative element.

Despite the controversy stirred when he entered the scene, Whistler won many wealthy and prestigious patrons over his career, and his portraits stand as testaments to growing interest in the radical new avant-garde approach to painting.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, exhibited 1812, oil on canvas, 146 x 237.5 cm (Tate Britain, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Joseph Mallord William Turner’s Snowstorm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps confronts us with a harrowing scene. Tiny figures scatter among the jagged rocks of a pass through the dangerous mountains of the Alps. In the foreground, they crouch in fear, faint from panic as they are attacked by other figures, or try to wedge themselves into gaps between boulders for shelter. In the mid-ground, the hazy forms of others raise their arms in terror as they look up at the sky. The background makes plain the reason for their terror: a massive black storm cloud rises up from the right and curls over and around the sun. A blast of snow-laden air rushes in alongside it. Together, the swirling vortex of the storm and the column of frosty air threaten to annihilate the fragile human forms. 

Although the figures in Turner’s painting find themselves in a scene of fear and confusion, the artist’s Snowstorm gives us a clear window into the art, culture, and politics of 19th-century England. Amidst the boulders of the mountain and the haze and snow of the storm, we find an expression of the artist’s hopes for his chosen art form—and for the outcome of one of the most significant wars in European history.

Turner’s sublime Romanticism

Turner’s Snowstorm aligns with the “sublime” aesthetic in art. The sublime was one of three major ways of depicting landscapes in the early 19th century. The “beautiful” was pleasurable, soft, and calm. The “picturesque” presented objects of interest in a tranquil scene that had some degree of rustic roughness. The “sublime,” however, inspired terror through immense scale, darkness, and other effects meant to make the viewer feel threatened. In the early 19th century, all these modes were popular, but the sublime was favored by one of the most influential movements of the period: Romanticism. Snowstorm, with its terrifying storm and evocation of helplessness, falls neatly in line with sublime aesthetics and the subjectivity of the Romantic style. 

Swirling snowstorm meant to evoke the sublime (detail), Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, exhibited 1812, oil on canvas, 146 x 237.5 cm (Tate Britain, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Turner was a leading figure in English Romantic art. His status was due, in part, to his many inventive compositions. We see one of the most exciting of his innovations in Snowstorm: the compositional vortex. The approaching storm’s arc around the sun appears to twist back around on itself, as if creating a spiral. The curve of the cloud echoes the curve of the rocky ground, which extends this spiral throughout the entire composition. Turner often used this device in depictions of storms to convey the power of nature and to make viewers feel as if they were in the middle of the tempest itself. Some of the most dramatic examples of his compositional vortex were created during his later career, when he began to experiment even more radically with form. However, even by 1812, Snowstorm’s swirling composition demonstrated his enthusiasm for the sublime mode and desire to reinvigorate landscape painting.

North African soldiers in left foreground (left detail) and General Hannibal riding an elephant (right detail), Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, exhibited 1812, oil on canvas, 146 x 237.5 cm (Tate Britain, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

The historiated landscape

One of the ways Turner increased landscape painting’s prestige was by depicting famous scenes from history. As we look closer at the painting, we notice details that tell us more about its setting and subject. The men in the left foreground have dark skin typical of a North African civilization, ancient shields are strewn about the ground, and the faint outline of an elephant with its trunk raised to the sky appears on the distant horizon. By including these elements, Turner was able to layer a famous event from ancient history onto his sublime landscape. The “Hannibal” of the painting’s full title was a famous Carthaginian general. During Hannibal’s lifetime, Carthage was at war with Rome. One of the most famous events from this conflict was Hannibal’s invasion of Rome, a feat he accomplished by passing through the mountain range shown in the painting. He famously led not only soldiers, but also approximately three dozen elephants trained to fight in battles across the treacherous mountain pass. Here, Turner imagines the famous general’s army as they make their way through the pass and find themselves vulnerable to unpredictable Alpine weather.  

The artist’s allusion to the ancient past would have helped to raise the prestige of this work. Before this period, landscapes occupied a low place on the hierarchy of genres. At this time, the most celebrated genre of art was history painting, which portrayed scenes from the ancient past, the bible, or mythology. History paintings used elevated subjects and modeled moral behavior for viewers, attracting the favor and approval of critics. Turner and other landscapists often elevated their landscapes by inserting scenes from history or legend into their landscapes, making historiated landscapes. Historiated landscape painters were shielded from accusations that they lacked education or the ability to convey elevated ideas by the simple fact that their work included respected narratives that carried important moral meanings.

