2017.11.17 印象派画家为何被吸引到伦敦

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LOOK CLOSER EXHIBITIONS
Why the impressionists were drawn to London



Nov 17th 2017
BY JOE LLOYD


Seldom has an exhibition’s title been so at odds with its contents as “Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904” at Tate Britain in London. Although it features two of the genre’s greatest exponents – Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro (as well as notable fellow traveller Alfred Sisley) – the vast majority of the show is devoted to artists who would deny they were impressionists. The society painter James Tissot, the classically inspired sculptors Jean-Bapiste Carpeaux and Jules Dalou: whatever the merits of these practitioners, they belong to a more traditionally representational stream in French art, one long overshadowed by impressionism’s spontaneous, movement-filled scenes of everyday life.

The exhibition’s idea of exile, too, is something of a misnomer. Although some of this work was made after artists like Monet sought refuge across the Channel from the catastrophic Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, followed by the fall of the Second Empire and the economic devastation of France, much of it stems from holidays spent in Britain during calmer times. There is a scintillating story to be told about the relationship between impressionism and British art, as well as French artists in exile. By trying to tell both, this show tells neither.

Nevertheless, “Impressionists in London” is worth a visit for the best works on display, by James McNeill Whistler, Jean-Baptiste-Camile Corot and André Derain as well as Monet and Pisarro. It is a particular pleasure to see six of Monet’s paintings from his “Houses of Parliament” series reunited. And by placing its impressionists in the context of their more conservative contemporaries, it revives the sense of awe and wonder that this now-familiar movement once inspired.


“The Ball on Shipboard” (1874) by James Tissot

James (born Jean-Jacques) Tissot moved to London during the Franco-Prussian War and remained there for the rest of his life, though whether his motives were political, financial or both is unknown. He was best known for his portraits of aristocratic ladies in flouncing frocks, which made Tissot, a dandy himself, extraordinarily wealthy. His work, however, was not beloved by all. Henry James thought his canvases “hard, vulgar and banal”. He may have been a little harsh, but “The Ball on Shipboard”, which depicts the London haut monde on a summer boat party off the Isle of Wight, certainly has a sterility at odds with the festive occasion it tries to capture. Compare the frigidity of Tissot’s blank faces to the vital animation of those in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Bal du moulin de la Galette” (1876). And while Renoir’s masterpiece captured Paris’s burgeoning urban working class, Tissot’s soirée centres around the Princess of Wales and her sister, dressed identically in blue and white creampuff dresses in the centre-right foreground. The composition feels staged, less a glimpse into real life and more a piece of theatre. Works like this typify the society painting that impressionism consigned to history: flat, fussy and strictly realistic.


“Molesey Weir, Hampton Court, Morning” (1874) by Alfred Sisley

A British citizen who was born in the Île-de-France, where he lived for most of his life, Alfred Sisley studied business in London, before resolving to become an artist and moving to Paris. Thrown into poverty when the Franco-Prussian War ruined his father’s silk business, he relied on patrons to fund occasional trips across the Channel, where the relative peace and prosperity created a burgeoning market for depictions of the English landscape.

Sisley’s first jaunt to Britain took place in 1874 and saw him follow the Thames west into the Surrey countryside. This depiction of a weir upstream from Hampton Court Palace ranks amongst his finest paintings. A cloudy English sky, captured with dappled brushstrokes, glowers over the vibrant greens of the vegetation and the deep blues of the river. Images of relaxation – a pair of bathers, and a man removing his socks for a dip – contrast with the power of the deluge itself, which froths into a tempestuous foam. The Temple to Shakespeare, a small garden folly built by David Garrick, an actor, can be glimpsed in the background, between the two barriers on the far left – a reminder that the city is not as far away as it seems.


“Kew Green” (1892) by Camille Pissarro

After the Prussian army requisitioned Camille Pissarro’s house and destroyed much of his art, he moved temporarily to London. This painting, though, dates from a later visit made in the summer of a more tranquil year: 1892. Pisarro, then 62 years old, rented an apartment in Kew and painted his surroundings. The resulting series represents the peak of his neo-impressionist phase, which sought to refine the original movement’s arrangement of light and colour, particularly by using unblended colours. “Kew Green” is radiant even by Pissarro’s standards, with both earth and sky formed of unmixed spots of pigment. This technique creates a sense of motion, even drama, as well as a remarkable luminosity – almost as if the canvas has been backlit. The green is fringed by brick cottages and the Kew Bridge Pumping Station, the tower of which can be seen rising to the left. Although we are far from the centre of the city, Pissarro shows the interplay of industry, domesticity and green space characteristic of the modern metropolitan sprawl.


