Endearing Portrait of Julie Manet and her Cat by Auguste Renoir

Auguste Renoir enjoyed painting people, and his painting of Julie Manet and her cat is an endearing portrait of the daughter of another Impressionist, Berthe Morisot. Many people choose cats as pets, but farmers need cats to keep rodents out of the livestock feed. Not many cats can be both friendly pets and pest controllers, but Maine coon cats often do both!

Fluffy, a Maine coon cat, ruled the barn on my grandparents’ Maine farm when I was a child. At nearly 25 lbs. and with long hair, a bushy tail like a racoon, and ear tufts like a wild lynx, she terrorized the mice population. But this black and gray tabby had a softer side and loved to come in and socialize with her family. She seemed as big as a dog to me, and her silky coat crackled with static when I stroked her.

Several legends surround the origin of Maine coon cats, now a popular cat breed everywhere. Old-timers claimed they were mixed with a raccoon, which is biologically impossible. Another old legend said France’s doomed queen, Marie Antoinette, planned an escape by a ship whose home port was Wiscasset, Maine. Although Marie missed the boat, her long-haired cats sailed to Maine and bred with local short-haired cats.

Most likely, sailors brought long-haired cats back from their sea voyages to places like Norway. But the legends are fun, and the Marie Antoinette tale leads nicely into this post about the French Impressionist, Renoir. Enjoy his painting of Julie Manet and the happy little cat snuggling in her arms.

What’s in this post?

• A little about Auguste Renoir and his painting of Julie Manet
• Helpful vocabulary
• Understanding  the painting
• Activities to help you and your children explore and enjoy the painting of Julie Manet and her cat
• Don’t tell Molly, but this week’s cute picture is of my brother and me with Fluffy, the Maine coon cat! Molly will return next week!

Let’s Learn about the Artist

Pierre Auguste Renoir, self portrait, 1876, public domain

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was born in the French city of Limoges, a center for the porcelain industry. At 13, he apprenticed as a painter in a porcelain factory and became skilled at florals. When he later studied art in Paris, he joined a group of art students who rebelled against the traditional art of their day.

The Impressionists, as they came to be called, wanted to paint landscapes and scenes of everyday life en plein air, or in the open air. They saw how light changed colors and used short brush strokes to capture those fleeting effects. Their small brushstrokes of pure colors make their paintings shimmer and leave edges looking blurry.

Renoir liked to paint people enjoying life at outdoor gatherings. His Luncheon of the Boating Party is a famous example of his happy gatherings. It also shows how the Impressionists used each other and friends and family members as their models. Almost everyone in this painting can be identified, and the woman in the left foreground with the little dog is Renoir’s future wife.

Luncheon of the Boating Party by Auguste Renoir,1880-1881, public domain

Renoir painted many single and family portraits, and Julie Manet modeled for him other times, too. Julie was used to posing for her mom and knew all the Impressionists. A few years ago her diary about growing up among these artists was published.

The Artist’s Daughter, Julie with her Nanny by Berthe Morisot,1884, Minneapolis Institute of Art, public domain

Helpful Vocabulary

These words will be in bold green the first time they come up and will help you and your children talk more easily about different parts of the painting.

1. Portrait: a painting, drawing, photograph, etc. of a person, often done quite close up. The person may be looking straight forward or shown from the side–a profile. The painting Berthe Morisot and Her Daughter Julie shows both.
   

   Berthe Morisot and her Daughter Julie Manet by August Renoir, 1894, Musee d’Orsay, public domain

2. Texture: how a surface would feel if touched
3. Pattern: a repetition of a design, such as a plaid
4. French Impressionists: a group of artists who became friends while studying art in Paris in the 1860s. They rebelled against the Paris art establishment, preferring to paint modern life and to paint outdoors. The group included 2 women, Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. Many artists in other countries adopted the style.

Understanding the Painting, A Captured Moment in Time

Julie Manet with her cat, by Auguste Renoir,1887, public domain

Portraits can be very formal, with the sitter in their best clothes, like The Mona Lisa, which the Impressionist would have seen in the Louvre.

In this painting, everything—Julie’s dress with gold embroidery and the pretty pastel sofa and wallpaper—point to a formal drawing room. So . . . you might expect a formal portrait.

Instead the painting has captured a moment in time. It’s as if Renoir has just entered the room where Julie is cuddling her pet cat. And as she turns toward the artist, he takes a snapshot. The Impressionists loved to show these moments in time. Photography was still new, but it had a big effect on the Impressionists, who liked the sense of immediacy it gave to pictures.