Soldiers fighting against the snowstorm (detail), Joseph Mallord William Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps, exhibited 1812, oil on canvas, 146 x 237.5 cm (Tate Britain, London; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A coded message

In 1812, the year Turner completed Snowstorm, the painting would have invited multiple interpretations. As we have seen, its use of the sublime conveyed the power of nature, but other details suggest a more pointed and timely message. History tells us that Hannibal traveled alongside the war elephants during the Alpine crossing. In Turner’s painting, we see him far in the distance, riding the elephant that raises its trunk near the horizon. What Turner chose to emphasize, instead, is the horror and mortal peril experienced by the soldiers who follow the general. This decision invites viewers to consider how everyday soldiers are made vulnerable to catastrophes because of their distant, disconnected leaders. 

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps or Bonaparte at the Saint-Bernard Pass, 1800–1801, oil on canvas, 261 x 221 cm (Chateau de Malmaison, Rueil-Malmaison)

Turner’s decision to give “Hannibal” the focus in his title—but not his painting—helps us to understand why he might have portrayed this theme. Historiated landscapes were often understood not just as scenes of the distant past, but as coded commentaries on the present. When Turner was working on this painting, England was locked in a bitter war against the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. The war was so disastrous that, by some estimates, it claimed the lives of approximately five million people throughout Europe. In the early 19th century, the Emperor was frequently referred to as the “modern Hannibal” because he, too, had invaded Italy by crossing over the Alps. In fact, a little over a decade before Turner painted Snowstorm, the French painter Jacques-Louis David famously portrayed Napoleon crossing the Alps while sitting calmly astride a rearing horse. Below the horse, stones with Bonaparte’s and Hannibal’s names make clear the connection between Napoleon and his ancient predecessor. We can, therefore, understand Turner’s ancient scene as an allusion to Napoleon and his wars of conquest as an engine of destruction—not unlike the snowstorm itself. Further, the devastation of Hannibal’s army stands in for Turner and his English countrymen’s fervent wish that Napoleon and his army will soon fall.

The artist’s decision to use a snowstorm to express this hope now seems almost prophetic: the French army would suffer severe losses due to winter storms when Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812—less than a year after Turner began his work. For this reason, we can understand the painting as an all-too-timely commentary on the French emperor’s irresponsible leadership. Even without this coincidence, however, the painting remains vital to understanding the major artistic and historical currents of the early 19th century thanks to its terrifying use of the sublime and the multi-layered implications of its historiated landscape. 

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Green Dining Room (now The Morris Room), 1866–67 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum)

Philip Webb, Design for the wall-decoration and cornice in the Green Dining Room, c. 1866, pencil and watercolor (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

The Green Dining Room is one of the best surviving examples of the aesthetic of William Morris, designer, poet, socialist, and preservationist. The room was commissioned in 1865 as a refreshment room in what was then called the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum). Morris and his colleagues (primarily painter Edward Burne-Jones and architect Philip Webb), created a tranquil, nature-inspired spot for museum patrons to enjoy a cup of tea. In keeping with the ideals of the Aesthetic Movement (where artists sought to create works that were admired simply for their beauty rather than any narrative or moral function), the harmonious muted color-scheme, emphasis on craftsmanship, and the medieval vibe of the stained glass and woodworking, the room shows Morris’s style of interior design at its finest.

Fashion for the medieval

William Morris was born in Essex in 1834, the son of wealthy middle-class parents. Raised reading the romanticized historical novels of Sir Walter Scott, Morris developed an affinity for the prevailing fashion for medievalism, which many saw as an antidote to the problems of modern industrial Britain. Conservative thinkers such as Thomas Carlyle in Past and Present (1843) sought to point out the deficiencies of the modern world by comparing them to practices of the medieval past.

Politicians also decried industrial practices in favor of bygone traditions, such as Conservative MP Lord John Manners who in his A Plea for National Holydays (1843) proposed allowing factory workers to dance around a maypole as a solution to working class unrest. Steeped in medieval nostalgia, the story that the 16-year-old Morris refused to visit the immensely popular Great Exhibition of 1851, which celebrated everything industrial, makes perfect sense. 