“Leicester Square” (1901) by Claude Monet

Monet was astonished by the the bustle and activity of London, which he visited for the first time in 1871, in order to escape conscription, and again 30 years later. On witnessing the funeral of Queen Victoria, he wrote “What a crowd! I wish I could have made a sketch of it!” A similar exhilaration makes its way into “Leicester Square”, perhaps the most exciting painting in the exhibition. Painted from a window high over the square (to which Monet had secured access through John Singer Sargent), it encapsulates all the frenzy of an evening out on the town. In its blurred whirl of people and electric light, it also foreshadows the abstract styles that would rise to prominence with the modernism of the 20th century. Monet planned to make an entire series from this vantage point, but was prevented by a combination of illness and exhaustion.


“Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect” (1903) by Claude Monet

“Impressionists in London” concludes with one of the series Monet did manage to complete, albeit in the years after the visit. In 1871, he had painted the recently built Palace of Westminster as a tangled mass of towers and spires lurking over the Thames embankment. On his second visit he took an entirely different approach. The “Houses of Parliament” series, of which six examples are gathered in the Tate, depict the palace in a dazzling range of different palettes, though always from the same vantage point. Painting each day from 4pm to sunset so that the building is backlit, Monet transformed its heavy limestone into an ethereal apparition, its form shifting enormously with changes in light. Over the course of several paintings, the Palace becomes an anchor for the visual splendour of the sky above and water below. This “Sunlight Effect” rendition, for instance, shows a blaze of afternoon light from the right of the canvas, which glistens on the river before fading away.

Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1905 Tate Britain, until May 7th 2018





仔细观察展览
印象派画家为何被吸引到伦敦



2017年11月17日
作者：JOE LLOYD

很少有一个展览的标题像 "印象派在伦敦 "这样与其内容如此相悖。1870-1904年流亡的法国艺术家 "在伦敦的泰特不列颠博物馆举行。虽然展览的主角是这一流派最伟大的两个人--克劳德-莫奈和卡米尔-毕沙罗（以及著名的旅行者阿尔弗雷德-西斯莱）--但展览的绝大部分内容都是那些否认自己是印象派的艺术家们。社会画家詹姆斯-蒂索（James Tissot），古典雕塑家让-巴皮斯特-卡尔波（Jean-Bapiste Carpeaux）和儒勒-达鲁（Jules Dalou）：无论这些艺术家有什么优点，他们都属于法国艺术中更传统的表现主义流派，一个长期被印象主义的自发的、充满运动的日常生活场景所掩盖的流派。

展览中的 "流亡 "概念也是一个错误的说法。虽然其中一些作品是莫奈等艺术家在1870-71年灾难性的普法战争中越过英吉利海峡寻求庇护后创作的，随后是第二帝国的衰落和法国的经济破坏，但其中大部分作品是在平静时期在英国度过的假期。关于印象派和英国艺术以及流亡的法国艺术家之间的关系，有一个令人振奋的故事要讲。通过尝试讲述这两个故事，这个展览没有讲述任何故事。

尽管如此，"伦敦的印象派 "还是值得一看，因为它展出了詹姆斯-麦克尼尔-惠斯勒、让-巴蒂斯特-卡米勒-柯罗和安德烈-德兰以及莫奈和皮萨罗的最佳作品。看到莫奈的 "议会大厦 "系列中的六幅画作重新组合在一起，特别令人高兴。通过将印象派画家放在他们同时代更保守的人的背景下，它恢复了这个现在熟悉的运动曾经激发的敬畏和惊奇的感觉。


詹姆斯-天梭的 "船上的舞会"（1874）。

詹姆斯（生于让-雅克）-天梭在普法战争期间搬到了伦敦，并在那里度过了他的余生，尽管他的动机是政治的、经济的还是两者都有，都不得而知。他最著名的作品是为身着飘逸长裙的贵族女士拍摄肖像，这让本身就是花花公子的天梭变得异常富有。然而，他的作品并非受到所有人的喜爱。亨利-詹姆斯认为他的画作 "生硬、粗俗和平庸"。他可能有点苛刻，但 "船上的舞会 "描绘了伦敦上流社会在怀特岛附近举行的夏季船宴，肯定有一种与它试图捕捉的节日气氛不相符的僵硬感。将天梭的冷漠面孔与皮埃尔-奥古斯特-雷诺阿的 "Bal du moulin de la Galette"（1876年）中那些充满活力的面孔进行比较。雷诺阿的杰作拍摄了巴黎新兴的城市工人阶级，而天梭的晚会则以威尔士公主和她的妹妹为中心，她们身着相同的蓝白相间的绉绸礼服，位于前景的中央。这幅画给人的感觉是舞台化的，与其说是对现实生活的一瞥，不如说是一场戏剧。像这样的作品是印象派被载入史册的社会绘画的典型代表：扁平、挑剔和严格的写实。


