The Bridge to Nowhere

Go to any major museum in the world with a decent Impressionist collection and you’ll see at least one of Claude Monet’s signature series subjects, whether it be Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, Poplars, the Houses of Parliament, Mornings on the Seine, or the Water Lilies. Born November 14, 1840, Monet loved to muse over the same subject endlessly, painting it in all types of weather and light. When he built his home in Giverny, Monet set up a beautiful garden in that he could paint to his heart’s content. One of the more exotic features of Monet’s garden remains the Japanese Bridge that appears in such works as Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies (above, from 1899). Unlike the “Bridge to Nowhere” made infamous by the recent American election, Monet’s “bridge to nowhere” actually led to a world of improvisation and experimentation. The Giverny garden served as a laboratory for Monet in which he could mix and match natural elements completely under his control to get at the effects locked away in his imagination and longing to be freed.

Over time, Monet’s improvisations got wilder and wilder. The Japanese Bridge (above, from 1918-1924), painted nearly a quarter century after the Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies of 1899 and completed just two years before Monet’s death, barely acknowledges the physical fact of a bridge arching over a lily-strewn pond. At this point, the actual bridge was superfluous for Monet. Monet’s cataracts may have contributed to the increasing unreality of his work, but the general direction of Monet’s painting was away from realism and more towards the borders of abstraction. Some argue that the choice of bright, almost acidic color also indicates the effect of Monet’s vision problems as he strained to see what he was painting and, like an elderly person turning up the volume on a television to hear better, pumped up the “volume” of his color to compensate for his declining eyesight. Medical issues aside, Monet demonstrates a greater degree of freedom in his later years. To look at one of these later works closely, you could easily imagine Chaim Soutine or any other impasto master of modern art painting in the same way.

For the last decades of his life, Monet became a victim of his own celebrity. Étienne Clémentel’s photo of Claude Monet in his garden (above, from 1917) shows the master at a rare moment of peace from well wishers and other artists looking to learn the secrets of the man whose painting, Impression, Sunrise, gave the name to an entire movement. American artists such as Theodore Robinson sought out Monet aggressively. Robinson and Monet actually became close friends, but many other, less-talented artists simply drained Monet’s energy. Today, artists and art lovers make pilgrimages to Monet’s garden at Giverny, still maintained the way Monet left it after his death over eighty years ago. For a movement based on freedom and openness, it is ironic that Monet’s controlled environment remains as the central cathedral of Impressionism, the one place unquestionably linked with Monet. The Japanese Bridge still leads physically to nowhere, but Monet’s paintings of it lead back to the workings of an obsessively creative, infinitely innovative imagination.

Lessons Learned

Whenever I see the name Jean-Leon Gerome I immediately think of his greatest student and one of my favorite artists, Thomas Eakins. Born May 11, 1824, Gerome taught many great artists in addition to Eakins (including Abbott Handerson Thayer, J. Alden Weir, Mary Cassatt, and Theodore Robinson, just to name prominent Americans), but he was a remarkable artist in his own right, albeit a bit of an anachronism stylistically as Impressionism raged all around him and he continued to paint neo-classically. The more I look at Gerome’s work, the more I search for keys to Eakins’ development. When I look at Gerome’s Phryne before the Areopagus (above, from 1861), I imagine Eakins having it in mind while painting The Agnew Clinic, in which another woman appears revealed before a semicircle of men, but in an operating theater rather than an ancient judicial chamber. Gerome’s Phryne before the Areopagus brought him condemnation for what many saw as a gratuitous excuse for painting a nude woman, yet he continued to paint classically inspired nudes for the rest of his life. Years later, when Eakins faced similar approbation for unashamedly studying the human body (and encouraging his own students to do the same), Eakins may have drawn strength from his old teacher’s example.