Frederick Hollyer, Sir Edward Burne-Jones; William Morris, 1874, platinum print (National Portrait Gallery, London)

While a student at Oxford, Morris met Edward Burne-Jones, who would become a celebrated Victorian painter, and the two became friends, joined by a love of culture and all things medieval. This connection was further cemented when the pair met the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti and worked with him on creating a series of paintings derived from the Arthurian legends to decorate the Oxford Union. At the time Morris was apprenticed to an architect and abandoned this career to pursue art. Unfortunately, he soon realized that he lacked the same skill as his friends, but quickly discovered a talent for design, creating items such as furniture and manuscripts in a medieval style. 

William Morris and Philip Webb, The Red House, 1860, Bexleyheath, London (photo: public domain)

Morris’s first large scale decorative project was his own house, known as The Red House due to the red brick exterior. Designed by Philip Webb and completed in 1860, Morris commissioned the house as a home for his wife Jane Burden, whom he married in 1859, and their two daughters. The L-shaped plan of the house echoes medieval house plans and Morris’s artistic friends helped him decorate the interior with scenes from Arthurian legends, and the stories of Chaucer, interspersed with a few classical illustrations from the Trojan War. For financial and logistical reasons, Morris sold the house in 1865.

In 1861, Morris founded the firm of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., a joint venture founded by Morris, P.P. Marshall, and Charles Faulkner, along with Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Philip Webb. Their medieval inspired and handcrafted items for the home were an almost immediate success, and the work of “the Firm” can still be found in churches that were renovated by the Victorians and some more avant-garde homes of the period. 

“The Firm” became known for its beautiful stained-glass designs, embroidered hangings, furniture, textiles, and carpets, all of which were produced using traditional methods. Morris insisted on forgoing industrial mass production of his objects, maintaining that the work of one’s hands was more beautiful than something made by machine. His famous saying “have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful” became a challenge to the cluttered, overly decorated, and to Morris’s mind, less beautiful interiors  commonly found in Victorian homes. 

Stained glass panels, part of a series entitled The Garland Weavers, designed by Edward Burne-Jones and made by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co. England for the Green Dining Room, 1866–67 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

The Green Dining Room is an excellent example of Morris’s design ideas. The muted green, blue, and gold color scheme creates a calming backdrop to the beautiful stained-glass windows depicting women in floating white dresses, designed by Burne-Jones.

Left figure: Sagittarius; right figure: Capricorn. After Edward Burne-Jones, by Charles Fairfax Murray, Signs of the Zodiac for the Green Dining Room, c. 1866, oils, tempera on canvas/panel and mixed media (Victoria and Albert Museum, London). Note: Burne-Jones drew the original designs and Morris & Co. employed several different painters to paint the panels. Morris was unhappy and had them all, except one, repainted by Charles Fairfax Murray

The dado rail which forms a barrier above the dark greenish stained woodwork in the lower portion of the room also contains Burne-Jones designs of the signs of the zodiac interspersed with plant motifs. Above the rail the walls are decorated with a low plaster relief design of olive branches in a paler, yet tonally complementary shade of green.

Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co., Green Dining Room, 1866–67 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)

Next to the ceiling is a frieze depicting hounds pursuing hares. The gold color that surrounds each animal leads the eye to the golden designs on the tray ceiling formed from stylized stencils of plants, which are reminiscent of the many wallpaper and textile designs Morris would go on to produce. 

Together with the two other refreshment rooms in the museum, The Gamble Room and the Poynter Room, The Green Room created a relaxing atmosphere for museum patrons to take a break. The museum’s director, Henry Cole, inaugurated the concept of the museum café, an idea which would not become standard until the 20th century. Cole was also the first to install gas lighting, which allowed the museum to open in the evening. Many of his innovations are now standard in museums around the world.

The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, now Newly Imprinted, artist: William Morris; author: Geoffrey Chaucer; illustrator: Edward Burne-Jones; engraver: William Harcourt Hooper; editor: Frederick S. Ellis; printer: William Morris (Hammersmith: Kelmscott Press, 1896) (Minneapolis Institute of Art)

Morris would go on to become one of the world’s foremost designers. In 1875 Morris took control of “the Firm,” which became known as Morris & Co. In 1871 Morris purchased a country house in the village of Kelmscott. The surrounding countryside provided inspiration for many of his designs, not only in his textiles but also for the manuscripts published by the Kelmscott Press, which Morris founded in 1891. Based on medieval illuminated manuscripts, the books published by Kelmscott Press included the celebrated Kelmscott Chaucer, as well as some of Morris’s own writings such as News from Nowhere (1890). An accomplished poet in his own right, Morris used his writings to explain his own utopian views of society. 

