[60] Impressionism: The Art of Modern Life in France
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Wednesday, September 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, Oct 14, (no class Oct 7), 2–3 pm (6 sessions)
Paris was the art center of France and the world in the second half of the 19th century, and many young people came there to become a part of this exciting enterprise. Not every prospective artist felt drawn to the official establishment, which served the authoritarian government of Napoleon III. Édouard Manet,
son of an official of the judiciary, became the center of a group of these independent-minded painters. Among these were Claude Monet, son of a grocer from Normandy; Edgar Degas, from a Paris banking family; Camille Pissarro,
whose family were Jewish textile merchants settled in the West Indies; Auguste Renoir, son of Montmartre tailors; Paul Cézanne, a coarse peasant from Provence; and Berthe Morisot, daughter of a government administrator. These
are heroic names in our time; but in their own day the public was decidedly not ready for their radical new view of modern France. This series will look at the famous independent exhibitions these artists organized to show their works, and examine other great painters drawn into the orbit of artists known today as
the Impressionists.
Instructor: Dr. Donald Schrader, Adjunct Professor of Art History, University of Mary Washington