Introducing Impressionism: The Americans and Claude Monet (1885-1893)

Claude Monet (1840-1926). Hardly an unfamiliar name to anyone who knows the history of art. If the art of the Renaissance in the early 1500’s, in the minds of many, can be reduced to a duo (Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo), then that of the French Impressionists (in the late 1800’s) is often reduced to a trio (Monet, Renoir, and Van Gogh).

A quick note to clear up possible confusion. There were two French masters who overlapped in time: Edouard Manet (1832-1883) and Claude Monet. Manet preceded the Impressionists; to increase the confusion, Manet and Monet became friends (to the point that Monet paid for Manet’s funeral!).

If you are puzzled about my getting into this topic, regular reader, fear not! This is not a sudden excursion on my part into European art history. Rather, it’s an exploration of how Monet’s life and career intersected with American history. Monet of course deserves full credit for being an artistic superstar. But the history of all the arts is full of stories of people who were such superstars, but who failed to be recognized as such in their lifetimes- including dying in poverty and/or obscurity! One need look no further than Monet’s near-contemporary, Vincent Van Gogh, who famously sold just one painting before taking his own life at 37.

It turns out that Americans (dozens of them- as fellow painters, dealers, and collectors) played an essential role in making Monet a known superstar by the mid-1880’s (and indeed in making him one of the wealthiest artists of his time!). Monet was never particularly thrilled about most of the Americans who pushed themselves into his life, though his major dealer (Durand-Ruel) did recognize the “Yankees” value for both their careers. One exception: one American even became Monet’s son-in-law (twice!).

Yet Monet never came to the U.S. in all his long life, and indeed, by the period I’ll cover, rarely went very far from his small village of Giverny. All of this interaction between Monet and Americans took place at a time when critics in Monet’s own France were dismissive of his style and importance. During this period, Monet’s work became enormously influential for American painting (hence “American Impressionism), from the 1880’s to 1910’s.

That’s the story I’m going to tell.

First, a quick back story of Monet’s life and career before the Americans burst into both. He was born into a middle-class family in the large port of Le Havre; he faced the familiar opposition of a parent to his becoming a professional artist (from his father). That opposition led to his doing military service (in French colonial North Africa- until he got typhoid and had to come home!). Only then did he start to get art training in a Paris studio, where he met future fellow Impressionists Renoir and Pissarro. Fast forward, and these painters (and others), by the early 1870s, broke away from the strict conventions of the French art world (which required artists to be accepted each year by a conservative jury for a single annual show, the “Salon”). In 1874, this group put on their own alternative show (the first of eight); a critic trolled them as “Impressionists,” and the name stuck! Their new style would revolutionize art, but it didn’t sell at all at first.

One fellow Frenchman, art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922), saved their careers during this lean time. He had met Monet in 1870 when both of them were in London, escaping a foreign invasion (the Franco-Prussian War). In exile, Durand-Ruel improvised, essentially creating the way that art has been marketed ever since (high-profile auctions in elegant settings with beautiful catalogues, one-man shows, etc.). He also bought a lot of Impressionist works (over 5,000!), including 53% of Monet’s lifetime output (to the point of near-bankruptcy at times!). And he paid for artists’ rents, etc., keeping faith that they would eventually become commercially successful. He even hired Monet to paint panels in his Paris apartment.

The big breakthrough came in 1886 (after the Impressionists themselves had dissolved as a group). Monet by then had moved several times between small towns outside Paris, and had suffered a big personal loss (the death of his first wife Camille from cancer, at just 37). In 1883, as he was starting to have some success, he spotted another picturesque village, 40 miles west of Paris, from his train window (Giverny), and impulsively decided to move there (as it turned out, for the rest of his life). One American was already by then both working as an Impressionist (including joining their shows) and talking up her French friends back home- Mary Cassatt. As for Durand-Ruel, he was at the lowest financial point of his life. Then a New York dealer (James Sutton, the son-in-law of the founder of the famous New York department store, Macy’s) made him an offer. He would import more than 200 modern French paintings (including 50 Monets) for a show in Manhattan, including paying for the transportation. All Durand-Ruel had to do was to choose which to send (by the way, this was right after another famous French export to New York- the Statue of Liberty!). As the dealer put it, “we must succeed in revolutionizing this country of millionaires and try to become so ourselves”!