Throughout his life, Morris leaned more and more towards the views of socialism and became disillusioned with contemporary society. Unfortunately, his idea that everyone deserved beauty was at odds with his insistence that his products be handmade rather than using industrial processes. The workmanship that went into Morris’s products made them very expensive and financially out of reach for all but the well off. It was an issue he was never able to reconcile. 

The designs of William Morris left an indelible mark on Victorian society, which is still seen today. One can still purchase the work of Morris & Co., and his designs are reproduced for many mass markets, particularly textiles, wallpaper, and rugs. His “less is more” attitude resonates with many today, and the simple, natural beauty of his designs still looks fresh over 100 years later.

“Reception of Nineveh Sculptures at the British Museum,” Illustrated London News (February 28, 1852) (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London), p. 184

A winged lion with a human head is carted into the grand portico of the British Museum, something never seen before in London: the arrival of a lamassu, an ancient Assyrian guardian figure more than two thousand years old. Clearly this was a newsworthy event in 1852—for those who could not be there to watch, the News provided an engraving of the arrival of these majestic creatures entering the museum.

Sir Austen Henry Layard (an archaeologist) and his protégé Hormuzd Rassam, a Christian Iraqi, discovered this lamassu and other remarkable large-scale sculptures in Iraq and transported them to the British Museum. [1] The sculptures sparked a wave of interest in ancient Assyria and in the region traditionally called the ancient Near East. In Victorian Great Britain, Assyrianizing art, jewelry, and architecture were produced in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s. They reflected a growing interest in archaeology and in ancient Western Asia, as well as the British Empire and capitalism. The study of the art and architecture that adapts and reinterprets ancient art and architecture is typically called reception studies.

Map of the Assyrian empire at its greatest extent during the reign of Ashurbanipal (668 B.C.E. to c. 627 B.C.E.)

Working under the auspices of the British Consul at Constantinople, Layard made major discoveries at Nineveh and Nimrud in modern-day Iraq between 1845 and 1851. Layard was largely a self-made and self-educated man. He was not the first to excavate major sites from the ancient Assyrian Empire. While far from perfect, from the perspective of modern archaeology, Layard’s excavations were more systematic than many of his peers. A talented draftsman, he drew plans and made illustrations of the reliefs and statues he unearthed. He also imagined what these spaces could have looked like through colorful reconstructions. An excellent writer and self-promoter, Layard published several books about his discoveries, including the large-scale, beautifully illustrated Monuments of Nineveh (1849) and Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853). His findings were made accessible to the larger public through the affordable and abridged Layard’s Nineveh (1851). This book and the newspaper reports fueled popular interest in ancient Assyria and Mesopotamia.

The “Nineveh” Court at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham

The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations was held in London in 1851 and is considered the first World’s Fair. Known as the Crystal Palace, it was re-erected in 1854 in the London suburb of Sydenham. This second Crystal Palace contained ten Fine Arts Courts. Of these courts, which included Egyptian, Pompeian, Greek, and Roman sculptural courts, the largest was the Assyrian or “Nineveh” Court. Samuel Laing, who chaired the company that opened the Crystal Palace, called it an “illustrated encyclopedia,” one that was aimed at all levels of British society, including the working classes.

The inclusion of casts of Assyrian art at the Nineveh Court was grounded in the concerns of Victorian Great Britain and was fueled by three men: James Fergusson, Owen Jones, and Layard. James Fergusson was a noted architect and architectural historian who designed the court. Owen Jones was one of the most important architecture and design theorists of 19th-century Britain and a driving force behind the creation of the Fine Arts Courts at the Crystal Palace. Layard served as an advisor and authored the court’s eighty-page guide.

Francis Bedford, “Exterior of the Assyrian Palace” from Views of the Crystal Palace and Park, Sydenham (London: Day and Son, 1854) (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven)

The court was an immersive space; almost like virtual reality before such a thing existed. The Nineveh court was in fact a combination of Mesopotamian and Persian architectural elements, fusing Layard’s discoveries at Nineveh and Nimrud with discoveries from Susa, Persepolis, and Khorsabad. The casts used in the court were taken from sculptures and bas-reliefs in the Louvre and British Museum.

