The French Connection

In 1869, Monet and Renoir sat side by side in Croissy-sur-Seine in France and painted these two works of art, Bain à la Grenouillère by Monet (left) and La Grenouillère by Renoir (right). It was the beginning of impressionism and the boys were back in town.

Today, Monet’s is on display in NYC and Renoir’s is on display in Stockholm, but once upon a time, they were created together by two dear friends now long gone.

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In early 1867, Monet, hitting hard times, had moved into Bazille’s Paris studio where Renoir, similarly down on his luck, had moved into just before. They spent the spring traipsing around the city painting the views. A few of Monet’s canvases from that period were painted from the Louvre’s balcony; the Louvre being a place Renoir had to drag Monet to, as at the time it was a symbol of the institutionalised artwork he was rebelling against with his impressionistic pursuits.

Renoir and Monet were poor, the former stealing food from his parents to give to the latter when his concern for his friend was at its height. Yet, in their difficult situations, they changed art. And it wasn’t by having power—the power belonged to the Salon, the only big art exhibit in Paris, and its’ jury, who were lovers of conservative art, varnish finished with no brush marks, almost photographic in quality—but by making art.

Over the next few years, they tirelessly pushed their visions and created works of art not based in literary myth, as was the fashion, but based instead in the world they saw every day. Doing such a thing, rebelling against the only system in place that could lift an artist out of poverty, was a risk. But they did it, and it led to... everything.

Monet left France to avoid the Franco-Prussian war and met Pissarro in England. They had two exhibitions together; neither sold anything but they persevered. Pissarro went on to leave impressionism behind in his fifties and was a driving force of neo-impressionism.

Pissarro’s reinvention led to him being an artistic father figure to both the impressionist movement, being the only artist amongst them to show at all 8 Paris Impressionist exhibitions, and the major post impressionists, Seurat, Cézanne, van Gogh, and Gauguin. Matisse and Picasso both thought of Cézanne as the father of their respective art forms, Fauvism and Cubism. They were informed by Cézanne who was informed by Pissarro who was informed by Constable during his time in England, it’s endless.

Art is constantly pushing forward, informing the next generation, evolving with the times and it’s most often down to daring artists challenging the convention of what good art is. Art is subjective; who knows what art will look like in the future, but there’s one thing that is for certain: it will be informed by Monet and Renoir and Pissarro and Constable and everyone that came before them.