Having such a consequential contemporary art show come to New York at this point marks a remarkable historical convergence. France, humiliated and forced to give up territory and a massive reparations payment by German victory at the end of the Franco-Prussian War (1871), nevertheless managed, under its new Third Republic, to make a truly amazing comeback- not just as a powerhouse in science, technology and industry (to be symbolized by that Eiffel Tower!), but even more so as the cultural center of the whole Western world up to 1914. Today the 1871-1914 era is nostalgically remembered as the “Belle Epoque,” the “Beautiful Time”! Meantime, the U.S., after its own far bigger (and much more devastating) Civil War, was now in the midst of its “Gilded Age”. Its economy was expanding at a spectacular rate- thanks to cheap energy from coal, very cheap labor from millions of immigrants, and a seemingly endless stream of innovations (a transcontinental railroad, the telephone, electric light, etc. etc.). This boom led in turn to a far larger middle class, increasingly well educated and with buying power, while the rich were becoming really, really rich (no income tax!!). Hence the convergence: well-off Americans, entranced by European (especially French) culture, and eager to buy its beautiful objects (fashions as well as art), matched with a golden age in French arts!

The Sutton/Durand-Ruel 1886 show was very successful ($40,000!)- in the case of the French dealer, it changed his finances overnight from near-bankruptcy to decades of ever-increasing profits. So much so that by 1913 he was able to build an 8-story gallery and residence just off Fifth Ave.! And the show helped to make young American artists aware of the exciting new trends in French art.

Portrait of Claude Monet by John Singer Sargent (1887)- Public Domain (in Nat. Academy of Design)

Which brought many of them literally to Monet’s doorstep in Giverny (a village of only about 300). The typical pattern was for aspiring artists to go to Paris first for training (at least at the first “atelier” studio level- which encouraged women, at a higher fee than for men), followed (for the most talented few- men only) by admission to the elite Ecole des Beaux Arts. But these schools all closed for the summer (when Paris became unbearably hot, noisy, and smelly- remember this is the age of horses and horse manure!). So the artists would fan out for the season into the nearby countryside. The first wave started in 1885- with a (brief) visit by one of the most talented American artists of his time, John Singer Sargent (who would become a master portraitist- actually an expatriate who lived in Paris and London). Sargent did two paintings in the village that summer. A couple others arrived then too- one of whom suggested to the couple who ran the local cafe that they expand it into a small hotel for artists (still there- the Hotel Baudy). With its cheap wine, “ten-cent breakfast” (as one of the American paintings is called!), and location near Monet’s house, it took off immediately- adding rooms, Paris art supplies, a piano and billiard table, an entire backyard studio, American dishes on the menu, and even tennis courts (even though Monet, who apparently never learned English, avoided all interaction with most of the new foreign colony). One big mystery- what did the villagers think of all this commotion? None of the sources talk about that!

Hotel Baudy, home of the American art colony, in Giverny (1880s postcard)

The Americans (there were about 50 over the 1887-1890 summers, some staying only briefly) were mostly single young men, though there were a few married couples and single women (who were usually sisters or a pair of friends). Monet’s cool response also had to do with his unusual family setup (he would grumble: “Why do the Americans come to France to paint? Have they no landscape of their own?”). One of his very first patrons was a businessman named Ernest Hoschede; his wife was Alice, and the couple had 6 kids (5 daughters and a son). Hoschede started slipping into bankruptcy right after meeting Monet (who had two young sons from his first marriage); to economize, the Hoschedes moved in with the Monets. Then it got really complicated. Ernest went completely broke and moved out (coming back only for brief visits), while Monet and Alice fell in love! Divorce at this time was legally impossible in France; yet the two families effectively merged (it’s understandable that Monet took frequent trips away to paint, from a house with eight children!).

Portrait of Theodore Earl Butler by William Howard Hart (1897)- Terra Foundation for American Art

By the time the artists arrived, his stepdaughters were in their teens; not surprisingly, he was very protective! The Americans got the daughters away from Dad for skating parties over several winters. It turned out that there were two romances: one very brief (between Blanche and John Lewis Breck- Monet was initially friendly, but turned against it, making it clear that Breck had to leave; he committed suicide in Boston a few years later!). The second was deep and lasting- between the oldest, Suzanne (a frequent model for her father), and one of the most talented Americans, Theodore Butler (who courted her by sending boxes of violets!). Monet again tried to interfere at first, but this time was confronted by Alice and Butler’s friends, all allied in favor of the couple (Butler seems to have been very charming- a dapper dresser and fine harmonica player, and was fully absorbed into Monet’s family). They married in 1892 (commemorated by a painting by another American, Theodore Robinson), right after Alice and Claude Monet finally married at last (Ernest had died). Suzanne and Theodore had two children; tragically, Suzanne would die of cancer at just 30. But Butler would remarry- to another stepdaughter, Marthe (who had cared for his children during Suzanne’s fatal illness)! To top off this tale, one of her children would be the paternal great-grandmother of Pres. George H.W. Bush!!

