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00:00:14Early in the 1860s, a few young artists began to paint modern life as they saw it around them.
00:00:23They had quietly rejected the idea that art was to tell stories of religion, mythology, or history.
00:00:32Their subject had nothing to do with the past.
00:00:36They wanted to capture not just the present, but a moment, the modern moment.
00:00:44This idea of capturing the ephemeral, that modernity consists in pinning down what goes by so quickly,
00:00:55that modernity is captured in a minute, a second, a fraction of a second.
00:01:00This was part of the Impressionist impulse.
00:01:04Impressionism is not a style. It's an attitude towards the relationship between life and art.
00:01:10And it was a movement that believed it should express what people care about in their day-to-day lives.
00:01:16And we still feel that now.
00:01:43The Impressionists
00:01:46Impressionists were Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Bert Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Edgar Degas.
00:01:59This small group of artists dared to throw off the shackles of the past.
00:02:08They created art that was ahead of its time, challenging, and evocative.
00:02:23The Impressionists
00:02:25The Impressionists
00:02:35The Impressionists
00:02:36Now
00:02:37The Impressionists
00:02:38The Impressionists
00:03:23Early in 1873, Claude Monet invited several of his painter friends to a meeting at his Argenteuil home.
00:03:31He had decided it was time to find an alternative to the old system.
00:03:39For over 80 years, French artists had lived at the mercy of the Salon Jury.
00:03:45For success at the Salon, the state-run art exhibition was the only path to a successful career.
00:04:05Monet called the meeting to begin planning a group show that would be independent of the Salon.
00:04:12This move would mark the group not only as avant-garde, but revolutionary.
00:04:19The artists planning the exhibition included Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, and Alfred Sisley.
00:04:36To pull off an independent exhibition, the group desperately needed money.
00:04:41To get money, they collected dues and looked to expand their membership.
00:04:49Edgar Degas invited his friends Berthe Morisot and her sister, Edma.
00:04:58Degas wrote, you know, Berthe Morisot and Edma Morisot, they have real talent and they should join our group.
00:05:06Nothing about despite the fact that they're women or even though you think this may be a strange idea.
00:05:12No, he just said, because they have talent, they should join this group.
00:05:17And it's one of the most perfectly non-sexist, completely meritocratic moments, I think, in the history of 19th century
00:05:26art.
00:05:29Edma declined Degas' offer.
00:05:31She was married and had given up her art career.
00:05:35Berthe, on the other hand, immediately became a member of the group.
00:05:38Despite the advice of her good friend, Édouard Manet.
00:05:44Manet, the leading avant-garde painter of the day, had himself declined to join.
00:05:50He was determined to make his name at the salon.
00:05:56When Degas heard that Manet would not be participating, he was incensed.
00:06:01I definitely think, Degas quipped, that he is more vain than intelligent.
00:06:08Manet refused to exhibit with the Impressionist painters because he thought, in fact, that this whole exercise would marginalize his
00:06:16art.
00:06:16He still, till the end of his days, hoped for government patronage and success according to the system that he
00:06:24understood and that he had been taught when he was a young man.
00:06:34Camille Pissarro was busy helping to organize the show, when he got word that his nine-year-old daughter, Minette,
00:06:42was ill with a respiratory infection.
00:06:50The family doctor could do little, and the infection grew worse.
00:07:00Pissarro etched one last view of his young daughter as she lay still on her bed.
00:07:06Minette died on April 6, 1874.
00:07:16Pissarro's wife, Julie, was five months pregnant.
00:07:20She felt such pain and mourning that she worried her unborn baby would be hurt.
00:07:28Pissarro, on the other hand, went right back to work.
00:07:33This somehow did not seem to arrest him in his, you know, in his career.
00:07:42And yet, one shouldn't think, I think for a moment, that he was this sort of hard, callous, insensitive personality.
00:07:51It's just that he had this capacity to take on very huge emotional charges and go on with his artistic
00:08:03pursuit, call it obsession, as if nothing happened.
00:08:17Pissarro rejoined his friends in making final preparations for the show.
00:08:22They found a space for the exhibition in one of the poshest sections of town, on the Boulevard des Capucines.
00:08:35Monet, who showed a real instinct for marketing, painted the view from the window.
00:08:41Now, when people came to the show, they could compare Monet's painting with the actual scene of modern life below.
00:08:50They had banners, they sold catalogs, they printed tickets, but it was very different than the salon, because it was
00:08:58smaller.
00:08:59The works of art were hung in a different way, so you only saw one of them at a time,
00:09:04rather than seeing lots of them together.
00:09:06The rooms were small, so that people could envision the works of art in their own domestic spaces.
00:09:12And you could actually purchase from the exhibition.
00:09:17So there was a sense in which it was a kind of one-stop shopping, capitalist, artistic endeavor.
00:09:31The exhibition opened on April 15, 1874.
00:09:48It immediately captured the attention of the art critics.
00:09:52In fact, it seemed that every art critic in Paris had something to say.
00:09:58Over 50 publications commented on the exhibition.
00:10:03Quite simply, the negation of the most elemental rules of drawing and painting.
00:10:07What do we see in the work of these men?
00:10:09The debaucheries of this school are nauseous.
00:10:10Nothing but a defiance.
00:10:12Revolting.
00:10:12Almost an insult to the taste and intelligence of the public.
00:10:16We have seen an exhibition by these Impressionalists.
00:10:19Looking at the first rough sketch, and rough is the right word.
00:10:23You simply shrug your shoulders.
00:10:27Appear to have declared war on beauty.
00:10:29Seeing the lot, you burst out laughing.
00:10:32But with the last ones, you finally get angry.
