The End of Impressionism

"Techniques vary, art stays the same."

This is the final essay in a series celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the First Impressionist Exhibition, which debuted in Paris in 1874. If you’d like to read other essays on the history of Impressionism, you can do so here.

The Gulf of Marseilles Seen from L’Estaque, Paul Cézanne ca. 1885. One can see how Cézanne was already moving into his Post-Impressionist period. Via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In March of 1886, the Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel and his son Charles left for New York City.

Twelve years had passed since the First Impressionist Exhibition, and while the artists were making progress, the French art market remained mostly hostile to these radicals. Durand-Ruel was a visionary—after all, it was he who embraced the Barbizon landscape artists before the public did, as he reminded readers in an 1885 editorial for L’Evénement. He defended the Impressionists for displaying the same originality: “I consider that the works of Degas, Puvis, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro…