Paris 1874 – Inventing Impressionism – Orsay exhibition

The Musée d’Orsay is celebrating Impressionism’s 150th birthday. In Paris, on 15 April 1874, an exhibition opened outside of the official channels. Impressionist was born! With the strong cooperation of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, the Orsay gathered works of Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, Sisley, Morisot, Monet, or Cézanne that were shown during the 1874 exhibition.

An Exceptional Exhibition which Transports You Back in Time in 1874, the Turning Point Moment in Art

This amazing Orsay exhibition is exceptional because it gathers so many works from the first impressionist exhibition, recreating the atmosphere of this legendary moment in art.
But, furthermore, the Orsay exhibition is also exceptional because it recreates part of the official 1874 salon exhibition. The contrast is startling and does not favor the official arts of the time.

Thanks to this exhibition, you immediately understand how the impressionist works were different and why they had this unprecedented success.

In the spring of 1874, the now world-famous first impressionist works were on display at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, the studio of the famous photographer Nadar. (The building is still there.)

A lot of them are on display together again in this exceptional 2024 Orsay Exhibition.

By Cezanne is shown “A Modern Olympia”, the Answer of Cézanne to Manet “Olympia”. Also by Cézanne is on display “The Hanged Man’s House,” an amazing proto-cubist work. Both works are part of the Orsay collection.

By Edgar Degas is the famous bicolor “Ballet Rehearsal on Stage” (Orsay Museum), but also “At the Races on the Countryside” (on loan from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), a good sample of Degas’s two main favorite subjects: Opera and horse races.

The Courtauld Institut of Art (London) lent “La Loge (The Theatre Box)” from Renoir, one of the other main masterpieces of this 1874 first impressionist exhibition. Le Berceau (The Cradle) is another one of the 1874 displays, painted by Berthe Morisot, the first woman to be part of the group of the impressionist; this small, simple painting is very moving. Nevertheless, Berth Morisot didn’t reach to sell it and finally withdrew it from display. The painting was finally purchased by the Louvre in 1930 and reached the Orsay collection later on.

further away in the exhibition Are also shown two legendary money paintings from the first impressionist exhibition, “Poppies at Argenteuil” (Orsay collection), and it is own dedicated room the probably most famous impressionist painting Impression, Sunrise (on loan from painting Musée Marmottan Monet), which gave its name to the movement!

The Room dedicated to the 1874 official salon (exhibition) deserves a commentary, even if the painters of official academic art are very far from the fame of impressionist art nowadays. Some of them were huge artists and amazing technicians. Among them Jean-Léon Gérôme stands out. “L’Eminence Grise” (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Susan Cornelia Warren) has to be seen.

The D’Orsay also has a room in which works that were strangely accepted by the official salon were shown, while very similar ones by the same artist were rejected.
Manet’s Le Chemin de Fer (The Railway, 1873), on loan from the NGA Washington, is probably the nicest of the room, or at least the most impressive one.

1877 and the 3rd Impressionist exhibition – the other key date in Impressionism

A Room of the Orsay 2024 exhibition is also dedicated to the third Impressionist exhibition, the one of 1877. Indeed, this impressionist exhibition, like the first one, is very special as it was the only of the 8 impressionist exhibitions explicitly called impressionist.

There are shown among other two famous paintings of the third Impressionist exhibition: “La Gare Saint-Lazare” by Claude Monet and Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette (Dance at the Moulin de la Galette) by Pierre-August Renoir. Both paintings are part of the Orsay collection, and both of them, apart from their respective subjects, are before all studies about light and colors.

Claude Monet. La Gare Saint-Lazare, 1877. Oil on canvas, 75 x 105 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski

As usual, the exhibition ended with a dedicated souvenir shop.

Unfortunately this amazing exhibition is now finished.

Whatever if you are fine of art Broaden Horizons is proposing a bunch of art private tours with first of all an amazing Orsay Museum Private Tour!