Gerome is known primarily as an Orientalist painter, traveling throughout Africa and the Middle East in search of material he translated into works such as Public Prayer in the Mosque of Amr Cairo (above, from 1870). It’s truly heartening to view the dignity with which Gerome depicts different cultures in works such as A Japanese Imploring a Divinity (1880), The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau (1864), The Wailing Wall, and Recreation in a Russian Camp, Souvenir of Moldavia (1855). Sure, paintings of slave markets and harems can be found in Gerome’s oeuvre, but a single painting such as A Muezzin Calling from the Top of a Minaret the Faithful to Prayer (1879) outweighs all the cheesecake nudes painted for a buying (male) audience. Eakins rarely travelled, but it’s easy to see the same inquisitive nature that led Gerome to explore the world at large in Eakins’ paintings of the scientists, physicians, and clergy found mostly around his native Philadelphia.

The fact that both Gerome and Eakins struggled with public perception of their painted nudes took a similar toll on both artists. In 1895, Gerome painted himself sculpting a young nude woman in his studio, calling it The Artist's Model (above). From the positioning of the woman and the title of the work, Gerome clearly wanted to emphasize the importance of the human figure to his work. Gerome’s 1849 painting Michelangelo (aka, In His Studio) similarly placed the master beside the Belvedere Torso, just one of the classical nude statues that influenced Michelangelo’s works. I don’t know what paintings of Gerome’s Eakins may have seen, but in 1877 Eakins painted William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of the Schuylkill River, showing his American predecessor William Rush working from a live, nude model just as Gerome looked back at Michelangelo’s example. In 1908, four years after Gerome’s death and just 8 years before his own, Eakins returned to the subject in William Rush and his Model. Although the title says Rush’s name, the artist shown is clearly a self-portrait of Eakins, who helps his nude model step down from the podium, allowing the human form itself to take center stage, just as in Gerome’s painting. I’ve never seen anything written about whether Eakins knew that late painting by Gerome. It would be even more remarkable if Eakins didn’t know it, as it would illustrate just how attuned these two artists—student and teacher—truly were, irrespective of time and place. Great minds, at least in this case, thought alike.

In the Fields

American Impressionist Robert Vonnoh was born on September 17, 1858. Vonnoh remains one of the many forgotten figures of American Impressionism. While other American artists such as Theodore Robinson were learning Impressionism at Giverny at the feet of Claude Monet, Vonnoh studied in Grez-sur-Loing and Paris, more rural centers of art study. Vonnoh’s most well-known work doesn’t even carry the title he gave it—Coquelicots (i.e., Poppies). A later owner added the name of John McCrae’s World War I poem “In Flanders Fields—Where Soldiers Sleep and Poppies Grow,” incongruously covering over Vonnoh’s tranquil scene with the horror of war, perhaps to match the incongruousness of the original poem. This switch seems to be indicative of Vonnoh’s luck—always in the wrong place or at the wrong time.

Vonnoh’s style emulates that of fellow American Impressionist J. Alden Weir in subjects such as his The Bridge at Grez (above) from 1907-1911. At other times, as in Poppies (top of post), he’s a colorist styled after Monet himself. This chameleon aspect of Vonnoh testifies to his great technical skills and versatility, but, again, makes it tough to pin him down as an artist. Vonnoh put those great technical skills to good use as a professor at several institutions, including the PAFA from 1891 through 1896.

Vonnoh’s married the diminutive sculptor Bessie Potter in 1899 and they remained together until his death in 1933. Bessie became one of the first American woman sculptors to rise to prominence. Vonnoh’s portrait of his wife (above) from 1907 shows her working and clearly demonstrates his pride in her skill. This portrait departs markedly from his Impressionist style, featuring instead the dark background and realistic approach of the school of Thomas Eakins, which Vonnoh may have absorbed during his tenure at the PAFA, along with some free brushwork in depicting the folds of her clothing. What Vonnoh could have achieved under the right circumstances we’ll never know.

Student and Teacher

“Paint like Velazquez! Paint like Velazquez!” extolled Carolus-Duran, the great French portraitist and teacher of John Singer Sargent. Born on July 4, 1837 as Charles Auguste Emile Durand, Carolus-Duran had a lasting influence on Sargent, who attended his atelier from 1874 through 1878 and painted the Velazquez-esque portrait above of his teacher in 1879. Sargent was obviously listening.