"阿尔弗雷德-西斯利的《汉普顿宫的莫尔西堰，早晨》（1874）。

阿尔弗雷德-西斯利是英国公民，出生在法兰西岛，他一生中大部分时间都生活在那里，他在伦敦学习商业，然后决心成为一名艺术家并搬到巴黎。普法战争摧毁了他父亲的丝绸生意，使他陷入了贫困，他依靠赞助人的资助偶尔穿越英吉利海峡，那里的相对和平和繁荣为描绘英国风景创造了一个新兴的市场。

西斯莱的第一次英国之行发生在1874年，他沿着泰晤士河向西进入萨里郡的乡村。这幅描绘汉普顿宫上游的堰塞湖的作品是他最好的作品之一。用斑驳的笔触捕捉到的多云的英国天空，在植被的鲜绿和河流的深蓝中闪闪发光。放松的形象--一对洗澡的人和一个脱掉袜子泡澡的人--与洪水本身的力量形成对比，洪水泛起了汹涌的泡沫。莎士比亚庙，一个由演员大卫-加里克（David Garrick）建造的小花园，可以在背景中瞥见，在最左边的两个障碍物之间--提醒人们城市并不像它看起来那么遥远。


卡米尔-毕沙罗的 "邱园"（1892）。

在普鲁士军队征用了卡米尔-毕沙罗的房子并摧毁了他的许多艺术品之后，他暂时搬到了伦敦。不过，这幅画可以追溯到后来的一次访问，那是在一个更加宁静的年份的夏天。1892. 当时62岁的皮萨罗在邱园租了一间公寓，并画了他周围的环境。由此产生的系列作品代表了他的新印象派阶段的顶峰，该阶段试图完善原始运动的光线和色彩的安排，特别是通过使用未混合的颜色。"Kew Green "即使以毕沙罗的标准来看也是光芒四射，大地和天空都是由未混合的颜料点组成的。这种技术创造了一种运动感，甚至是戏剧性，以及一种非凡的亮度--几乎就像画布被背光了一样。绿地周围是砖砌的平房和邱桥抽水站，可以看到它的塔楼在左边升起。虽然我们远离市中心，但毕沙罗展示了工业、家庭和绿色空间的相互作用，这是现代大都市扩张的特点。


克劳德-莫奈的 "莱斯特广场"（1901）。

莫奈对伦敦的繁华和活跃感到惊讶，他于1871年为逃避征兵而首次访问伦敦，30年后再次访问。在目睹维多利亚女王的葬礼时，他写道："多么拥挤的人群啊！我真希望能把它画下来。我希望我能为它画张素描！" 类似的兴奋之情在《莱斯特广场》中得到了体现，这也许是展览中最激动人心的一幅画。这幅画是从广场高处的一个窗口画出来的（莫奈通过约翰-辛格-萨金特获得了这个窗口），它概括了一个晚上在城里的所有狂热。在其模糊的人群和电灯的漩涡中，它也预示着抽象风格将随着20世纪的现代主义而崛起。莫奈计划从这个有利位置拍摄整个系列，但由于疾病和疲惫的双重原因而未能如愿。


克劳德-莫奈的 "议会大厦，阳光效果"（1903）。

"印象派在伦敦 "以莫奈设法完成的系列作品之一作为结尾，尽管是在访问之后的几年里。1871年，他把刚刚建成的威斯敏斯特宫画成了潜伏在泰晤士河堤上的一堆纠结的塔楼和尖顶。在他的第二次访问中，他采取了一种完全不同的方法。国会大厦 "系列，其中六个例子收集在泰特美术馆，以令人眼花缭乱的不同色调描绘了宫殿，尽管总是从同一个有利的角度。莫奈每天从下午4点到日落时分作画，这样建筑就有了背光，他把厚重的石灰岩变成了一个空灵的幻影，其形式随着光线的变化而发生巨大的变化。在几幅画的过程中，皇宫成了上面的天空和下面的水的视觉辉煌的锚。例如，这幅 "阳光效应 "的画作显示了来自画布右侧的午后光线，它在河面上闪闪发光，然后逐渐消失。

印象派在伦敦。流亡的法国艺术家1870-1905 英国泰特美术馆，至2018年5月7日