00:10:40Let us examine what we are told is so monstrous, so subversive to the social order in these thoroughgoing revolutionaries.
00:10:50I swear there is talent, and a great deal of talent among them.
00:10:56Their art is lively, it is vivid, it is delicate.
00:11:01In short, it is ravishing.
00:11:05The painting that became the cause célèbre of that exhibition was Impressions sur le Levant, Impression Sunrise, by Monet.
00:11:13And the word Impressionism comes from the title of that painting.
00:11:18A critic said, oh, these are nothing but impressions.
00:11:22Meaning, these are not finished works.
00:11:25These are nothing but streaky looking sketches.
00:11:30Where you can actually see the individual brush strokes.
00:11:33They haven't been all blended together.
00:11:35The way they should be.
00:11:37It was a very negative term.
00:11:39It was not meant to be a compliment.
00:11:49The group of Impressionist painters had moved from anonymity to notoriety in a matter of weeks.
00:12:04They were so disappointed that it would take them two years before they could regroup to exhibit again.
00:12:25I never had a fighter's temperament, and I would have given up many times over had not my good friend
00:12:31Monet,
00:12:31who had himself a fighter's temperament, who had himself a fighter's temperament, bucked me up.
00:12:37Renoir.
00:12:42Renoir had been inspired by Claude Monet since the day he'd met him in 1862.
00:12:50With Monet, Renoir seemed to push himself, to take more chances, to work harder, and to never give up.
00:13:03Renoir painted with Monet whenever he could.
00:13:11And he loved to have Monet and his wife Camille pose for him, especially Camille.
00:13:21Over the course of a few years, Renoir painted Camille no less than 15 times.
00:13:35In fact, Renoir dropped by Monet's Argentoy home so often that a bed was always kept open for him.
00:13:46Edouard Manet also showed up at Argentoy to paint with Monet.
00:13:51Manet had long been seen as the leader of the avant-garde,
00:13:55but he had yet to experiment with the Impressionist technique.
00:14:00He came because that first Impressionist exhibition had generated enough press
00:14:05to make it clear that these younger artists, with their newer forms of expression,
00:14:11were becoming the avant-garde.
00:14:13And Manet, the older man upon that block, had to keep a pace.
00:14:19The kinds of pictures that Manet paints indicates that he came as a student of these younger artists.
00:14:27Also, it's true that there are pictures where he paints a kind of homage to Monet himself,
00:14:33as if he recognizes that Monet is indeed a leader of a new group of artists.
00:14:39Edouard Manet painted Monet at work in his studio boat.
00:14:45He painted the Monets in their garden.
00:14:48And one sunny afternoon, he began to paint Camille and Jean.
00:14:53Then Renoir showed up.
00:14:56Manet and Renoir were both painting in Monet's backyard.
00:15:01And they're two paintings of exactly the same subject, of Camille and Jean lying upon the grass,
00:15:07in exactly the same location.
00:15:10And the story was that Manet went to take a look at Renoir's picture,
00:15:14and he said to Monet,
00:15:16hey, this boy just can't paint, you really better tell him to pack it up.
00:15:20This is something that was said absolutely as a joke,
00:15:23because he recognized that the Renoir was one of the devastatingly successful sketch,
00:15:28and indeed a sketch that makes Manet's own work look slightly staid.
00:15:38While Manet was painting with Monet in Argenteuil,
00:15:42his brother Eugène was vacationing in Fécont on the Normandy coast.
00:15:48Also on vacation in FĂ©cont were the Morisots.
00:15:55Berthe Morisot and Eugène Manet, an amateur artist,
00:15:59spent days on end painting together.
00:16:05One afternoon, while on a painting expedition,
00:16:09Berthe and Eugène decided to marry.
00:16:21While Madame Morisot didn't think much of Eugène,
00:16:24she was thrilled that her daughter, now 33 years old,
00:16:28was getting married.
00:16:36The wedding was on December 22nd, 1874.
00:16:41Eugène wrote on the church register that he was a man of property.
00:16:46Berthe wrote that she had no profession.
00:16:54Berthe Morisot listed herself as having no profession
00:16:59as one of the canny strategies she used throughout her life
00:17:04to manage both a professional career and a satisfying personal life.
00:17:11What difference did it make to her, what was on a document?
00:17:14But it made a difference to other people, and she knew that.
00:17:17So she gave them what they wanted and at the same time did what she wanted.
00:17:23When Morisot set up house with Eugène Manet, she did not build a separate studio.
00:17:30When people would visit the Morisot household, she would hide her work, she would put it away.
00:17:36She would want to appear as the conforming upper-middle-class lady, rather than as a professional artist.
00:17:46In the spring of 1876, the Impressionists began organizing their second group exhibition.
00:17:55This time, the group presented itself less as simply an association of independent artists and more as a movement.
00:18:06What the second exhibition did was to get rid of some of the riff-raff,
00:18:12some of the people who were brought on because they would pay the dues,
00:18:14to finance the first exhibition.
00:18:16And it had more works of art by each of the members who were thought to be central to the
00:18:22movement.
00:18:24The second exhibition opened March 30th, 1876.
00:18:39While only a few thousand would actually attend the show,
00:18:43newspapers from around the world were quick to cover the story of these independent artists.
00:18:52Some of the press played into their hands by saying that they represented, you know, dangerous tendencies,
00:18:59or this was a kind of degenerate art.
00:19:02Sunday, April 2nd.
00:19:06Five or six lunatics, among them a woman, have joined together and exhibited their works.
00:19:14Try to make M. Degas see reason.
00:19:17Tell him that in art there are certain qualities called drawing, color execution, control,
00:19:23and he will laugh in your face.