Carolus-Duran earned a rakish reputation during his days in Paris, growing nearly as famous for his good looks as for his painting skills and talent as a teacher. He demonstrated an early willingness to accept foreign students in the tough world of the Paris art schools, to the benefit of Americans such as Sargent and Theodore Robinson, who studied briefly under Carolus-Duran before embracing Impressionism and meeting Claude Monet. Working directly on the canvas, with no preparatory drawings or underpainting, Carolus-Duran promoted a bold, fresh style of painting in tune with the philosophy of the Impressionists if not with their subject matter or style. In works such as his Danae (above), you can see the brilliant attention to detail and careful brushstrokes, as well as the sexual freedom in the air of late 19th century Paris.


But Carolus-Duran’s claim to fame during his lifetime was the society portrait. As seen in The Merrymakers (above), Carolus-Duran could paint textures and surfaces with such a fidelity that Sargent must have learned some of his tricks from the master. Carolus-Duran recognized Sargent’s talent early, inviting him and only two other students on a special painting trip in 1875 to Nice, France. The shadow under the knife at the edge of the table is one of those little details that go unnoticed but are as much a signature of mastery as the name written in the corner. Carolus-Duran’s paintings are little known today, but his contribution to the education of Sargent alone earns him a place in the halls of art history.

An American Vision

Ernest Lawson (1873-1939), Spring Night, Harlem River, 1913; Oil on canvas mounted on panel, 25 1/8 x 30 1/8 in.; The Phillips Collection, acquired 1920

Holding up the works of American Impressionists to the best France had to offer, Duncan Phillips, founder of The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC once said, “Monet was only an eye, whereas Twachtman, Weir, and Lawson are also temperaments.” The singular vision of Duncan Phillips once focused tightly on American Impressionists, which made up 87 of the 237 paintings displayed when The Phillips’ doors opened in 1921. The exhibit American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection tries to recapture that moment in art history when American Impressionism stood high in American art circles and Duncan Phillips was at the center of that ascendancy.

In the companion catalogue to the exhibit, American Impressionists: Painters of Light and the Modern Landscape, Susan Behrends Frank, Assistant Curator at The Phillips Collection, pays tribute to and chronicles the journey of Duncan Phillips as he struggled to become an art critic and then amassed his renowned collection. William H. Gedts, perhaps the foremost authority on American Impressionism, provides additional context to Frank’s essay with his own essay exploring the larger reception of Impressionism in America. At the heart of both essays lies the story of the struggles Phillips and the American Impressionists had first to overcome resistance to Impressionism and then to decide what “American” Impressionism truly meant. From the very beginning, Phillips boldly hung works such as Ernest Lawson’s Spring Night, Harlem River (above) next to works by Claude Monet, the quintessential Impressionist for most Americans at the time, intentionally inviting comparisons with a faith that the Americans could hold their own and that America deserved a place next to Europe in the world of art.

Julian Alden Weir (1852-1919), Afternoon by the Pond, Ca. 1908-1909; Oil on canvas, 25 1/8 x 30 in.; The Phillips Collection, acquired 1921

After seeing the collections of the Corcoran Gallery and the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, Phillips forged “an intensely self-conscious focus on the evolution of his collection in comparison… in the late teens,” Frank explains. Augustus Vincent Tack, a student of John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, and William Merritt Chase, became an early mentor to Phillips as he developed his critical eye and fostered contacts within American Impressionist circles. Late, Weir himself befriended Phillips and challenged him to hang the works of Americans beside those of the great European Impressionists. Through Weir’s influence, Frank explains, Phillips sought “American artists who, he believed, expressed spiritual truth as well as visual truth” in the vein of early visionaries such as George Inness, in contrast to “the theatrical vision” of the Hudson River School. Weir himself fit this bill nicely, as can be seen in his Afternoon by the Pond (above), an intimate scene of nature full of the silent, contemplative spirituality Phillips came to favor.