"Wedding March" by Theodore Robinson (1892)- Suzanne Hoschede Monet & Theodore Butler (from Wikipedia.org)

During this “invasion” of foreign artists (eventually numbering 348, from 18 countries, by 1914, producing thousands of paintings!), Monet kept right on painting. One of his biggest innovations, for art and for his career, was his idea to paint in series. He did one as a young man (of the Paris St-Lazare train station), but his big breakthrough came in 1890-91, when he did the famous “Haystack” series (observing their pyramidal shapes under dramatically varying light changes). He put 15 of them in a show at Durand-Ruel’s in May 1891; and that’s when the collectors, especially the American ones, really came calling! Monet followed up with an even more influential series (of the front of the Cathedral in Rouen, the capital of Normandy, near Giverny; again exploring shifting patterns of light).

The most important of the American collectors was Bertha Palmer. She was one of the Gilded Age super-rich; married to the man who created Chicago’s first grand upscale department store and the owner of its most elegant hotel (at the time of the city’s post-Fire boom- America’s “Second City). She was introduced to Monet’s work by two other women: Impressionist Mary Cassatt, and dealer Sara Hallowell. The Palmers built “the Castle”- a mansion so extravagant that it changed the city’s growth (by creating the “Gold Coast” neighborhood of the rich). She alone would buy nearly 90 Monets, especially just before she organized the mammoth 1893 Columbian Exposition (which did even more to popularize the Impressionists in America).

All of this collecting meant that Monet became wealthy indeed (over 100,000 francs a year in his prime!): tailored English suits, a fleet of luxury cars, and famous gourmet dinners, not to mention a spectacular garden!

A few words about what made Monet such a draw (then and now). Our senses are our intermediaries with the physical world. The “Old Masters” of previous centuries often appealed to our sense of touch in their portraits: the supple feel of leather, the delicate lace of a collar, the hard gleam of armor or of a jewel in a woman’s necklace- all rendered through their skill with paint. Touch is the solid and (relatively) reliable sense, and that reliability (across centuries) is part of what those portraits continue to say. Monet’s stroke of genius lies in the opposite, through the way he worked with vision (arguably our most important sense) instead. He understood that we feel about the world around us largely by what we see. We experience it as dynamic and transitory, as the very opposite of solid: clouds roll in, rain falls, a rainbow appears for a moment. And those changes in turn affect our emotions and moods. The same view can look drab at one moment, and bright and appealing at another; clouds can be gray and ominous, or be big white cumulus billows that we connect to summer as a happy season. Monet focused on three transient features in particular: clouds (and the related steam from locomotives); the endless motion of water (in a pond or the sea); and, above all, the constant shift of light. He sought to use paint to express what he called the “envelope” of light- the very particular way it falls on a tree, a view of the seashore or on a valley, or on a woman’s dress- at an instant in time (hence an “impression”). This is what made his work so radical, and is what his American followers tried to understand and express in their own ways. If you haven’t yet experienced his magic, I strongly encourage you to see it (especially the real thing, in a museum)!

By the mid-1890’s, the first American wave had dissipated, mostly back to the U.S. (with Butler being an obvious exception!). The Giverny colony was not the first American art colony in France (those had started in the 1850's), but it had a dramatic impact on art back home (for example, many of the first Giverny group started up new colonies back home, such as at Old Lyme in Connecticut). Through these American artists and collectors, Impressionism overall was firmly established as a popular style (though not yet in France!);. A second wave would arrive from the late 1890’s to World War I; this group had no real connection at all to Monet, who never did take on a formal student. The next "modern" wave, replacing Impressionism, would arrive in the U.S. in another landmark show, at the New York Armory in 1913). Instead Monet was busy creating his famous water garden, with the help of his 6 gardeners, whose water lilies he would paint over 250 times (including his ultimate masterpiece, the grand circular installation of huge lily paintings in the French national Orangerie museum). His eyesight gradually failed, and he died in his 80’s in 1926. By then he had outlived both wives, one of his two sons, and two of his four stepdaughters (his American son-in-law, Butler, died in 1936).

I regret that I can’t reproduce the paintings themselves, both of Monet and by the many Americans he deeply influenced (including a large number who never did come to Giverny). The McCullough book is a fascinating overview of the host of talented Americans overall who converged on Paris in the 19th century. As for the American Impressionists, I couldn’t possibly fit discussion of them all in a blog post. The best way to appreciate them (without having to go to many widely scattered museums!) is through the reproductions in Gerdts’s big coffee table book. Joyes's book has photos of the Giverny Americans, and even has Monet's recipes! And there’s now a small museum, just of the American artists, in Giverny itself (which sees over 600,000 visitors a year; I went with a school group in 2007, and I highly recommend it!!). As for Monet, the biggest collection in the U.S. (over 30) is at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the biggest overall is in the Musee Marmottan in Paris, which has over 300! Finally, I can’t recommend the recent Wullschlager Monet biography highly enough.