00:19:27Or try to explain to M. Renoir that a woman's torso is not a mass of flesh in the process
00:19:34of decomposition,
00:19:35with green and violet spots which denote the state of complete putrefaction of a corpse.
00:19:43There is also a woman in the group called Berthe Morisseau.
00:19:47In her case, a feminine grace is maintained amid the outpourings of a delirious mind.
00:19:55Albert Wolfe, Le Figaro
00:20:00One visitor, though, saw what the critic Albert Wolfe failed to see.
00:20:06Mary Cassatt, an American artist living in Paris,
00:20:09could not get enough of the groundbreaking work.
00:20:14She was particularly taken by the art she saw by Edgar Degas.
00:20:19I absorbed all I could of his art.
00:20:23It changed my life.
00:20:27I saw art then as I wanted to see it.
00:20:33Mary Cassatt.
00:20:36By the time the doors closed on the second exhibition,
00:20:40the Impressionists had sold enough paintings
00:20:42to allow each artist to receive the grand total of three francs in profit.
00:21:00When the second Impressionist exhibition closed in May of 1876,
00:21:04the group took solace in the fact that they did not lose money.
00:21:10And they were pleased that the show had piqued the interest of a handful of new collectors.
00:21:16But it was only a handful.
00:21:19Not enough to support the needy artists, Pissarro, Renoir and Monet.
00:21:27The principal collectors of the Impressionists in the 1870s were a real ragbag.
00:21:32There was a retired government official, Monsieur Chocquet.
00:21:36There was a pastry cook, Monsieur Murat.
00:21:39There was the department store owner, Hoshtay.
00:21:43And then there was a famous baritone singer from the opera.
00:21:47It's a group of people who, in a sense, became personal friends.
00:21:50They were a sort of support system that the artists could call on.
00:21:55The pastry cook, Murat, who himself had limited funds,
00:21:59came up with a novel idea to help Pissarro.
00:22:02A raffle.
00:22:05He sold tickets at one franc apiece.
00:22:08The proceeds would go to Pissarro, a painting to the winner.
00:22:13When the winner, a local servant girl, came to collect her Pissarro painting,
00:22:18she took one look at it and another at Murat's own works of art.
00:22:23She asked if she could have a cream bun instead.
00:22:28Murat gave her the cream bun and kept the painting.
00:22:43In the fall of 1876, Claude Monet left Camille and their nine-year-old son
00:22:49to work in Mont-Geran on a series of paintings for his best patron, Ernest Oshaday.
00:22:57Ernest and his wife, Alice, were immensely wealthy.
00:23:03They not only had a chateau, but a private train to bring in their guests.
00:23:12Ernest liked to spend money, and he spent quite a bit of it on art.
00:23:21Oshaday asked Monet to paint several large-scale works depicting scenes around his chateau.
00:23:29Monet set up a studio on the estate and moved in with Alice and her children.
00:23:36Meanwhile, Ernest was in Paris tending to his business.
00:23:47That December, Alice Oshaday became pregnant with her sixth child,
00:23:52a boy she would name Jean-Pierre.
00:23:57Jean-Pierre grew up to believe that his father was Claude Monet.
00:24:05Monet did develop, in the late 1870s, a relationship with Madame Oshaday,
00:24:11but it's very hard to know exactly what that relationship was like.
00:24:15There are suggestions that, in fact, they actually produced a child.
00:24:19But he was not a ladies' man, however.
00:24:22He was not someone who seemed to be a philanderer.
00:24:28In the spring of 1877, Ernest Oshaday's business went bankrupt,
00:24:33and he lost everything, including the chateau.
00:24:38The Oshadays were forced to find a new place to live,
00:24:42but they had little money left.
00:24:47Monet was also in a difficult situation.
00:24:51He was broke, and his creditors were out of patience.
00:24:58Monet, Camille, and Jean moved to Veteuil
00:25:01and began sharing a house with Alice and her six children.
00:25:06They hoped to save money by joining their families together.
00:25:11Ernest Oshaday stayed in Paris.
00:25:16They moved into a small house.
00:25:19Camille had been ill, perhaps as early as 1876-77.
00:25:24There were 11 people together in this house.
00:25:27It must have been rather chaotic.
00:25:30To make matters even more difficult,
00:25:33Camille was pregnant with her second child.
00:25:38She gave birth to a boy, Michel, in March 1878.
00:25:43But Camille seemed unable to recover after the delivery.
00:25:52By the summer of 1879, she was alarmingly weak
00:25:56and in constant, debilitating pain.
00:26:02Monet borrowed 1,000 francs to pay for her doctors,
00:26:05but the doctors were unable to help.
00:26:12On September 1st, Alice brought the priest to perform the last rites.
00:26:19Four days later, Camille was dead.
00:26:24She was just 32 years old.
00:26:31As Monet watched his partner of 13 years lay still and cold on her bed,
00:26:36he found that, despite his real grief,
00:26:39he could not help but see her through his painter's eyes.
00:26:48I caught myself, my eyes fixed on her tragic forehead,
00:26:54in the act of mechanically analyzing the succession of appropriate color gradations,
00:27:00which death was imposing on her immobile face.
00:27:04Tones of blue, of yellow, of gray.
00:27:09This is the point I had reached.
00:27:13Monet.
00:27:23Camille was buried in a simple plot in the corner of the Vettoy graveyard.
00:27:31In the depths of his sorrow, Monet stood for day after day
00:27:35in the brutal cold that came that winter
00:27:38and painted the Seine, frozen over, churning with ice.
00:27:47These paintings would soon spark new sales,
00:27:50but for the rest of the winter,
00:27:52Monet, Alice, and the eight children barely had enough to eat.