The goal of the Assyrian Court and the other courts was to educate the public. Fergusson firmly believed that Assyria and its architecture should be part of the public’s understanding of the past. For Fergusson and Layard, Assyria was artistically important and should be viewed as a point in history that Victorian progress could be compared against. By calling it the Nineveh Court, the organizers were connecting the art on exhibit to the Bible. Perhaps the most well-known mention of Nineveh is from the Book of Jonah, whose mission was to preach to the city and to encourage its inhabitants to repent (Jonah 3:1–10). By framing it as the Nineveh court, Fergusson and Layard put ancient Assyrian art, architecture, and culture into a framework that the British public would understand.

While the casts in the court were smaller versions of the original reliefs and sculptures, Layard’s guide proclaimed the archaeological accuracy of the individual elements, stating that the court’s design came from “Mr. Fergusson, who has especially devoted himself to the study of Assyrian architecture, and has spared no pains to examine and compare every fragment of architectural ornament and detail, as well as every monument, which might throw light upon the subject, discovered during the researches of M. Botta and the Author in Assyria.”

Title page from Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament (London: Day and Son, 1856)

The court’s reliefs and lamassus were painted. The reliefs and statues that arrived at the British Museum had been painted but their color had faded. The application of color to the casts was another example of an attempt at archaeological accuracy. The inclusion of color also reflected the aims of Owen Jones. His Grammar of Ornament (1856), one of the most important 19th-century design sourcebooks, emphasized color and historical designs and sought to interject them into Victorian design and aesthetics. Improving British design was a major concern of the mid-19th century, as leading members of the British artistic and design community were concerned that Britain was falling behind other European powers. In response to this fear, the Government School of Design was established in 1837, the first-ever design school in Britain. The 1851 and 1854 Crystal Palaces both sought to showcase British design and products. The Victoria and Albert Museum was founded originally as the Museum of Manufactures in 1852, as a direct consequence of the World’s Fair and this desire.

The design, art, architecture, and color of the Assyrian Court were grounded in the concerns of the day: it sought to educate the public about ancient Assyria as well as provide models for contemporary architecture and design principles. Some of the Crystal Palace’s more “refined” or sophisticated critics, such as Lady Elizabeth Eastlake, did not appreciate the use of color. The Spectator magazine did not approve of the use of red, blue, and yellow with white. The fact that ancient sculptures were brightly painted is still a major point of contention today; certain scholars and members of the public remain unwilling to accept that archaeology, material science, and scholarship have demonstrated that the ancient world was full of vibrant color.

During the first year of operation, the Crystal Palace had 1,332,000 visitors while the British Museum, where many of the original Assyrian statues were displayed, only had 395,564 visitors. While the display of “Assyrian” Court and the other ancient courts were quasi-accurate at best, they did more to educate—and entertain—a wider section of the British population, making the discoveries and ancient cultures more accessible to those who could not visit the British Museum or felt that they were not welcome there. The court brought ancient Assyria and ancient Western Asia home to the British public. While it was never explicitly stated, such a court also legitimized the British involvement in the archaeology and politics of Western Asia. Layard and Fergusson became the interpreters of ancient civilizations, and the court popularized and democratized archaeology and the study of the past, but it also claimed interpretation and ownership of these sites for the British, who had assumed the position of being a global power. [2] Thus, these reinterpretations can be seen through the lens of Orientalism, the idea that European nations sought to control regions in the “East” (i.e. the Middle East or West Asia and North Africa) through archaeology, travel, imperialism, industrialization, mass production, and colonization.

Parian wares: lamassus for the middle classes

As the ranks of the British middle class swelled, so too did their purchasing power, and objects in the style of Assyrian sculptures became popular to display in one’s home. They spoke to one’s learnedness, sophistication, and cultural standing. But how to make these on a mass scale? In 1844, the English pottery firm Copeland & Garrett developed Parian ware, a type of porcelain that takes its name from Parian marble but because it could be cast or molded, it was perfect for the mass production of small-scale figures for the middle classes.

Aaron Hays, Parian Book-ends in the form of a winged, human-headed bull, Parian porcelain, 22 cm high (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

Aaron Hays, who worked at the British Museum as an attendant, was an amateur sculptor. Working with Alfred Javis, another British Museum attendant, he created small statues that were modeled on the colossal guardian figures from Nimrud and Sargon’s Palace at Khorsabad. They became used as bookends. He also sold lion paper weights and a relief plaque of Ashurbanipal and his queen in a garden scene. The figures were adapted to suit Victorian aesthetics and were more life-like and less formalized than the actual sculptures. [3] In addition to the book ends, other figures including Sennacherib, Sardanapalus, and his queen, as well as a vase, were sold as souvenirs at the British Museum. These figures are the precursors to the book ends that one can still purchase today from the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Jewelry

Another manifestation of the craze for Assyrian art was found in the production of high-end Assyrian-style jewelry for aristocratic ladies and newly-minted British millionaires. This type of jewelry was being produced as early as the 1850s. Examples were on display at the Great Exhibition of 1851, but most surviving examples come from the 1860s and 1870s.