Renoir’s subjects may be wearing their best clothes, but he usually shows them interacting with other people at a restaurant or with things that provide extra interest or tell a little about them—a musical instrument, a toy, a pet, etc.

Activities to Help You and Your Children Explore this Painting

Before doing any other activities, ask children to tell what’s going on in the painting and what tells them that. Enhance their observational and verbal skills by rephrasing words and adding new vocabulary.

This is a great painting to learn about portraits and what they tell us about the sitter.

• What sort of things can you tell about Julie?
• Do you think she’s wearing her best dress? Remember that at this time girls always wore dresses.
• Do you think she is in her own home or the artist’s studio?
• Does she look happy?
• Is this a quiet or noisy painting?
• Do you think these are good colors for this portrait? Why or why not?
• What sort of things do you think Julie would like to do?

How would you like a portrait of you to look? Have some fun choosing clothes and other things you’d like to have in your own portrait. Tell why you’ve chosen the clothes and items. Then have some one take a photo of you and print it.

You might also find and list all the different textures and patterns in this painting. Next to each write one or two descriptive words

Before You Go

If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide, 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, You’ll also get a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit.

Visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages.

Molly hopes you enjoyed learning about Renoir and will join us next week. We’ll be doing an art project based on his happy painting of Julie Manet and her cat. The following week will be the devotion.

 Photo of Fluffy the Main Coon Cat

 

 

Let’s Look at Mary Cassatt’s Painting of A Young Mother Sewing

Although Mother’s Day is over, Molly and I hope you’ll join us this month as we look at one of Mary Cassatt’s beautiful and timeless paintings of mothers and children engaged in everyday activities.

In this post you’ll:

• Find helpful vocabulary
• Learn a little about Mary Cassatt and her paintings of mothers and children
• Discover activities to help you and your children explore and enjoy her paintings
• See a cute photo of Molly, the Artsy Corgi

Helpful Vocabulary

These words, shown in bold green the first time, will help you and your children talk more easily about different parts of the painting.

• Impressionists: a group of mostly French artists, who in the late 1800s, began painting outside so they could catch the way colors changed in different lights. They worked quickly with dabs and dashes, (creating an impression of their subject) so their paintings looked strange and unfinished to viewers. The Impressionists held their own annual exhibits in Paris. The style also spread to other countries.
• Genre art:  art showing everyday events and people
• Composition: the way an artist arranges all the parts to create a painting
• The Renaissance: the rebirth or revival of classical (Greek and Roman) influences in art and literature, refers especially to the 14^th -16^th centuries in Italy when such greats as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael worked.

The Artist

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) who grew up in Philadelphia, always wanted to become an artist. Despite her father’s objections, she entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was 15. But women had separate classes from men, which frustrated Mary, and there were few museums in which to study great art. So, like many American artists, Mary traveled to Europe to study.

Even in Paris, Mary couldn’t attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, (France’s most prestigious art school), but she could study privately with Ecole masters and copy masterpieces at the Louvre. Many artists studied in this way.

Mary joined the French Impressionists just 5 years after their first exhibition in 1874. The only American and one of only three women, Mary continued exhibiting with the Impressionists until 1886

The men in the Impressionist group could go to cafes and travel around Paris and the surrounding countryside to find subjects to paint. Mary Cassatt and the other women couldn’t go to these places unless accompanied by a man. So they painted the domestic life of women and children, using their family members as models. Mary Cassatt is loved today for her beautiful paintings, pastels, and prints of mothers and children. In her Genre art we see the love between mothers and children in ordinary daily moments.

Though Cassatt lived the rest of her life in France, she never forgot the need for art in American museums. She helped Americans buy artworks to eventually go into these. Her own works are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Art Institute of Chicago, and many other big and small museums.

The Painting

A Young Mother Sewing by Mary Cassatt,1900, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, public domain

Let’s look at a painting called A Young Mother Sewing. Cassatt has captured a quiet moment in time—the mother is intent on her sewing, while the child is staring at the viewer.

Though it is a genre painting, Cassatt has used a Composition in which the mother and child form a triangular shape, drawing our eyes up to the mother’s face. That triangle, together with the background horizontal and vertical lines, makes a stable, balanced composition.

This kind of composition was very common with portraits of the Madonna and Child in The Renaissance. So, though the woman is just an ordinary mom doing some sewing, Cassatt has given her great dignity and importance.  To compare, here’s a Madonna and Child painting by Leonardo da Vinci.

