Impressionism

The road to impressionism -- and, with it, the birth of modernism -- led through the tiny French village of Barbizon, a picturesque rural hamlet some 40 miles southeast of Paris on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. There, starting in the second quarter of the 19th century, artists such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Charles-Francois Daubigny and Jean-Francois Millet began practicing a new way of portraying nature, taking their easels and canvases outdoors to paint spontaneously in the open air. The artists of the Barbizon school were Romantics and radicals who believed in the superiority of emotion and imagination over rationality, individual expression over academic formalism and convention.

T he Coming Storm is going away for awhile. So is The Goose Girl. And one of Alfred Sisley's Impressionist paintings. Maryland's temporary loss will be Tennessee's and Pennsylvania's gain, when 32 paintings from the 19th century leave the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore next month to go on the road for nearly a year as a traveling exhibit titled The Road to Impressionism: Barbizon Landscapes from the Walters Art Museum. Directors announced this month that the museum will close its 19th-century galleries from Aug. 18 to Oct. 10 so many of the paintings now on display there can be prepared for the tour.

The Phillips Collection in Washington is an assemblage of masterpieces of modern art. It has great paintings by Cezanne, van Gogh, Picasso, Braque, Kandinsky, and on and on -- you name the modern master and they most likely have pictures by him, often famous ones. But the most famous of them all is Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" (1880-1881), that icon of impressionism, that glorious picture of a happy group of people gathered to eat, drink and be merry on a sunny afternoon.There are many reasons for its appeal.

Renoir Landscapes, now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, comprises about 60 works from the early part of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's career. The French artist led the development of Impressionism. His robust and colorful works often captured people in intimate settings. The exhibit will be on display through Jan. 6 at the museum, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Admission is $14 for adults; $12 for seniors; $10 for students with valid identification; and free for children younger than 12. The art museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

A reference on the cover of Sunday's Arts & Society section to an art exhibit misidentified the venue presenting the show. The Road to Impressionism can be seen at the Walters Art Museum. The Sun regrets the error.

* Joan Mitchell, 66, an American painter whose canvases were a synthesis of expressionism and impressionism, died Friday in Paris, where she had lived off-and-on since 1955. The cause was not announced. Some critics thought she reinvented % 5/8 impressionism, adding a touch of American expressionism. Her works were regularly displayed in Paris and New York. In 1989, she received France's prestigious National Grand Prize for Painting.* Ted Thomas, 88, a Broadway and Hollywood producer, died of a heart attack Wednesday at his home in Van Nuys, Calif.

If you're yearning to surround yourself with the bright colors of Provence or the quaint charm of old Paris, the Walters Art Museum can help. Accompanying its current impressionism exhibit is a shop featuring a collection of items ready to bring the spirit of France into your home. There are yellow and blue French provincial canisters, quiche dishes, souffle dishes and teapots, shop signs from Paris, French-inspired flowerpots, containers and table linens and other items. Prices for ceramics range from $19 to $90, signs range from $66 to $186, and linens are priced from $6 to $75. The impressionism shop, which accompanies "The Age of Impressionism: European Masterpieces from Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen," will remain open through May 26, when the exhibition closes.

Renoir Landscapes, now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, comprises about 60 works from the early part of Pierre-Auguste Renoir's career. The French artist led the development of Impressionism. His robust and colorful works often captured people in intimate settings. The exhibit will be on display through Jan. 6 at the museum, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Admission is $14 for adults; $12 for seniors; $10 for students with valid identification; and free for children younger than 12. The art museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday.

Impressionism wasn't born in a vacuum. It didn't light up like an electric bulb over the heads of Monet and his colleagues one summer afternoon.Instead, over a considerable period there were many people who set the stage for movement impressionism, including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875).As a companion to its current "Monet" exhibit, the Baltimore Museum of Art has mounted a highly rewarding small show of "Corot: Prelude to Impressionism," which leaves a few impressions of its own.First impression: To look at these Corots is to know that impressionism came from something, but that's not to say Corot was an impressionist.

She was speakingas the car swerved by lit developmentswhere families ate through Jeopardyand yawned through Beverly Hills 90210.''You know, about Gauguin, his colorswere never the same after Martiniqueand Panama with Charles Laval.Still, he had his son, Emile,with him in Paris, the other fourwith his wife in her home, Holland.It was mainly the brush strokesthat Gauguin changed, VanGogh andhe not agreeing right up tothe night Vincent cut off his ear.Yes, Gauguin was there, the twoof them fighting across theArles countryside and absinthesinstead of dinner when theycould afford only one or the other.

Eugene Leake, the big-hearted painter of Maryland landscapes who died last week at the age of 93, never thought of himself as an innovator, though the marvelous brush-strokes of his earth-toned pallette made all his pictures seem as distinctive as a fingerprint. "Don't give a damn about it," he told a reporter in 2002 of his place in history. "To be a really important artist, you've got to be an innovator," he went on. "But I'm not." Leake had no need to worry about his legacy, of course, because he was by then so well assured an honored place in the hearts of his fellow Marylanders.

A reference on the cover of Sunday's Arts & Society section to an art exhibit misidentified the venue presenting the show. The Road to Impressionism can be seen at the Walters Art Museum. The Sun regrets the error.

The road to impressionism -- and, with it, the birth of modernism -- led through the tiny French village of Barbizon, a picturesque rural hamlet some 40 miles southeast of Paris on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau. There, starting in the second quarter of the 19th century, artists such as Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Theodore Rousseau, Charles-Francois Daubigny and Jean-Francois Millet began practicing a new way of portraying nature, taking their easels and canvases outdoors to paint spontaneously in the open air. The artists of the Barbizon school were Romantics and radicals who believed in the superiority of emotion and imagination over rationality, individual expression over academic formalism and convention.

Focus on Impressionism Impressionism is the focus of the Walters' latest exhibit, which opens Sunday. The Road to Impressionism: Landscapes From Corot to Monet includes works from Barbizon artists. Innovations from the artists of the Barbizon school led to the development of Impressionism. The Barbizon artists sought to capture changing moods of light and atmosphere in their landscapes, instead of depicting them in an idealized form. The exhibition features 70 works, with paintings by Jean-Francois Millet and Theodore Rousseau, leaders of the Barbizon school, and major Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet.

Over the past 20 years Annapolis has grown into a center of American Impressionism. From the beginning, artist Lee Boynton has been a major participant, known for his ability to capture light in watercolor and oil. Boynton studied with American Impressionist Henry Hensche, who concentrated on color and light at his Cape Cod School of Art. In 1983 Boynton watched the 82-year-old artist paint still lifes in vivid color, describing Hensche as "creating sunlight...

As a young artist, Paul Cezanne once remarked that he wanted "to make of Impressionism something solid and durable, like the art of the museums." And so he did: By the end of his career Cezanne not only had taken impressionism far beyond the recording of ephemeral effects of light and color but laid the foundations for all the important modern art movements that would follow. Matisse considered Cezanne his greatest teacher, and artists as varied as Russian Chaim Soutine, Frenchmen Maurice Vlaminck, Raoul Dufy and Andre Derain and Americans John Marin and Charles Demuth all found Cezanne a source of inspiration.

Focus on Impressionism Impressionism is the focus of the Walters' latest exhibit, which opens Sunday. The Road to Impressionism: Landscapes From Corot to Monet includes works from Barbizon artists. Innovations from the artists of the Barbizon school led to the development of Impressionism. The Barbizon artists sought to capture changing moods of light and atmosphere in their landscapes, instead of depicting them in an idealized form. The exhibition features 70 works, with paintings by Jean-Francois Millet and Theodore Rousseau, leaders of the Barbizon school, and major Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet.

You say you don't like your art made of pickled animal parts or icons smeared with elephant dung?Then fuhgeddabout this year's art-world anarchy, the controversial "Sensation" exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. Instead, hie yourself back a century or so to France, where Manet, Monet and their crew really turned the art world upside down with the first modernist revolution.Today, that revolution comes to the Baltimore Museum of Art in "Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections," a fascinating homage to the art world's most famous former bad boys (and girls)

If you're yearning to surround yourself with the bright colors of Provence or the quaint charm of old Paris, the Walters Art Museum can help. Accompanying its current impressionism exhibit is a shop featuring a collection of items ready to bring the spirit of France into your home. There are yellow and blue French provincial canisters, quiche dishes, souffle dishes and teapots, shop signs from Paris, French-inspired flowerpots, containers and table linens and other items. Prices for ceramics range from $19 to $90, signs range from $66 to $186, and linens are priced from $6 to $75. The impressionism shop, which accompanies "The Age of Impressionism: European Masterpieces from Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen," will remain open through May 26, when the exhibition closes.

Most people think of the museum as a place to look at art, without troubling themselves too much about how the art got there in the first place. Yet the truth is that most of the art on display in museums today is there only because someone has given it to an institution. Robert Tannahill of Detroit was one such public-spirited benefactor. An heir to a wealthy industrial family, he became a pivotal figure in introducing modern art to the United States during the first half of the 20th century.