Assyrian-style Bracelet, 1872, gold and enamel, 3 x 6 cm, produced by Backes & Strauss Ltd (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

The firm of Backes & Strauss Ltd produced a gold bracelet with applied and enameled relief in navy blue, brown, gold, red, and light green. We see Assyrian archers and charioteers hunting lions, while a palm tree provides shade and two ominous vultures circle looking for carrion. A thin band of engraved foliage frames this scene. This design was based on the hunting reliefs in the British Museum, but was originally from Ashurbanipal’s 7th century B.C.E. palace in Nineveh. These bracelets were designed in what scholars call the “archaeological style.” They were meant to be archaeologically informed (but not entirely accurate)—like the architecture and reliefs of the Assyrian Court at the Crystal Palace. The designers likely worked from quasi-accurate line drawings that were circulating in popular publications rather than the reliefs themselves. The designs embellished the ancient models to make them suitable to Victorian tastes. In this case, the vultures and palm tree are 19th-century additions. While the figures were Assyrian, their organization and the composition of the scene were also very Victorian. Other bracelets showed kings with killed lions, while brooches and golden studs featured winged guardian figures, or even integrated ancient cylinder seals. The most famous example of Assyrian-style jewelry was a set of a necklace, earrings, and bracelet that Layard commissioned for his wife, Enid, for their marriage, from Phillips Brothers & Sons. They were composed of ancient cylinder seals from his excavations mounted in a modern gold setting.

Lady Layard’s Necklace, 1900–1800 B.C.E. with gold setting dating to the 1850s C.E., gold, stone, excavated and commissioned by Sir Austen Henry Layard (© The Trustees of the British Museum, London)

While the taste for Assyrianizing art, architecture, and jewelry did not last much beyond 1880, its popularity for three decades in the middle of the 19th century demonstrates the importance of archaeological discoveries in shaping later aesthetics. The debates over the use of color at the Nineveh Court at the Crystal Palace also reflect that the interpretation of ancient art and architecture is often shaped and influenced by present debates and considerations.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm (Musée Marmottan, Paris)

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 an embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.Louis Leroy, “Exhibition des Impressionnistes,” Le Charivari (25 April 1874), as translated in John Rewald, The History of Impressionism (1946)

Map showing the location of Le Havre in France (underlying map © Google)

The bright, burning orange sun rises in the distance, casting rays of light across a calm morning in the Port of Le Havre. The rippling waters of the port’s inlet create small waves that anticipate the day’s activity. Three fishing boats float into the distance, where construction of a dock is visible through the morning mist. The cool blue, green, and white hues dominating the landscape are interrupted by the sunlight that radiates across the water.

Industry and global exchange

Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is best known for being the painting that established Impressionism as a new movement in art history, as it shocked critics who first saw it in an 1874 exhibition in Paris.

On the surface, the painting appears to capture a quiet morning at Le Havre, but a closer look offers insight into its context. The painting’s material, technique, and subject matter reflects the influence of modernity on artmaking at this time, and also highlights trade networks between France and Japan that gained momentum in the 1860s and 1870s. Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is not only an engaging study of the effects of light and color, but it also reveals a changing world of industry and global exchange in 19th-century France.

A postcard of the Norman port of Le Havre from around 1900, with the white Hôtel de l’Amirauté (where Monet painted Impression, Sunrise) at the center (Bibliothèque municipale du Havre)

Modernity en plein air

Monet’s painting was made shortly after he returned to France from London, where he lived for two years to avoid the Franco-Prussian War. Impression, Sunrise was one of several paintings Monet made during his visit to Le Havre, a major port city in Northern France where he spent most of his childhood. Although the perspective of the scene indicates that Monet painted from his window at the Hôtel de l’Amirauté, the painting captured the fleeting effect of a sunrise on the water.

The misty sky over Le Havre (detail), Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm (Musée Marmottan, Paris)

The expressive movement of Monet’s brush is evident in the streaks of orange, red, pink, gray, blue, and white pigment that blend together to form the misty sky over Le Havre. These painterly brushstrokes reflect a new technique called en plein air (“in open air”), which gained popularity in the 1860s. Artists that worked in this style left their studios to paint outdoors, using rapid brushstrokes to quickly capture the effect of light and color on the atmosphere.