I hope you've enjoyed this excursion into art history; as always, I welcome feedback and suggestions for topics!

RESOURCES:

n.a. (https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-1919728)

-(https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4387898)

-“Frederick William MacMonnies (1863–1937).”

(https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/frederick-william-macmonnies-1863-1937)

-“Giverny.” (https://www.phillipscollection.org/collection/giverny-0) Painting by Theodore Robinson.

-“Guy Orlando Rose 1867-1925” (https://www.johnmoran.com/artist/guy-orlando-rose/)

-“Guy Rose by Any Other Name Would Paint Just as Well.” (https://www.bowers.org/index.php/collections-blog/guy-rose-by-any-other-name-would-paint-just-as-well)

-“John Leslie Breck (Hong Kong, 1860- Boston, 1899).”

(https://www.mdig.fr/en/discover-the-museum/explore-impressionism/artists/john-leslie-breck-biography/)

-“Lilla Cabot Perry: An American Impressionist.”

(https://nmwa.org/exhibitions/lilla-cabot-perry-an-american-impressionist/)

-“Lilla Cabot Perry and Monet.”

(https://www.blowingrockmuseum.org/athome/docent-corner-perry-and-monet)

-“Louis Ritter 1854–1892.” (https://collection.terraamericanart.org/people/331)

-“Monet in America: how the US helped cement the reputation of one of the 20th century’s most coveted artists”

(https://www.christies.com/en/stories/claude-monet-in-america-3891ea0c9231476daeec4734814d4c8e)

-“Paul Durand-Ruel.” (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Durand-Ruel)

-“Theodore Wendel- Ipswich Impressionist.”

(https://www.incollect.com/articles/theodore-wendel)

-“The River Epte, Giverny” (https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/the-river-epte-giverny-john-leslie-breck/QQHyDXWC-4VLvg?hl=en) Painting by John Leslie Breck.

-“Willard L. Metcalf.” (https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/metcalf-willard-l)

-“Willard Metcalf, or “Metty” as he was called by his artist friends, found his artistic voice while staying with Miss Florence in Old Lyme.” (https://florencegriswoldmuseum.org/collections/online/fox-chase/fox-chase-willard-metcalf/)

Chernick, Karen. “How Mary Cassatt’s Brother Introduced Impressionism to Americans,” Artsy (Oct. 3, 2017)-

(https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-mary-cassatts-brother-introduced-french-impressionism-americans)

Genocchio, Benjamin. “In the Spirit of Giverny, Americans in France,” NY Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/nyregion/nyregionspecial2/29artsct.html) June 29, 2008.

Gerdts, William. “American Impressionism.” (1984) Really useful coffee-table.

Hendren, Claire. “French Impressionism in the United States’ Greater Midwest: The 1907–8 Traveling Exhibition.” (https://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring19/hendren-on-french-impressionism-in-the-united-states-greater-midwest-the-1907-8-traveling-exhibition)

“”Impressionist Art in Private Clubs: The Case Study of the Union League Club (1886-1902).” (https://doi.org/10.4000/transatlantica.10610)

Joyes, Claire. “The Taste of Giverny: At Home with Monet and the American Impressionists.” (2000)

Kelly, Simon. “How Monet became a millionaire: the importance of the artist’s account books.” Journal of Cultural Economics (2023) 47:437-460

(file:///Users/brycelittle/Downloads/s10824-023-09473-y.pdf) Very important source about his sales (especially to Americans).

King, Ross. “Show me the Monet.” (https://aeon.co/essays/was-claude-monet-the-jeff-koons-of-his-day)

McCullough, David. “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris.” (2011)

Pollock, Griselda. “The Overlooked Radicalism of Impressionist Mary Cassatt,” Frieze Issue 7 (https://www.frieze.com/article/overlooked-radicalism-impressionist-mary-cassatt), Sept. 3, 2018.

Simioni, Ana Paula Cavalcanti. “Académie Julian: the French artistic model from a Transatlantic perspective (1880-1920).” (https://www.transatlantic-cultures.org/es/catalog/academie-julian-the-french-artistic-model-from-a-transatlantic-perspective-1880-1920)

Te Papa. “Bridging the gap: Monet and American artists at Giverny.” (https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2013/10/04/bridging-the-gap-monet-and-american-artists-at-giverny/)

Weinberg, H. Barbara. “John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).” Timeline of Art History (https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/john-singer-sargent-1856-1925)

Wikipedia. “Monet.” Also various articles on American Impressionists.

Wullschlager, Jackie. “Monet: The Restless Vision.” (2023) Definitive biography.