We consider them to be classic painters.
But, in their day, most people thought artists like Matisse and Monet as rebels.
A new exhibition at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art looks at the history of Impressionism, featuring the works of some iconic names.
"Many of the most recognizable names were among the core members of the impressionist groups, artists like Claude Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Degas, Morisot," said Dr. Nicole Myers, Chief Curatorial and Research Officer with the Dallas Museum of Art. "Berthe Moristo was the only woman among the founding members of the group."
The Dallas Museum created an exhibition, The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse.
It’s kicking off an international tour, with its first stop at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
"In 2024, it was the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition. There were a lot of museums around the world (in 2024) taking a moment to consider impressionism at 150 years later," said Myers. "We have an incredible holding of this material at the Dallas Museum of Art. And it's not just Impressionism. It's what comes after, post-Impressionism, and even into 20th-century Modernism. We had such a great reception to the show, we thought, why not share it with other venues around the world?"
Myers said when Impressionism was born in the 1870s in France, it was considered rebellious because it was so different from the art of the period. They were like punk rock musicians in the traditional rock world.
"I love that that's the takeaway, because that's 100% my goal in this exhibition. These were the radicals, these were the rebels. You could not find their work in museums at the time," said the art historian. "There were very few people who liked the artwork and collected it. This was the punk rock scene of the visual arts in Paris in the second half of the 19th century, even though it's an aesthetic that today many people find so familiar, or popular, or Classical."
The French government and the art world snubbed the works.
"There was only one public venue where you could show your work, once a year. That was sponsored by the French government," said Myers. "It had a jury, and was very conservative, and the jury's job in fact was to select artwork which reflected values set by the French government, which tended to be pretty conservative. This group that wanted to paint their everyday lives, that wanted to paint contemporary subjects, that was radical at the time. It wasn't considered to be the stuff of fine art that was worthy of public consumption."
So, some of the leading impressionist artists banded together and did something revolutionary at the time: They staged their own art shows.
"They came together using their own money to rent a space to mount their own exhibition, and they charged an entrance fee, and this had never been done before," said Myers. "That in and of itself was breaking with every kind of tradition in France at the moment. Most of the critics, most of the public that went to the shows thought they were absolutely scandalous."
Myers said the nearly four dozen works from the Dallas museum, going on display in Santa Barbara, provide a history of the evolution of Impressionism.
The Impressionist Revolution opens on Sunday (October 5) in Santa Barbara, along with a second exhibition designed to complement it.
"I really think of the Impressionist Revolution show from the Dallas Museum of Art as providing this extraordinary context for our collection of our 19th-century collection of works," said Amada Cruz, the Eicholz Foundation Director and CEO of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
"The encore exhibition (Encore: 19th Century French Art from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art) is trying to give people a flavor of what you might see if you were walking through Paris, or walking through the countryside in France during that period," said James Glisson, Chief Curator for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.
The Impressionist Revolution: Monet to Matisse opens to the public on Sunday, October 5, and runs through January 25. With demand for tickets expected to be high, admission requires reserved tickets, which can be purchased online through the museum.