00:28:16Edgar Degas had never concerned himself with earning a living from his art.
00:28:21He had family money,
00:28:22and he sold his works as it suited him.
00:28:26But all that changed in 1878.
00:28:31Degas' father had died a few years earlier,
00:28:34and when the estate was finally settled,
00:28:36he learned that he was no longer a wealthy man.
00:28:41When his father died, there were enormous debts.
00:28:45Degas had to pay off large sums,
00:28:47and the only way he knew to pay off large sums
00:28:50was to make art and sell art.
00:28:59Degas increased his production
00:29:01and concentrated on only a handful of subjects.
00:29:05He concentrated the most on ballet dancers.
00:29:15Degas would spend hour upon hour watching the young dancers,
00:29:19then return to his studio to paint from memory.
00:29:37The writer Edmond de Goncourt visited Degas one cold February day
00:29:42and described the event in his journal.
00:29:46I spent my afternoon in the atelier of a strange painter named Degas.
00:29:51The painter shows you his pictures,
00:29:54from time to time adding to his explanation
00:29:56by imitating one of their arabesques.
00:30:00What an original fellow, this Degas.
00:30:03He is the man I've seen up to now
00:30:05who has best captured the inner nature of modern life.
00:30:13The dance pictures did sail well from the beginning.
00:30:17Everybody said, Degas, ballet.
00:30:19They called him the painter of dancers.
00:30:24Degas would paint ballet dancers for the rest of his life.
00:30:29Roughly half of all the pictures he would make
00:30:31over the next 40 years were of ballet dancers.
00:30:38But he was not always enamored with painting dancers.
00:30:44Dancers, Degas complained in a letter,
00:30:47are the only thing people want from your unfortunate friend.
00:30:56Degas did paint other subjects.
00:30:58He painted laundry girls.
00:31:08And cafe singers.
00:31:14Nudes.
00:31:15And prostitutes.
00:31:18All of Degas' subjects were taken from everyday, modern life.
00:31:33In the 1870s, Degas did a series of monotypes based on brothels.
00:31:41There is no way of telling from the prince themselves
00:31:43whether he was there to observe,
00:31:45or whether he was there to participate, shall we say.
00:31:49There are a lot of these.
00:31:51There are 30, 40, 50 of these prints.
00:31:54And they suggest that he had an acquaintance
00:31:57with those kinds of establishments.
00:32:02Degas was a confirmed bachelor.
00:32:05Still, he did have several close friendships with women,
00:32:09including Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt.
00:32:13Cassatt was an American painter living in Paris.
00:32:16When Degas first met her in 1877,
00:32:20he admired her work enough to ask her to join their next exhibition.
00:32:26Degas was also close to Morisot.
00:32:29They'd been friends since Edouard Manet introduced them a decade earlier.
00:32:35In 1878, Degas learned that Morisot was pregnant.
00:32:46Morisot had longed for a baby since she'd married Eugène Manet four years earlier.
00:32:53And finally, at the advanced age of 37, she got her wish.
00:32:59On November 14, 1878,
00:33:03Berthe Morisot gave birth to a baby girl she named Julie.
00:33:18Degas, despite his often hard manner,
00:33:21had a soft spot for children.
00:33:25I don't know why people say Degas is disagreeable,
00:33:28Julie said as a teenager.
00:33:30He has such a nice way about him
00:33:32and kisses us in such a fatherly manner.
00:33:39He regretted that he hadn't married and didn't have children.
00:33:45I don't think he could have ever made the kind of personal sacrifice
00:33:50that was necessary in order to sustain a relationship with one person.
00:33:58Living alone without any family is really too hard.
00:34:02I never would have suspected it would cause me so much suffering.
00:34:07People think me cheerful because I smile idiotically, resignedly.
00:34:13I'm quickly sliding downhill,
00:34:15rolling I know not where,
00:34:18wrapped up in lots of bad pastels,
00:34:21as if in so much packing paper.
00:34:25Degas.
00:34:29He was one of those people, I think,
00:34:31who moved from low points to tremendous high points.
00:34:34And there were even hints
00:34:35that he might have been contemplating suicide,
00:34:37bringing the whole thing to an end.
00:34:40But, within a very short time,
00:34:43we find himself throwing himself artistically into another project,
00:34:48getting excited about a new technique or another exhibition.
00:34:53Degas always kept busy.
00:34:56When he wasn't painting,
00:34:58he was at the opera,
00:35:00holding court at the cafe,
00:35:02or he was visiting friends.
00:35:17Degas also threw himself
00:35:19into organising the Impressionist exhibitions.
00:35:22But he was abrasive, combative,
00:35:25and only interested in his own opinion.
00:35:29Degas was a bit of a control freak,
00:35:31and he tried to mould the Impressionists
00:35:35in a way that suited him.
00:35:36And he was very active
00:35:37in the organisation of Impressionist exhibitions
00:35:40to try and push it one way rather than another.
00:35:45For the 1879 exhibition,
00:35:48Degas issued an ultimatum.
00:35:50Members of the group could no longer choose
00:35:53to submit works to the salon
00:35:54and still exhibit with the Impressionists.
00:35:58Wanting to gain access to larger commissions
00:36:02and better collectors and whatever,
00:36:04certain of the artists,
00:36:06and Renoir was the first,
00:36:08decided to do both.
00:36:10The artist who was the most steadfastly against this
00:36:13was, of course, Degas,
00:36:15who believed completely that, you know,
00:36:17you're either with us or against us,
00:36:18and if you exhibit with a salon,
00:36:20you're with those conservative bastards,
00:36:22and it's awful,
00:36:23and you shouldn't do it,
00:36:24and out you go.
00:36:27There are in Paris
00:36:29hardly 15 art lovers
00:36:31capable of liking a painter
00:36:32unless he's in the salon.
00:36:34My contribution to the salon
00:36:36is completely commercial.
00:36:38In any case,
00:36:40it's like certain medicines.
00:36:42If it doesn't do any good,
00:36:43it doesn't do any harm either.
00:36:47Renoir.
00:36:49Degas would not forgive Renoir
00:36:51for showing at the salon.
00:36:53But Renoir had made a wise business decision.
00:36:57His 1879 salon submission,
00:37:00Madame Charpentier and her children,
00:37:02was a huge success,
00:37:05and Renoir was on his way
00:37:07to becoming a sought-after portrait painter.
00:37:11Renoir's in his mid-thirties.
00:37:13He's not a debutant.
00:37:16He's not a newcomer,
00:37:17and he's eager to be painting large canvases
00:37:21of what we might call Parisian sociability.
00:37:27And to paint these pictures,
00:37:29he needs models,
00:37:29and to have models,
00:37:31he can use some of his friends,
00:37:32but he has to pay for certain models.
00:37:35He needs income to forward his ambitions.
00:37:40Renoir finally had the money
00:37:42to paint what he wanted.
00:37:45In the summer of 1880,
00:37:47he traveled to Chateau
00:37:49and began a large-scale work.
00:37:51He would call it
00:37:52the luncheon of the boating party.
00:37:59The painting trip to Chateau
00:38:01was quite successful.
00:38:03One of his models,
00:38:05a laundry worker named Aline Charigot,
00:38:08became his mistress.
00:38:11And Renoir's dealer
00:38:12was so pleased
00:38:13with luncheon of the boating party
00:38:15that he purchased it right away.
00:38:20Renoir was now selling on two fronts.
00:38:25His impressionist art to his dealer
00:38:27and portraits to the clients
00:38:29he'd won through his good showing
00:38:31at the salon.
00:38:35For Renoir,
00:38:37it seemed that after nearly
00:38:38two decades of struggle,
00:38:40he had finally made it.
00:38:59Claude Monet had spent day after day
00:39:02during the winter of 1879
00:39:04working in the frigid, damp air.
00:39:08He was painting the Seine
00:39:10as it flowed thick with ice.
00:39:16That spring,
00:39:18Monet submitted two of his canvases
00:39:19to the salon.
00:39:21He'd seen how well Renoir
00:39:23had done there the year before.
00:39:25And now,
00:39:26he wanted to give
00:39:27the conservative jury
00:39:28a try himself,
00:39:30something he hadn't done
00:39:32for a decade.
00:39:35But this meant that Monet
00:39:36could not exhibit
00:39:37with the Impressionists in 1880.
00:39:41Degas' anti-salon rule
00:39:43kept him out.
00:39:46It's Degas' stubbornness
00:39:49and sense that
00:39:50he should make the rules
00:39:53and should determine
00:39:56under what conditions
00:39:57others would participate
00:39:59and that he was
00:40:01as absolute as he was
00:40:03in those rules,
00:40:04particularly the anti-salon rule,
00:40:07that created the biggest tensions
00:40:10in the movement.
00:40:11Degas was divisive,
00:40:13yes, there's no doubt about that.
00:40:14He could be extremely obstreperous.
00:40:17He would fight and fight
00:40:19and fight against plans
00:40:20that other people put up.
00:40:22And it didn't help
00:40:23the future success
00:40:25of the movement
00:40:25or the group of the Impressionists
00:40:27to have this difficult man
00:40:28there at the center.
00:40:32With Renoir and Monet out
00:40:34and Degas at the helm,
00:40:36the Impressionist group,
00:40:38after years of fighting
00:40:39for recognition,
00:40:40now appeared to be
00:40:41on the verge of collapse.
00:40:45Degas fumed
00:40:46at Monet and Renoir.
00:40:49Monet thought he might fare better
00:40:51in solo exhibitions.
00:40:54And Renoir,
00:40:55a conservative,
00:40:56no longer wanted anything to do
00:40:58with the liberal Pissarro.
00:41:02The art dealer,
00:41:03Paul Durand-Ruel,
00:41:05saw the group
00:41:06self-destructing
00:41:07before his eyes.
00:41:10He had been buying
00:41:12Impressionist art
00:41:13off and on
00:41:13since 1871
00:41:15and had a large collection
00:41:17of it sitting
00:41:18unsold
00:41:18in his gallery.
00:41:20He's the only dealer
00:41:22crazy enough
00:41:23to buy these paintings
00:41:25in a sense
00:41:25that very few people
00:41:26wanted almost.
00:41:27You could say
00:41:27no one else wanted.
00:41:29But he believed
00:41:30in these artists.
00:41:32He admired these paintings.
00:41:33He put together
00:41:34an extraordinary collection
00:41:35of works
00:41:36by these artists.
00:41:39Durand-Ruel felt
00:41:40his fate was tied
00:41:41to the success
00:41:42of the group
00:41:42and decided
00:41:43it was time
00:41:44to take action.
00:41:45He stepped in
00:41:46and organized
00:41:47the 1882 show
00:41:49himself.
00:42:05When the exhibition
00:42:06opened on March 1st,
00:42:08the Impressionists
00:42:09and Durand-Ruel
00:42:10were in for a surprise.
00:42:12The critics expressed
00:42:14less outrage
00:42:15and collectors
00:42:16were starting
00:42:17to express
00:42:17more interest.
00:42:33But after the 1882 exhibition,
00:42:36Durand-Ruel felt
00:42:37that the Impressionist artists
00:42:38were simply
00:42:40too difficult
00:42:40to organize.
00:42:42He decided
00:42:43it was time
00:42:44to hold
00:42:44solo exhibitions
00:42:45in his gallery.
00:42:50The one-man shows
00:42:52marked the end
00:42:53of an era.
00:42:55Monet, Renoir,
00:42:56Degas,
00:42:57Morisot,
00:42:58and Pissarro
00:42:58would never again
00:43:00mount their own
00:43:01group exhibition.
00:43:04One of the reasons
00:43:05why there ceased
00:43:06being Impressionist
00:43:07exhibitions
00:43:08was because
00:43:09the various Impressionists
00:43:11began to think
00:43:12think that not only
00:43:13could they have
00:43:14have their work
00:43:14shown at dealers,
00:43:16but also
00:43:17that it might
00:43:18be a better idea.
00:43:19Certainly,
00:43:20it would be less
00:43:20trouble
00:43:21and they would
00:43:21make more money
00:43:22that way.
00:43:27The Impressionists
00:43:29had split apart.
00:43:31They were no longer
00:43:33a working group.
00:43:38But in the end,
00:43:40the personal bonds
00:43:41they had forged
00:43:42over the years
00:43:42were so strong
00:43:44they could not
00:43:45be broken.
00:44:08early in 1886,
00:44:10the art dealer
00:44:11Paul Durand-Ruel
00:44:13shipped more than
00:44:14300 Impressionist works
00:44:16across the ocean
00:44:17to America.
00:44:23Durand-Ruel
00:44:24was desperately
00:44:25short on cash
00:44:26and needed to find
00:44:27a new market
00:44:28for his crowded
00:44:29inventory
00:44:29of Impressionist works.
00:44:36In April 1886,
00:44:39he opened an exhibition
00:44:40in New York City.
00:44:44It was the largest
00:44:45show of Impressionist art
00:44:47ever held anywhere.
00:44:50And the show
00:44:52was a resounding success.
00:45:05Do not believe
00:45:07that the Americans
00:45:08are savages.
00:45:09On the contrary,
00:45:11they are less ignorant
00:45:12and less conservative
00:45:14than our French
00:45:15art lovers.
00:45:17I have been very successful
00:45:19with paintings
00:45:19that took me 20 years
00:45:21to get people
00:45:21to get people
00:45:22to accept in Paris.
00:45:24Paul Durand-Ruel.
00:45:29With his New York show,
00:45:31Durand-Ruel opened up
00:45:32a huge new market
00:45:33for Impressionist works.
00:45:37But just at the moment
00:45:39that financial success
00:45:40was at hand,
00:45:42both Renoir and Pissarro
00:45:44decided it was time
00:45:45for them
00:45:45to do something different.
00:45:49I've gone to the end
00:45:51of Impressionism,
00:45:52and I've reached
00:45:53the conclusion
00:45:54that I don't know
00:45:55how to paint or draw.
00:45:58Renoir.
00:46:00I am much disturbed
00:46:02by my unpolished
00:46:04and rough execution.
00:46:06I should like
00:46:07to develop
00:46:08a smoother technique
00:46:09while retaining
00:46:10the old fierceness.
00:46:13Pissarro.
00:46:15Each of them
00:46:16in their own way
00:46:17has a sort of crisis.
00:46:19In Renoir's case,
00:46:20it's this sense
00:46:21that he doesn't know
00:46:21how to draw,
00:46:22that he didn't know anything,
00:46:24that he has to go back
00:46:24to basics,
00:46:26and Pissarro
00:46:27experiments
00:46:28with a different type
00:46:29of technique.
00:46:30In some ways,
00:46:31each of the artists
00:46:32is looking at this language
00:46:34that was so radical
00:46:34and finding it
00:46:35in some ways lacking.
00:46:39Renoir thought
00:46:40that his work
00:46:41was too concerned
00:46:42with the effects
00:46:42of light,
00:46:43that it lacked composition,
00:46:45that it was monotonous.
00:46:48Around 1885, 86,
00:46:51he did this major painting,
00:46:54which has loads
00:46:56of sketches and so on,
00:46:58called
00:46:58The Great Bathers.
00:47:01The figures themselves
00:47:03are solid, rigid,
00:47:06though they're in
00:47:07kind of moving positions.
00:47:09they're frozen.
00:47:11And this is like
00:47:13a declaration.
00:47:14I am not going
00:47:16to do Impressionism anymore,
00:47:17or I'm not going
00:47:18to do pure Impressionism anymore.
00:47:21My figures are going
00:47:23to be clear.
00:47:26But Renoir himself
00:47:27felt that his new paintings
00:47:29were failing.
00:47:31I wipe out,
00:47:33I start over.
00:47:34I think the year
00:47:35will go by
00:47:36without one canvas.
00:47:38I want to find
00:47:40what I'm looking for
00:47:41before giving up.
00:47:42I've gone too deeply
00:47:44into the series
00:47:45of experiments
00:47:45to give up
00:47:46without regret.
00:47:48Success may be
00:47:49at the end.
00:47:51Renoir.
00:47:53While Renoir
00:47:54was struggling
00:47:54to find his way,
00:47:56Pissarro quickly
00:47:57shifted his style
00:47:58after meeting a painter
00:47:59half his age,
00:48:0126-year-old
00:48:02Georges Seurat.
00:48:05Seurat painted
00:48:06using tiny,
00:48:07distinct dots,
00:48:08a method called
00:48:09Neo-Impressionism,
00:48:11and later,
00:48:12Pointillism.
00:48:15Pissarro hoped
00:48:16the new method
00:48:17could help him
00:48:17create more vibrant works,
00:48:19and he took it up
00:48:20with great excitement.
00:48:23Now, instead of painting
00:48:24quickly outdoors,
00:48:26he was working
00:48:27in his studio
00:48:27day after day,
00:48:29laying on innumerable,
00:48:30tiny, distinct strokes.
00:48:36And when he finally
00:48:37had a few works
00:48:38to show for his efforts,
00:48:40Durand Ruel rejected them.
00:48:43His dealer simply felt
00:48:45that these paintings
00:48:46were unsellable.
00:48:48Not only were they unsellable,
00:48:50but Pissarro took
00:48:51a considerable amount
00:48:53of time
00:48:53to produce
00:48:53a single painting,
00:48:55weeks and weeks
00:48:55as opposed to days.
00:48:59Pissarro worked
00:49:00long and hard,
00:49:01but brought no money
00:49:02in to support
00:49:03the family.
00:49:05His wife,
00:49:06Julie,
00:49:06had had enough.
00:49:08In the fall of 1887,
00:49:11she wrote
00:49:11to her eldest son,
00:49:13Lucien.
00:49:17My dear son,
00:49:18Lucien,
00:49:20I have no money
00:49:21and nobody will want
00:49:23to give me
00:49:23any more credit.
00:49:25We are eight at home
00:49:27to be fed every day.
00:49:30When dinner time comes,
00:49:32I cannot say to them,
00:49:33wait,
00:49:34this stupid word
00:49:35your father repeats
00:49:37and repeats.
00:49:41I had decided
00:49:43to send the three boys
00:49:44to Paris
00:49:45and then to take
00:49:46the two little ones
00:49:47for a walk
00:49:48by the river.
00:49:50You can imagine
00:49:51the rest.
00:49:53Everyone would have
00:49:54thought it an accident.
00:49:57But when I was ready
00:49:58to go,
00:49:59I lacked the courage.
00:50:03my poor Lucien,
00:50:04I'm terribly unhappy.
00:50:07Goodbye,
00:50:09maman.
00:50:13Julie was the one
00:50:14who carried the brunt
00:50:16of the irregularities
00:50:18of the unevenness
00:50:19of their lifestyle.
00:50:20If one wants
00:50:21to take Julie's side,
00:50:23which is definitely
00:50:24very legitimate,
00:50:26one can see
00:50:28in Pissarro
00:50:29a selfish bastard.
00:50:34Pissarro did his best
00:50:35to move forward
00:50:36with pointillism.
00:50:38Not only was it
00:50:39slow going,
00:50:40but he struggled
00:50:42with a recurring
00:50:42eye infection.
00:50:45I shall try to work
00:50:46with one eye,
00:50:47he reported to Lucien.
00:50:49Degas does it
00:50:50and gets good results.
00:50:56With one eye
00:50:57bandaged shut,
00:50:58Pissarro
00:50:59continued working.
00:51:03Renoir, though,
00:51:04felt he was not
00:51:05making progress.
00:51:06His career
00:51:07was at a standstill.
00:51:12Both Renoir
00:51:14and Pissarro
00:51:15had been painting
00:51:15for over 30 years.
00:51:18Still,
00:51:19they struggled
00:51:20with their craft
00:51:21alone in their studios.
00:51:48late in 1888,
00:51:51August Renoir
00:51:52was busy painting
00:51:53in his drafty
00:51:54Paris studio.
00:51:56He caught
00:51:57what he thought
00:51:58was a cold,
00:51:59but he suddenly
00:52:00found that he
00:52:01could not move
00:52:02an entire side
00:52:03of his face.
00:52:06Renoir had developed
00:52:07rheumatoid arthritis.
00:52:10He tried everything
00:52:11to overcome it,
00:52:12including electric
00:52:14shock therapy,
00:52:16but nothing helped.
00:52:21with stiffened,
00:52:23painful fingers,
00:52:24Renoir did his best
00:52:25to keep working.
00:52:30He found it
00:52:32more comfortable
00:52:32painting with less detail,
00:52:34using broader strokes.
00:52:36So he shifted
00:52:38his style
00:52:38back to impressionism.
00:52:44The shift
00:52:45paid off,
00:52:46for within months
00:52:48he was again
00:52:48selling
00:52:49to Durand Ruel.
00:53:00Pissarro also moved
00:53:02back to impressionism.
00:53:04He had become
00:53:05excruciatingly bored
00:53:07with painting dots.
00:53:12But his pointless
00:53:14experiment
00:53:14had helped him.
00:53:17His new canvases
00:53:18were more vibrant.
00:53:21He still uses
00:53:23the neo-impressionist
00:53:26palette
00:53:26to a very great extent.
00:53:28There are still
00:53:29lots of greens
00:53:30and purples
00:53:30that create
00:53:31this kind of
00:53:32quivering,
00:53:32symphonic palette
00:53:34set of colors
00:53:35on his canvas.
00:53:37So he has learned
00:53:38a big lesson
00:53:39from Seurat
00:53:40and he picks up
00:53:41the ball
00:53:41and runs with it.
00:53:44Durand Ruel
00:53:45was thrilled
00:53:46with Pissarro's
00:53:47new work
00:53:47and quickly purchased
00:53:48his latest canvases.
00:53:52Pissarro could now
00:53:53afford to take
00:53:54painting trips
00:53:54away from his
00:53:55Errani home.
00:53:59While he was
00:54:00painting in London
00:54:00in 1892,
00:54:02Julie was forced
00:54:03to make a decision.
00:54:04Buy the house
00:54:05they had rented
00:54:06for the last decade
00:54:07or face eviction.
00:54:10Julie wanted to buy.
00:54:13So she called
00:54:14on an old friend
00:54:15for help,
00:54:16Claude Monet.