John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902), Summer, Late 1890s; Oil on canvas, 30 x 53 in.; The Phillips Collection, acquired 1919

Another spiritual American Impressionist Phillips learned to love through Weir was Twachtman, whom Phillips always regretted never meeting himself. Works such as
Summer (above) inspired Phillips to say that in Twachtman “impressionism [had been] carried to the heights of spiritual expression.” “Few, if any, landscape painters were more sensitive or subtle,” Phillips wrote of Twachtman. Phillips passionately collected all the Twachtman paintings he could in the years before the opening of The Phillips Collection.

Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Washington Arch, Spring, Ca. 1893; Oil on canvas, 27 1/8 x 22 ½ in.; The Phillips Collection, acquired 1921

Sadly, Phillips relationship with Childe Hassam, the American Impressionist he ranked only behind Twachtman and Weir in greatness, was more stormy. Phillips continued to collect Hassam’s work, but never with the same enthusiasm as he brought to Twachtman and Weir’s art. In the late 1920s, Hassam and Phillips argued over the direction Phillips’ collection was taking, with Hassam denigrating Phillips' taste in art as “opinionated ignorance.” However, Phillips continued to value works such as Hassam’s Washington Arch, Spring (above), one of the highlights of The Phillips Collection and of all American Impressionism.

Allen Tucker (1866-1939), The Rise, Undated; Oil on canvas, 30 ½ x 36 in.; The Phillips Collection, acquired 1927

With the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression in the United States, The Phillips Collection fell on hard times and the market for American Impressionism slumped. At the 1913 Armory Show in New York City, where the works of Marcel Duchamp and Henri Matisse first exploded on the American art scene, the conservative aspects of Impressionism made the movement seem a thing of the past. Phillips himself began to collect more modernist works. In retrospect, he realized that his collection of American Impressionists helped pave the way for these modern movements. Works such as The Rise (above) by Allen Tucker, once called “The American Van Gogh,” signaled a new period for Impressionism in America.

Today, American Impressionism has achieved a rebirth among art critics. After little interest during the 1940s and 1950s, several collections of solely American Impressionism rose in the 1960s. The long-overdue recognition of the achievement of Twachtman, Weir, and Hassam, as well as that of other American Impressionists such as Maurice Prendergast, Theodore Robinson, Edmund Tarbell, and many others, owes much to Duncan Phillips and his museum. The exhibit American Impressionism: Paintings from The Phillips Collection recaptures a landmark moment in American art and allows us to live it once again.

[Many thanks to The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC for providing me with a review copy of the catalogue and the images from the exhibit.]

In Monet’s Shadow

Theodore Robinson, perhaps the finest of the American Impressionists, was born on June 3, 1852. Robinson traveled to Giverny, France in 1888 to meet Claude Monet and eventually became Monet’s next door neighbor and close confidant. Robinson’s Valley of the Seine from Giverny Heights appears above.

After studying with Carolus-Duran (also the teacher of John Singer Sargent) and Jean-Leon Gerome (also the teacher of Thomas Eakins), Robinson traveled to Giverny as part of the colonizing wave of American painters seeking out Monet and the secrets of Impressionism. One painter, Theodore Butler, even married the daughter of Monet’s companion, much to the displeasure of Monet, as can be seen in Robinson’s diary entry. “Monet rather upset and apprehensive, which is perhaps natural enough—I had to reassure him,” Robinson writes. Robinson commemorated the wedding with his painting The Wedding March (below).

I’ve always thought of Robinson and John Twachtman as the two finest American Impressionists. Robinson returned to American in 1892 and eventually taught briefly at the PAFA. Because his style was so close to that of Monet’s, he suffers in Monet’s shadow. The 2005 exhibit titled In Monet’s Light: Theodore Robinson at Giverny helped bring Robinson out of that formidable shadow.