The Virgin and Child with St. Anne and St. John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci,1499-1508, National Gallery, London, public domain

While using classical composition, Cassatt also employs impressionistic techniques:

• She fills the painting with light. Where the sun hits, we see yellow highlights, and instead of black for shadows on the child’s dress, we see light blues and greens.
• She dissolves the outlines of faces, hands, and fabrics, which is characteristic of much Impressionist art. If we look closely at the vase on the table, we see the pattern is barely indicated, and the flowers are just orange blobs.
• Instead of a detailed landscape behind the woman, which we would see in a Renaissance portrait, we see just patches of paint to indicate lawn and trees receding into a shadowy blue distance. Compare that to the detailed background in the Mona Lisa, also by da Vinci.
  

  Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, 1503-1516, Louvre, Paris, public domain

  Activities to Help You and Your Children further Explore A Young Mother Sewing

Before doing any other activities, ask your children to tell what’s going on in the painting and what tells them that. Enhance their observational and verbal skills by rephrasing words and ideas. According to your children’s ages, work in a little of the new vocabulary, but keep it short and simple.

1. Ask what colors and patterns they see. Mention how the striped pattern on the mother’s dress helps show their close relationship.
2. Ask children in what ways this painting resembles a modern photograph.
3. What do they think the little girl is thinking as she looks at the viewer?
4. Is she asking her mother a question or maybe asking her mother to come and play?
5. Ask children if they’ve ever come to you or another adult to ask a question or to come and play? What happened? How should we behave at such times?
6. What do they think will happen next?
7. Other things you can do is to have children find all the blues, all the greens, and so on.

Before You Go

If you’d like more activity ideas for art, history, and nature, curriculum connections, and links to more resources, be sure to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide to 5 Ways Art Benefits Children’s Cognitive, Physical, Spiritual, and Social Development, with a Few Fun and Easy Activities for each Benefit

Visit my website where you’ll find free downloadable puzzles, how-to-draw pages and coloring pages for kids and an updated list of my hands-on workshops, chapels, and presentations for all ages.

Cute picture of Molly. In one of our everyday moments we’re reading a special book by Nancy Sanders about animal babies and their mommies. Here’s a link to my post interviewing Nancy about her adorable board book, Bedtime with Mommy.

Molly and I hope you enjoy learning about this special painting of a mother and child and will join us next week for a devotion based on another of Mary Cassatt’s artworks, The Fitting.

A Fun and Easy Art Activity–Make a Playful Pug Picture

Pugs are playful, little lap dogs, but God created dogs with a huge amount of potential, enabling people to develop breeds to meet many needs from herding, guarding, and service to companionship. Today dogs come in more shapes, sizes, and abilities  than any other mammal species—over 300 recognized breeds worldwide, from tiny chihuahuas to huge Great Danes. Which breed is your favorite?

Mary Cassatt, the American Impressionist artist in my last post, loved little Brussels Griffon dogs, and sometimes added them to her paintings—often in people’s laps. Brussels Griffons were originally bred to hunt rats and mice in stables, but  breeders crossed the Brussels Griffons with other small breeds, including pugs, to create the lap dog you see in Cassatt’s work.

Young Girl at a Window by Mary Cassatt, public domain

Many think the Brussels Griffon looks like an ewok from Star Wars. The pug “force” is strong in that cute, mooshed-in griffon face, So our art activity this month is a fun mixed media art activity about a cute pug who’s asking a butterfly to play

In this post you’ll also find:

• A list of the ways this activity can contribute to your children’s mental, physical, and social development
• A list of curriculum connections

Supplies for the Pug

• Colored paper in browns, tans, grays, black, white, red
• Scrap paper to make patterns
• Compass or various sizes of round lids to make circles
• Pencil, scissors, and glue
• Crayons or markers

Directions for the Pug (Except for the tongue, every body part begins with a circle)

1. Using a compass or various round lids, draw a large circle for the pug’s body and a smaller circle for its head
2. The muzzle or snout is a smaller circle from which you draw and cut a heart shape with the pointy end rounded off (see photo)
3. The ears also begin as circles. (follow the photo to turn these into ears)
4. You need two circles for the eyes, one a little bigger than the other
5. The tail and paws are the same size circles. (follow the photo to make one into the tail)
6. The nose is a small circle, trimmed to a rounded triangular nose shape
7. The smallest circle is the white dot for the eyes
8. The tongue is two straight parallel lines with one end curved
9. Once you have the patterns made, cut the pug shapes out of the appropriate colors
10. To get the white edge for the eyes, cut two moe eye circles out of white paper, and then cut each into a quarter moon shape
11. Glue all the parts together, making sure to slip the eyes and the tongue under the muzzle before the glue dries
12. Finish with crayon or marker details on paws, under nose, and above eyes

Supplies for the Garden Background and Butterflies

• Sturdy white paper
• Watercolor paints and brush
• Crayons
• Toothbrush
• Various colored scraps for the butterflies

Directions for the Garden and Butterflies

1. With crayons draw shapes for the flowers on the white paper. Press down with the crayons to make heavy lines, but don’t color the flowers in (see photo for shapes or make up your own)
2. Mix puddles of water and paint and paint right over your crayon lines. Don’t worry if you go outside the lines
3. Notice that the crayon lines still show (this is called crayon-resist painting)
4. Let the flowers dry
5. If you like the speckled look, mix up more watery paint and use a toothbrush to build up as much speckling as you like. You can use several colors.
6. To make the butterflies, choose several colors and cut into small rectangles
7. Fold the rectangles in half and draw half of the butterfly’s body against the fold. Then draw the upper and lower wings and one antenna
8. Cut these out while still folded. Then flatten the body out and fold up each wing

Putting it all together

1. Glue the pug onto the background garden
2. Glue the butterflies where ever you’d like
3. With green crayon draw blades of grass along the bottom, with some coming across the pug’s paws, so it looks as if he’s in the grass.

Now you have a cute pug who wants to play with the butterfly on his nose!

Helpful Hints:

• Try the speckling on scrap paper first to see if you like it (to speckle, run your finger backwards along the bristles)
• If you want to be really precise with painting the flowers, use less water, and a smallish brush. The crayon will help you stay in the flower shapes.

Hints for Clean Up:

Wax paper is helpful under things when you spread glue, because it doesn’t stick to the paper AND it keeps globs of glue off your table

Variations:

• Use big googly eyes for the pug
• Use colored paper for a background
• Do a background of wet-in-wet watercolors, letting the paint swirl together

Ways this activity can contribute to your children’s mental, physical, and social development

• Using crayons and scissors, and other art tools helps children develop fine motor skills.
• Seeing how to use basic shapes to create a more complex form helps children be more observant.
• Measuring and using a compass helps with math skills
• Opportunities to make choices as in this activity, enhances problem-solving skills.
• Discussing their choices as they work aids in vocabulary and conversational skills.

Curriculum Connections

• Make a map showing where your favorite breed came from. Tell what it was bred to do.
• Look up different dog sports, such as herding dog trials, fly ball, agility, etc. List all the words that describe how the dogs move in these sports, such as leap, scurry. See who can come up with the longest list.
• Some dogs can sniff out diseases. Are certain breeds better at this? Write a report about how the dogs are trained.
• How are dogs trained as guide dogs or as other service dogs? Make a poster of all the ways dogs help people as service dogs.

Before you leave:

• Comment and tell us what dog breed is your favorite.
• Be sure to sign up for my newsletter by clicking on the button at the top right of this post. You’ll get a free, downloadable Guide to Making Art Museum Visits a Fun Masterpiece for the Whole Family! Molly contributed some good ideas to the guide, too!
• And you can visit my all new website to see the tings we’ve added to help you engage your children’s hearts and hands to discover God in art, history, and Nature.http://www.kathy-oneill.com/

Molly hopes you enjoyed making this cute pug picture. She was kind of disgruntled at first that it wasn’t a picture of her, but she came around.

And don’t forget to come back for our next blog—an interview with a children’s author, who has written a series of picture books about her rescue pugs! They are so cute, and we’ll interview her illustrator, too!

Thanks for stopping by. See you soon!

 

 

Mary Cassatt, American Impressionist Artist

Mary Cassatt, an American, joined the French Impressionists’ exhibitions just 5 years after their very first exhibition in 1874. Edgar Degas had seen some of her paintings at the annual Paris art show and invited Mary to join the Impressionists. The only American and one of only three women, Mary continued exhibiting with the group until 1886.