Although Impression, Sunrise was painted in a room overlooking the port, Monet had started experimenting with the plein air technique by 1872, and an 1885 painting by John Singer Sargent shows him painting in this style.

John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood, 1885, oil on canvas, 54 x 64.8 cm (Tate, London)

The palette in Monet’s left hand is loaded with fresh paint that he carried with him to this destination. He leans forward to add more pigment to the canvas on his easel, which is turned toward the viewer to reveal a loosely painted landscape. Sargent’s rendering also embraced plein air painting, as the artist worked quickly to capture his friend.

Artists who painted en plein air were influenced by new tools for art-making that developed as a result of the Industrial Revolution.  John Rand’s collapsible paint tube, for example, changed the way paint could be stored. For centuries, artists had preserved their expensive pigments in pig’s bladders, but they were unable to be sealed, which meant that paint was sometimes wasted. The collapsible paint tube not only solved this problem because artists could open and close them with a cap, but they also improved the portability of materials. The canvases they painted out in the world were no longer preliminary sketches or studies, but the finished work of art.

Fleeting moments in paint and print

Monet’s composition for Impression, Sunrise was influenced by his interest in and collection of Japanese prints. Prior to 1853 (and for 200 years), Japan had been isolated from the rest of the world. In 1853, American warships were sent on a mission to Tokyo Harbor to pressure Japan to open trade negotiations with the United States and Europe. Japanese prints, fabrics, ceramics, and other art materials flooded European and American shops, and were snatched up by collectors looking for the latest fashionable items.

James McNeill Whistler, Caprice in Purple and Gold: The Golden Screen, 1864, oil on wood panel, 50.1 x 68.5 cm (National Museum of Asian Art, Washington, D.C.)

James Whistler’s Caprice in Purple and Gold depicts a model dressed in a kimono gazing at a collection of prints. Whistler’s painting reflects the prevalence of japonisme, a term that describes the Euro-American fascination with Japanese art and aesthetics at this period. The folding screen creates the impression of a flattened background, which evokes the flatness and closely-cropped compositions of Japanese ukiyo-e prints.

Utagawa Hiroshige, Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo, 1857, woodblock print, ink and color on paper, 34 x 24.1 cm (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Claude Monet started building his own collection of Japanese prints in the 1860s. A famous work in his collection was Utagawa Hiroshige’s “Sudden Shower over Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake.” Hiroshige’s scene captures a view of the Sumida River during a torrential downpour. People crossing the bridge in the foreground duck under parasols, hats, and blankets to protect themselves from the rain. Through the streaks of rain, a single figure is on the river, guiding their boat through the water. Hiroshige’s scene is closely cropped, giving the viewer a diagonal viewpoint toward the river. The artist uses varying shades of blue to show the sky, distant shore, and river, and dark lines create the impression of moving water and pouring rain.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872, oil on canvas, 48 x 63 cm (Musée Marmottan, Paris)

Impression, Sunrise uses several techniques employed in Sudden Shower, indicating that Monet borrowed from Hiroshige’s print. Instead of using traditional techniques like linear perspective, Monet painted three boats at the center of the work to produce a diagonal line that implies receding space. The sky and water are only distinguishable from each other through the shadowy dock (the Quai au Bois) that stretches from one side of the painting to the other. The painterly brushwork creates an impression of flatness. Hiroshige and Monet both use a cool color palette to evoke the essence of a moment: whereas Hiroshige’s scene shows the power of the yūdachi, a powerful rainfall that darkened the daytime skies, Monet depicts the calm, misty start to a busy day at the sea port.

Industry and trade at the Port of Le Havre

Although Impression, Sunrise was neither Monet’s first, nor his only painting to feature Le Havre, it captures a period of growth for the port, indicative of France’s participation in global trade and commerce. In the 18th century, Le Havre underwent its first major expansion to increase France’s participation in the slave trade, and by the 19th century, it was rebuilt several times to meet the needs of a newly industrialized nation.

Eugène Louis Boudin, Port of Le Havre, 1887, oil on canvas, 65.4 cm. x 90.5 cm (Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick)

Eugène Louis Boudin’s 1887 painting shows Le Havre on a busy day, with boats making their way across the harbor as ships enter to escape the storm clouds billowing in the distance. The dock on the right side of the painting is filled with workers who have already unloaded a ship.

