Author: Michael Chappell

My last couple of blogs, although nakedly commercial in their attempt to showcase the glories of impressionist pictures we have for sale, have nevertheless sparked some exchange from a few colleagues about the nature of impressionism. Thanks to this discussion, I’ve reread Roger Fry’s series of essays published in 1920 under the title Vision and Design. While I’d love nothing better than to indulge in an exegetical consideration of Fry, the Bloomsbury artist and critic whose 1910 exhibition of impressionist work was the first ever outside France, I’ll rein myself in for the moment.

While impressionism changed artistic expression from one where effect was measured by facsimile and narrative to one of a supra-realism, capturing an aesthetic sense of the image depicted beyond the visual, Fry believed that impressionism made the larger world understand that there is no objective realism. Realism is conditioned by the artist’s own inner vision, and the successful picture will communicate things beyond that depicted in the picture plane. As with the essence of Dieppe in Loiseau’s picture the subject of yesterday’s blog, Guillaumin communicates in ways beyond the visual the nature of a haystack in ‘Paysage de l’Ile de France’. The exemplar of effectiveness is no longer Apelles, whose images of fruit and flowers fooled bees into trying to light upon them, or the post-Renaissance academicism that wedded the accomplishment of Apelles with an edifying historical narrative.

For Fry, the critical reception of impressionism begged questions for other disciplines and concomitantly led to a broader realization that non-Western material culture was certainly as sophisticated in its artistic production as western Europe. A west African Fang mask or Muslim non-figurative embellishment represent traditions and ways of looking at the world that are different from the west, but that’s all they are- different- and that difference is value-neutral. Moreover, once someone can apprehend that material culture varies, and that nothing is better than or worse than, barriers for cross-cultural appreciation and understanding break down. The effect of impressionism, when coupled with Fry’s critical apprehension of it and its cultural implications, cannot be overstated. In her 1940 biography of Fry, Virginia Woolf sums up the effect of the 1910 exhibition by stating ‘On or about December 1910 human character changed.’

With the recent wave of impressionist sales and exhibitions, the subject is consequently much on my mind. Hopefully, on the minds of plenty of other people’s, too, as we do have one or two- or more- excellent impressionist pictures for sale.

Arguably one of the best is Loiseau’s le port de Dieppe. Although painted a half century after the first impressionist exhibition, its linkage with works by an earlier generation of artists is abundantly clear. That said, the significant form that is a central tenet of impressionism has also been joined successfully with the introduction of a flattened perspective more representative of what was at the time the picture was painted, very contemporary. While his viewpoint and use of color functions effectively to draw the viewer into the picture plane, the orthogonals work well in tandem with Loiseau’s palette. Interestingly, Loiseau incises within the impasto a series of parallel diagonal lines using the back-end of his brush to accentuate the roof tiles and courses of brickwork, enhancing the effect to architecture receding into the picture.

It’s interesting, a description of Loiseau’s work is difficult to render without a discussion of his technique. This can have the sad effect of occluding the very real accomplishment of Loiseau’s work, not only aesthetically but, frankly, emotionally, too. We were pleased to have our good friend Thierry Marchand, himself born and raised in Dieppe, wax eloquent about the painting and the manner in which Loiseau captured the very essence of the Dieppe that Thierry knew growing up. While impressionism is not entirely antithetical to photographic realism, it is the stimulation of senses beyond the visual that forms the basis for the enduring appeal of works like le port de Dieppe.

A bit cloudy and gloomy in San Francisco, my mood is still, despite the bright lights in our galleries, introspective. Mind you, we know nothing of really bad weather in our part of the country, but the combination of winter weather and my own state of mind makes a consideration of a painting in our inventory by Alice Barber Stephens appear, on this day, particularly appropriate.

An artist whose work demands to be better known, Stephens is perhaps mostly considered as an illustrator, but this painting places her in the white heat of impressionism, right up there with Manet. Actually, Fifth Avenue begs comparison with that most iconic of Manet’s work, Bar at the Folies Bergere. What Roger Fry and Clive Bell would later categorize as post-impressionism, certainly with application to Manet, is equally applicable to this work by Stephens. The deft brushwork and balanced deployment of the figural elements within the painting testify to Stephens’ talent, and possibly betray the original intention of the use of this painting for an illustration.

That it is well-executed, however, overlooks the narrative content that might be its most important feature. While ostensibly merely a view down Fifth Avenue in the winter, with snowflakes falling and well-upholstered men and women enjoying the material delights of this particular shopping thoroughfare, social contrasts are manifestly apparent. In the front of the picture plane, a young boy and girl, not nearly so well dressed thrust forth collection boxes doubtless seeking contributions, given their dress, to an orphanage or a settlement house. So young, raggedy, and on their own, the children function to make manifest contrasts that largely reflect a newly forming social consciousness. The recent publication of Jacob Riis’ photographic essay of the slums of New York How the Other Half Lives is worth mentioning in this context. Not to be overlooked is the black flowerseller in the derby hat in the right middle background. Nearly invisible, one can only imagine the plight of poor blacks in New York at this time, presumably occupying the lowest of the lowest rung on the social ladder.

As one of only a few working women artists, one wonders to what extent Stephens affiliated with those marginalized figures in Fifth Avenue. But, of course, for the time, even the well-dressed women must be considered as marginalized members of what was a profoundly masculine society. No question about it, Stephens was aware of all of this, and certainly as regards the role of women in the art world, her own teaching career makes it apparent she sought to bring women into the mainstream, and provide her sex  with opportunities hitherto denied. In 1902, while teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, she took the scandalously controversial step of including in the curriculum the first-ever in America life drawing class for women.

The exceptional results in the last couple of weeks of fine arts in the salesrooms and at the American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach put me in mind, not surprisingly, of exceptional paintings at Chappell & McCullar. Perhaps because I’m entering an introspective period in my own life, genre paintings have a particular appeal, and nothing more appealing than Emil Carlsen’s 1884 still life with roses and mandolin. Emigrating from Denmark to the United States in 1872, Carlsen frequently returned to Europe. This work, completed in Paris in 1884 effectively combines a variety of stylistic influences- Dutch still life, European and American academicism, and impressionism- with Carlsen’s own skillful draftsmanship. Personally, I find the inclusion of the mandolin particularly resonant, as it reminds me of the lute that is a prominent though abstruse iconographic feature in one of my own favorite pictures, Holbein’s The Ambassadors. It begs question whether Carlsen attached as much meaning to the elements of his own still life as Holbein presumably did in his pictures. No anamorphically projected memento mori here, glad to say, and really, that kind of consideration rather sidetracks a person from the aesthetic enjoyment of Carlsen’s work. No art historical logic chopping is required, because Carlsen’s still life is, prima facie, an exceptional picture.

Witness the success of ‘MadMen’ on television and the interest in Tom Ford’s ‘A Single Man’ and, no question, the early 60’s have moved into a place of legitimacy in popular 21st century culture. Camp? Hard to say- almost as hard as it is to define ‘camp.’ Frankly, though, camp has ever been a feature in interior design, with whimsy, either in wall color or furnishing fabrics, or furnishing themselves necessary to enliven any interior space.