The post includes:

• A short bio of Mary Cassatt
• Information about her paintings
• Activities to help you and your children enjoy and understand her work
• A kid-friendly devotion based on the paintings

The Artist

Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was born near Pittsburg, but grew up in Philadelphia. When Mary was still a child, her family lived in Europe for several years searching for a cure for Mary’s brother, Robbie, who had bone cancer. When he died, they returned to America.

Even as a child, Mary wanted to become an artist, and despite her father’s objections, entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts when she was just 15. Women students had separate classes from men, and Mary often felt frustrated by this and the lack of great art to study in American museums.

So, like many American artists, when the Civil War ended, Mary traveled to Europe to study art. She eventually settled in Paris. As a woman, Mary couldn’t attend the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, but she studied privately with Ecole masters and spent lots of time copying masterpieces at the Louvre.

When she joined the Impressionists, Cassatt’s art took on many similarities to their work.

Most Impressionists used their families as models and often painted them walking in a field with a parasol, sitting in a garden, or at a luncheon at one of the popular weekend boating resorts along the Seine. But the men could also go to cafes and travel around Paris to capture everyday life.

Mary Cassatt, photo, 1913, public domain

The three women, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, and Marie Bracquemond, couldn’t do these things unaccompanied. Instead they painted the domestic life of women and children, also using family members as models. Mary Cassatt is known and loved today for her beautiful paintings, pastels, and prints of mothers and children.

Reine Lefebre and Margot before a window by Mary Cassatt, public domain

Cassatt lived the rest of her life in France, but never forgot the need of American museums for great art. She advised many wealthy Americans on what paintings to buy for themselves—all with the stipulation they would eventually give their collections to museums. Today, partly through Mary’s efforts, we can see large numbers of Impressionist and other great art at the Metropolitan Art Museum in New York, the Chicago Institute of Art, and many smaller museums around the country. American museums also have many works by Cassatt, herself.

The Paintings

Cassatt’s paintings often show figures up close, and once she joined the Impressionists, she began to use brighter colors, lots of light, and shadows full of color. Despite that influence, Mary continued to carefully outline her figures, not dissolving these as some Impressionists did.

Children on a Beach by Mary Cassatt, public domain

Besides the light-filled palette, you see the Impressionist influence in lack of fine detail in women’s dresses and people and flowers in backgrounds.

Young Mother Sewing by Mary Cassatt, public domain

Quite often Mary’s paintings of women and children include a dog called a Brussels Griffon. Mary fell in love with these little dogs and owned several during her life. These little dogs were first used to hunt down rats and mice in stables, but also gradually became pets. People found them to be sensitive and lovable, but they do need lots of exercise and can be somewhat stubborn to train.

Young Girl at a Window by Mary Cassatt, public domain

Activities to Help You and Your Children further Explore Mary’s Paintings

• Before doing any other activities, ask children to tell what’s going on in the painting and what tells them that. Enhance their observational and verbal skills by rephrasing words and adding new vocabulary.
• These paintings by Mary Cassatt are great for telling stories. Ask children what they think is happening in each painting, and how the people are feeling, or what they’re talking about.

 Devotion—God’s faithfulness

1. Ask children to say or list some of the traits that make dogs good pets for many people, such as friendly, loyal, fun to play with, devoted, etc.
2. If they don’t come up with faithfulness, help them focus on that trait
3. Look up some synonyms for faithfulness.
4. Briefly tell one or two stories about faithful dogs from history or literature, such as Lassie Come Home or The Incredible Journey, in which dogs brave many dangers to return to their beloved families.
5. There are many such stories about the faithfulness of dogs, and for that reason, they’re often used in paintings to symbolize faithfulness.
6. Though dogs are known and loved for their faithfulness, we know God is even more faithful to love us, care for us, and keep His promises.
7. Together read some of these verses and talk about all the ways the Lord is our faithful God:

•      Deuteronomy 7:9
•      Deuteronomy 32:4
•      Psalm 25:10
•      Psalm 33:4
•      Psalm 57:10
•      Psalm 89:14
•      Psalm 91:4
•      Psalm 145:13-20
•      Psalm 146:6-10
•      1 Corinthians 10:13
•      1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
•      Hebrews 10:23
•      1 Peter 4:19
•      1 John 1:9

Have children write a prayer using words from some of these verses and decorate it to put on the fridge or send to a loved one.

Together watch and enjoy  Lassie Come Home, The Incredible Journey, or another story about a faithful dog!

Before You Go:

3 Things you might like to do:

Click the button to sign up for my newsletter and receive a free guide called, How to Make Your Art Museum Visit a Masterpiece for Your Whole Family!