Monet painted several scenes of the port between 1865 and 1880, and they reveal the way that his style and technique developed over time. His 1867 painting of Le Havre shows a busy port scene en plein air, with several shades of green and white to indicate the motion of churning waves. By 1872, Monet had embraced singular, horizontal strokes of dark blue to imply the water’s movement in Impression, Sunrise.

Claude Monet, The Entrance to the Port of Le Havre (formerly The Entrance to the Port of Honfleur), c. 1867–68, oil on canvas, 50.2 x 61.3 cm (Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena)

As he painted Impression, Sunrise, the Quai au Bois was being reconstructed as part of a larger project to widen Le Havre’s entrance, and Monet emphasized this industrial progress in the form of cranes silhouetted against the morning sky. In another 1872 painting, Le Havre: Night Effect, Monet painted the same scene at night.  Its predominant shades of black, blue, and gray are interrupted by touches of white, yellow, and red.

Claude Monet, The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect, 1872, oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm (Museum Barberini, Potsdam)

Monet’s painterly technique used in the 1872 scenes of Le Havre visually evoked the transitory nature of port life in the 1860s and 70s: it highlights the constant ebb and flow of trade, commerce, and nature. Both paintings are recognizable in that they depict an identifiable subject—but their surfaces have been dematerialized. Monet’s painting is a collection of brushstrokes on a canvas support. It is not a representation of a sunrise but an impression of one.

“A Revolution in Painting!”

On April 15, 1874, eager visitors gathered in a studio on the Boulevard des Capucines in Paris to view one hundred and sixty-five works by members of the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. The exhibition took place in a private studio owned by the photographer Nadar, and represented a significant moment in the Parisian art world. The 1874 show highlighted a broad range of artworks that defied the rigid categories embraced by the traditional art world, and Impression, Sunrise was among the most notable of them.

The exhibition marked a public rejection of the Salon system in Paris, and established itself as independent from other official spaces dedicated to art. Although smaller venues existed in which artists could show their work, the Salon had been the primary venue for exhibiting since the 17th century. In the second half of the 19th century, artists more frequently showed their work in spaces free from the constraints of the Salon—but this traditional venue continued to wield significant power in the art world. Although the 1874 show is commonly referred to as “the first Impressionist exhibition,” it was populated by artists who worked in a variety of styles and formats. They consciously departed from Salon practices by hanging their works in two rows so that visitors could clearly see all of them.

Monet exhibited five paintings and seven pastels at the show. Impression, Sunrise captured the attention of critics who were shocked by the work’s sketchiness. In his review of the 1874 show, Louis Leroy disparaged Monet’s painting by comparing it to “wallpaper,” implying that the work had no value or purpose beyond decoration. [1]

Monet’s loose brushwork and the subject matter of a modern working port did not reflect the traditional characteristics for high art. It does not depict the mythological or battle scenes embraced by French history paintings, nor does it express an overt moral or political message. Instead, it captures a fleeting moment in time using rapid brushwork and bright colors.

Cham (Amedee Charles Henri de Noe), Caricature of the first Impressionist Exhibition in Paris, “Revolution in Painting! And a terrorizing beginning,” 1874, engraving (Bibliotheque Nationale de France, Paris)

An 1874 cartoon depicts men gasping in horror at the framed paintings in the show. The curved lines on the canvases implies that they are painted en plein air. One figure exclaims, “A Revolution in Painting! And a terrorizing beginning.” Other visitors to the exhibition celebrated Monet’s work for its modern characteristics. Jules-Antoine Castagnary emphasized his ability to capture a subject using an innovative technique, arguing that it depicted “not a landscape, but the sensation produced by a landscape.” [2]

On the surface, Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise captures a quiet morning in the port of Le Havre, but a closer look at the work offers insight into many changes taking place in 19th-century Europe. Monet’s work depicts a moment of growth for the port, indicative of France’s participation in global trade and commerce. Moreover, its flattened composition not only reflects Monet’s embrace of new, industrial art materials, but also provides insight into the artist’s collection and study of Japanese prints. Monet’s inclusion of this work in the 1874 exhibition reveals a new moment of painting that departs from past traditions.

Moreau paints with brilliant jewel-like colors, and everywhere we look the figures seem filled with Melancholy.

Gustave Moreau, Jupiter and Semele, 1894–95, oil on canvas, 213 x 118 cm (Musée National Gustave Moreau, Paris). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris