The Invisible, Unromantic Side of Impressionism

When we think of Impressionism, the movement that laid the foundations of modern art, the first works that come to mind are always Georges Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" and Claude Monet's "Water Lilies." These are indeed typical works of the movement – azure skies, lush vegetation, calm, cheerful people, and the play of light. In the late nineteenth century, artists such as Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir rose to prominence by depicting the often carefree, leisure-filled pastimes of the middle and working classes.

Yet, despite the quick brushstrokes and pastel hues, Impressionism took shape against a far less cheerful backdrop. Beneath the depicted bourgeois amusements lay the complex realities of the era's changing urban environment. The dawn of the modern age brought not only modernism, but also political turmoil, harsh working conditions, and massive environmental pollution. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 left behind unsettled sentiment after France's defeat (the unstable situation that followed this conflict ultimately contributed to the outbreak of the First World War). As the population of the lower classes grew rapidly, cities became overcrowded, the Industrial Revolution turned blue skies grey, and rivers were polluted with sewage.

Claude Monet, "The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil," 1873, Art Gallery of Ontario

At the opening of one exhibition, Dr. Carolyn Shields, curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, shared a telling anecdote about Monet's 1873 painting "The Railway Bridge at Argenteuil." At the center of the canvas, a railway bridge rises on white columns above the Seine. Fluffy plumes of steam-engine smoke curl through the azure sky. Two boats sail on the river, watched from the bank by two figures. Art historian Paul Tucker once called this painting "Monet's modern bourgeois utopia." Shields believes that is only half the story: "You can't help but wonder whether the balance is too perfect, whether the utopia is merely an illusion. In truth, to create the impression of such a beautiful day, Monet had to not only close his eyes but also hold his nose." The curator notes that sewage discharged in Paris left the banks of the Seine coated in foul-smelling mud. At one point so much of this mud had accumulated that in 1873 the mayor of Argenteuil, worried about the threat to public health, asked for help in clearing the river.

Claude Monet, "The Coal Workers," 1875

While we might still say that Monet closed his eyes to the problems of the modern world by idealizing nature, another work, "The Coal Workers" (1875), clearly reveals the grim consequences of the Industrial Revolution. In this painting, laborers scurry back and forth between the coal barges and the quay. In the landscape, they are nothing more than dark silhouettes with no distinguishing features to set one apart from another. Art historian James Rubin writes: "Here Monet transforms grimy, sweating men performing robot-like labor into a contrasting rhythm." Unlike Monet's bright, cheerful water lilies, "The Coal Workers" depicts an almost Sisyphean task – it is easy to imagine the men carrying coal from the shore to the boats all day long, the work never ending.

Edgar Degas, "Woman Ironing," 1887, National Gallery of Art, Washington

But the Impressionists' attention was not focused solely on male laborers. Edgar Degas was especially interested in working-class women. Although the artist became famous for his ballerinas (who now seem innocent enough, but at the time it was common for them to provide intimate services), his painting "Women Ironing" depicts female laborers no less compellingly. In the painting, one woman presses an iron against a white sheet, while another stands beside her, yawning, with a wine bottle in hand. Art historian Mary Hunter writes that "Ironing women were essentially a novelty and thus became an intriguing subject for an art movement in pursuit of modernity... Physically demanding and dirty work was often equated with low morals." Dressed in thin cotton clothing, working in hot, cramped rooms, and notorious for their drinking, laundresses were, according to Hunter, "seen as both alluring and repellent." Thus, in the constrained Victorian era, they became perfect subjects for the modern Impressionists. Other artists, such as Auguste Louis Lepère and Giuseppe De Nittis, also depicted working laundresses in the late nineteenth century, though in their paintings the women are surrounded by male figures. Such compositions revealed the connections between gender, labor, and class, exposing the European street as a cross-section of society.

Claude Monet, "Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-Lazare," 1877, Art Institute of Chicago

According to Shields, the mistaken view of Impressionism took hold because many art historians of the time associated the movement with leisure and pleasure, and that notion remains entrenched to this day. Now, bearing in mind that the Impressionists were concerned not only with amusements but also with the problems created by the new, modern world, it is easy to draw a parallel with our own times, when progress is once again being viewed with controversy.