Fall has been good to the Baltimore art lover: Rembrandt at Homewood on campus, In Monet's Light at the BMA and now The Road to Impressionism at the Walters. The latest offering by the famous Mount Vernon museum is a collection of over seventy works of art that tell the story of the Barbizon school of landscape painting. Broad in its scope and elegant in its presentation, The Road to Impressionism is a worthy tribute to the "painters who impressed the Impressionists," as well as a welcome reminder to the average American that nineteenth century European art does not begin and end with Claude Monet.
During the mid-nineteenth century, a group of French painters made their home the village of Barbizon, southwest of Paris. There, the group focused on the countryside, from the fields that shimmered in the sun to the banks that framed rivers in shadow. They broke with the past, not only with their bold brush strokes and fascination with France, but also with their interest in art and travel. With their exploration of the relationship between nature and color and light, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and company paved the titular "road to Impressionism."
The exhibition spans a series of open rectangular rooms with walls of slate and smoke that provide a rich but subtle background. A clever and graceful hand is evident in the arrangement of the works of art according to themes based upon elements of nature. The curator's notes mix analyses of art with biographical information and provide the visitor with a well-rounded portrait of both painting and painter.
The first painting in the exhibition, Corot's "The Evening Star" (1849), sets the tone with its focus on changes in light during sunset and its use of nature as a frame for the people within the painting. "The Evening Star" connects not only the viewer to the pre-Impressionist movement but also the pre-Impressionist movement to Baltimore. William Walters, founder of the museum, knew Corot and commissioned the painting for his daughter Jennie.
The first grouping focuses on the forest of Fontainebleau, an endless expanse that surrounds the village of Barbizon. The works of art form a charming whole in their breadth and depth, from Antoine Louis Barye's playful "Tiger Rolling" (1850) to Virgile Narcisse Diaz de la Pena's "The Forest of Fontainebleau" (1871), a painting of bold color and light that looks like a "pile of jewels."
The second grouping, "Environs of Paris," moves closer to the city but stops short of entering its man-made glory. The artists instead depict Paris as a part of nature by setting it against the endless expanse of land and sky. Theodore Rousseau's "Frost Effect" (1845) overwhelms the viewer with its size and scope, despite its muted light and its use of gray-infused blues and purples. Leon Bonvin elicits the same effect by taking the opposite approach. He shows that nature is a world unto itself with small watercolors that focus on a single person, place, or object, such as birds or flowers. They are striking in their quiet elegance. As noted by the curator, Bonvin's focus on the "four seasons" and his "varied use of light" were a precursor to Impressionism.
The focus shifts from land to sea as the third grouping consists of scenes of the Seine. They are reminiscent of the style of the English artist John Constable and soothing in their simplicity but dull in comparison to the vivid depictions of the forest of Fontainebleau and environs of Paris. Nonetheless, a clever transition occurs while viewing three paintings that sit side-by-side. Charles-Francoise Daubigny's "Twilight" (1866) stands in self-contained and shadowed contrast to his "The Coming Storm" (1871), a painting of "loose spontaneous brushwork and rich use of color." Its splashes of Kelly green and cerulean blue and softening of such details as people and objects in service of emphasizing the titular storm neatly move the visitor's focus to Alfred Sisley's "The Terrace of St. Germain" (1875), a painting that is boldly and fully Impressionist.
The final grouping focuses on the Normandy Coast, broadening the exhibition's scope in terms of both location and style. Among the notable pieces within the grouping are Daubigny's "Sunset on the Court of Villerville" (1875), a physically imposing landscape whose treatment of sea and sky is a study in the nuances of color, and Auguste-Emile Flick's "Beach at Fecamp" (1875), a jaunty portrait of beachgoers that resembles the bright, light, and airy European travel ads of the mid-twentieth century. The last painting in the both the grouping and the exhibition is Monet's "Windmills Near Zaandaam," a landscape of the Dutch countryside rendered in subtle color and light and simple shapes with undefined lines. Its "peasant subject, gestural brushwork, and expansive sky suggest Monet's continued respect for his early Barbizon mentors."
"The Road to Impressionism" is on display through Jan. 17 in the Centre Street building of the Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. in Mt. Vernon.
