Ushering in spring with Walters exhibit

Perhaps there is a subconscious link between spring and Impressionist art that museums are tapping into. This season, both the BMA and Walters Art Gallery are showcasing exhibits on Impressionism as though to drive home the parallel between raw energy of brush stroke on canvas with the pulses of awakening life outside. While the BMA concentrates on the life and works of the English master J.M.W. Turner, the Walters has staged a broader, fast-paced, more comprehensive exhibit. The title says it all; "The Age of Impressionism" recreates the movement's whole momentum by skillfully organizing the canvases of Corot, Courbet, Manet, Morisot, Monet, Sissley, Pissaro, Cezanne, Renoir, Degas, Gaugin and Matisse, among others.

An added plus is the aura of prestige hanging over the Walters exhibit; the paintings belong to the exclusive Ordrupgaard collection housed in Denmark, and this is the first time they have been taken out of wraps to be toured around the U.S. The introductory chamber displays a placard on the collection's history, along with the only Cezanne in the house-the oil Women Bathing which depicts curvaceous nudes standing out against a hazy background, with patches of purple, lavender, smoky blue, pink and green dappling their bare bodies.The painting not only fast-forwards to the climax of the movement, which the exhibit later spends time building up towards, but provides a fresher, more erotic perspective on Cezanne, who is known primarily for his still lives of fruit.

One of the best points of the exhibit is the sense of momentum it gets across. By carefully setting the stage, the exhibit emphasizes the ideas driving the Impressionist movement-for without locating Impressionism in time by looking at the conventions it challenged, it's hard to grasp just how daring the movement was. In the first room, we are walked through all the transitions. The exhibit compares high finish and polished surfaces of the Classical tradition with Delacroix's portrait of George Sand, with its more emotional and spontaneous use of paint.As we move around the room, the exhibit introduces us to the paintings of Honore Daumier, who is known mostly as the cartoonist par excellence for his satirical drawings of French society.What's new and fresh about a painting like The Wrestler is the sketchy, loose use of paint and the focus on the everyday world and inner life of the working class, which became so important to the Impressionists later on.

But what about the outdoors, the landscapes that the Impressionists were able to paint sobrilliantly?What influences took them outside the studios, to paint nature face to face? The exhibit shows us the work of some of the first artists to paint outside: Gustave Courbet, who applied paint on canvas with a palette knife to give his landscapes a ruggedness and raw physical power, and Camille Corot, who actually valued the landscape above his human figures rather than as background.In Corot's Hamlet and the Gravediggers, for instance, the focus is the dark mysterious landscape with the forest spilling over one side of the canvas, not the tiny figures the title describes.

From early influences, the exhibit moves on the Impressionist masters themselves. A large room showcases some of the early Impressionists like Boudin and Guillamin, as well as mature Impressionists like Sissley and Monet. Keep an eye out for Guillamin's amazing Quai de Beras, a painting of a steamboat chugging up a river. The whole painting actually seems alive, vibrating with tension that comes from the strokes of wildly improbable colors put together; the river and the steamboat are made up of zigzags of apple green, bright neon pink, orange-red, brown-green, dark blue and powder blue.For those who adore Monet for his famous water lilies and garden paintings, the earlier canvases shown in the exhibit are somewhat disappointing. Keeping the mature genius in mind, though, the early works tell us a story and give us a sense of development, which is what the exhibit is all about.

Also watch out for Sissley's Factory on the Banks of the Seine; the painting knits the smoke from some smoke stacks into the flow and visual harmony of the country scene. This reminds us that Impressionism developed along an accelerating Industrial Revolution, and many Impressionist artists celebrated the speed, energy and power of the modern world.

The exhibit itself gathers speed as we move on to the other grand artists. In an intimate room, we are introduced to Camille Pisarro, whose Plum Trees in Blossom and Corner at the Garden in Eragny actually rivals the best of Monet.The exquisite surplus of color in the foliage, the white blossoms, the plum colored shadows thrown on the walkways - all give us what we love best in Impressionism. In fact, I was so enthralled with this room that I decided to switch my allegiance from Monet to Pisarro.

The exhibit then moves to the splendors of Manet, Morisot, Degas and Renoir. In any exhibit, it's refreshing to come across women artists, but what I particularly like about the collection is that it showcases a woman other than the celebrated Cassatt.Berthe Morisot is in herself a treasure; watch the lovely swirling color in the girl's face in The Red Jacket, Portrait of Mlle Isabelle Lambert, which gets anchored against the swirling green grass by the girl's bonnet and brilliant red jacket. And how is it possible to do justice to Degas without including some of his ballerina masterpieces?The exhibit has two spectacular pastels on ballerinas; but while you are sighing over the texture and color of the dresses and his sense of body and muscle, keep your eyes open for quieter pastels like Woman Arranging her Hair, which is a miracle in lime green and rust brown.

A good finale is key to any production; an exhibit is no exception.For its conclusion, "The Age of Impressionism" ripples out into Post-Impressionism, showing works of Matisse and the dreamy, visionary Gaugin. On the whole, "The Age of Impressionism" is one of those not-to-miss exhibits which captures a movement's momentum - it makes sense to call it the age of impressionism - and deftly brings together the diverse styles and visions of the Impressionist painters, recreating the movement's wholeness and its diversity.