If you like the new look for my blog, check out my all new and helpful website at:http://www.kathy-oneill.com/

To read “Red, Yellow, and Blue, Let Art Refresh Your Children and You,” my post on the parenting blog, In the Quiver, follow this link. You’ll find more ideas about how art can help your child’s overall development and some fun activities to do togetherhttps://inthequiver.com/

______________________________________

Molly, my faithful little artsy corgi and I hope you enjoyed learning about Mary Cassatt and most of all about the faithfulness of our God!! Please come back next time for an art activity related to Mary Cassatt’s work.

 

 

 

 

On the Trail of Monet’s Cathedrals and Haystacks: Musee Marmottan Monet, Paris

Continuing on our Monet Trail, one morning we took the metro to a more residential area in western Paris. Blue sky and warm sunshine met us as we came up the station steps. As we scuffled through leaves on the sidewalks and picked up smooth mahogany chestnuts, we enjoyed the arrival of fall.

 

The Musee Marmottan Monet is near the Bois de Boulogne, where Degas painted his horse racing scenes, and where other Impressionists sometimes painted people picnicking or strolling beside lakes.

The Picnic, Claude Monet

The Bois de Boulogne was once part of a forest where French kings and nobles hunted. By the time of the Impressionists, it had become a fashionable park that had been part of Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann’s drastic modernization of Paris in the 1850s. This included, not only parks, but broad new boulevards and modern apartment buildings that displaced thousands of poor Parisians to the city’s outskirts.

It’s the Paris we see in Impressionist paintings–Paris from the Louvre by Monet and Le Pont de L’Europe by Caillebotte

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About this same time Jules Marmottan bought a former hunting lodge on the eastern side of the Bois de Boulogne, and he and his son turned it into a mansion with fine furniture and art. The son left the mansion and its art to the French Academy of Fine Arts, which opened it to the public in 1939.

Musee Marmottan Monet now houses the largest collection of Monet’s paintings in the world, many coming directly from the artist’s family, because Michel Monet, the artist’s second son, left the collection he inherited from his father to the Marmottan. Other works came from the doctor who was the personal physician of many of the Impressionists.

Although it doesn’t have the huge water lily canvases of Musee de L’Orangerie, it does have a number of large water lily paintings, as well works by other Impressionists.

And it hasImpression, Sunrise,

Impression, Sunrise, clause Monet, author photo

 the painting by Monet that gave the movement its name. In it Monet painted a sunrise over Le Havre harbor, showing how the water and the sun’s reflections on it sparkled and changed moment by moment. Sunrise was in the Impressionist’s first exhibit in 1874, and a magazine critic made fun of the paintings, especially Monet’s. The critic titled his article, “Exhibition of the Impressionists,” and the name stuck.

Seeing that painting at the Marmottan , and sitting surrounded by water lily paintings and wandering through the galleries to see other works was a delightful way to prepare us for our visit to Giverny, the inspiration for the water lily paintings that occupied Monet for the last 20 years of his life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

From my last post:   Here are the answers to the differences between the subjects preferred by some Impressionists

• Monet and Pisarro both favored landscapes, but when Monet included people, they were middle class people enjoying a walk or time in a garden. Pissarro painted country scenes, which often showed peasants at work in gardens and fields.
• Renoir and Degas preferred to paint people, but Renoir liked to paint happy people dancing or  dining at cafes. His women and children are dressed in their best. Degas painted a more work-a-day world of laundresses and poorer girls, who became ballerinas to earn a living.
• Morisot and Cassatt made moving and beautiful paintings of family members, especially of mothers and children. They may have wished to branch out more, (Cassatt once did paintings of bull fighters), but middle class women led a fairly restricted life at this time. They couldn’t roam Paris or the countryside on their own, as did the men.

Activities

1. Read about Baron Haussmann and his modernization of Paris. Look at Gustave Caillebotte’s painting, Paris, a Rainy Day and paintings of Paris by other Impressionists to see some of those wide boulevards and iconic apartment buildings
2. Look at some of Monet’s paintings that include water, one of his favorite subjects. It’s fun to see how he painted reflections in short dashes of color.

Molly enjoyed the cooler autumn weather, too.

Next up, the train trip to Giverny, going through Gare St. Lazare, the same train station that the Impressionists often used, and that Monet painted  a number of times.

Sign up to receive the next Kathythepicturelady post and read about the Impressionists’ love of trains.

All photos in this post were taken by the author.