00:54:18Monet gave her a loan
00:54:20and in return
00:54:21he received
00:54:22a Pissarro painting.
00:54:24Pissarro comes back
00:54:25from London
00:54:26and he hears
00:54:27this story
00:54:27as a fit
00:54:28and feels
00:54:30absolutely terrible
00:54:31about the fact
00:54:32that his wife
00:54:33behind his back
00:54:34went to beg
00:54:35as he put it
00:54:36to beg money
00:54:38to give them money.
00:54:41Pissarro worried
00:54:42that he might not
00:54:42be able to repay
00:54:43his friend
00:54:44but this time
00:54:46he had little reason
00:54:47for concern.
00:54:50Pissarro's sales
00:54:51would only get better.
00:54:57In fact,
00:54:59sales were getting better
00:55:00for all the Impressionists.
00:55:04It had taken
00:55:05nearly 30 years
00:55:07but the Impressionists
00:55:08had finally won over
00:55:10the French public.
00:55:19the Impressionists
00:55:21become quasi-established artists
00:55:23people who were still
00:55:24pushing the envelope
00:55:26so to speak
00:55:26but who were providing
00:55:28French public
00:55:28with pictures
00:55:29that they wanted to see.
00:55:34August Renoir
00:55:35was well on his way
00:55:36to becoming
00:55:37a wealthy man.
00:55:39He painted
00:55:39almost constantly
00:55:41seemingly in defiance
00:55:43of his debilitating arthritis.
00:55:47We know
00:55:48that Renoir
00:55:48is literally crippled
00:55:50literally crippled
00:55:50by the most hideous
00:55:51deformations
00:55:52pain
00:55:53and incapacities.
00:55:55It is
00:55:56a very moving story
00:55:58to look at
00:55:58the last production
00:55:59and see how
00:56:00in the end
00:56:01his craft
00:56:02his capacity
00:56:03for painting
00:56:03his commitment
00:56:04to painting
00:56:04doesn't subside
00:56:06doesn't diminish
00:56:07doesn't die.
00:56:12Renoir
00:56:13was painting
00:56:13nude after nude.
00:56:15He used to say
00:56:16to his models
00:56:17it is with my brush
00:56:19that I make love.
00:56:23Renoir's models
00:56:24had to be
00:56:24a certain type.
00:56:26He insisted
00:56:27that he could only
00:56:28paint a woman
00:56:28who did not think.
00:56:31Renoir
00:56:32especially liked
00:56:33women
00:56:33who did
00:56:34household chores.
00:56:36Women
00:56:37are best off
00:56:38when they kneel
00:56:39to clean the floor
00:56:40light the fire
00:56:41or do the washing.
00:56:43These movements
00:56:45benefit their stomachs.
00:56:48Renoir
00:56:50He made
00:56:51a lot of statements
00:56:52about how stupid
00:56:54women were
00:56:54how anything
00:56:56but being pretty
00:56:57and being a wife
00:56:59and mother
00:57:00was being
00:57:00a total fool.
00:57:02this is not his
00:57:03idea alone.
00:57:05This is part
00:57:06of the doxa
00:57:08part of the belief
00:57:09system
00:57:09of men
00:57:11of his times.
00:57:13Renoir's views
00:57:14of women
00:57:15did not extend
00:57:16to his good friend
00:57:17Berthe Morisot.
00:57:20In the summer
00:57:21of 1891
00:57:22Renoir painted
00:57:23with Morisot
00:57:24at her country house.
00:57:27While he was there
00:57:28Berthe Morisot's
00:57:29husband
00:57:30Eugène Manet
00:57:31became seriously ill.
00:57:37For months
00:57:38he wasted away.
00:57:41Then on April 13th
00:57:431892
00:57:44Eugène Manet
00:57:46died.
00:57:51I want to go down
00:57:52into the depths
00:57:53of pain
00:57:54because it seems
00:57:55to me
00:57:56it must be possible
00:57:57to rise from there.
00:58:00But now for three nights
00:58:02I've wept.
00:58:04Mercy.
00:58:06Mercy.
00:58:08I don't want
00:58:09to live anymore.
00:58:14Degas
00:58:15and Renoir
00:58:17rallied around
00:58:18Morisot
00:58:19and became
00:58:21companions
00:58:22in her life
00:58:23in a way
00:58:24which made
00:58:25the end of her life
00:58:26very, very rich.
00:58:32When they were young
00:58:34they embarked
00:58:35on an artistic project
00:58:37which required them
00:58:39to become
00:58:39like a fighting squadron.
00:58:46But as they got older
00:58:47and they didn't need
00:58:48to fight anymore
00:58:50the people
00:58:51who had been
00:58:51the battle companions
00:58:52became the companions
00:58:54of old age
00:58:56the companions
00:58:57of success.
00:59:20In 1889
00:59:21Claude Monet
00:59:22got caught up
00:59:23with a new idea
00:59:24painting a series
00:59:26of canvases
00:59:27covering the same
00:59:28subject.
00:59:31In his series
00:59:32paintings
00:59:32Monet's interpretation
00:59:34of light
00:59:35and color
00:59:36became central.
00:59:44Monet had found
00:59:46focus for the rest
00:59:47of his career
00:59:47capturing the
00:59:49atmosphere itself
00:59:50and rendering
00:59:52and rendering
00:59:52it on canvas.
00:59:56It was a way
00:59:57for him
00:59:57to be able
00:59:58to reveal
00:59:58how versatile
00:59:59he was
01:00:01to take a single
01:00:03subject
01:00:03hone in on it
01:00:04and create
01:00:05different pictures
01:00:06from that same
01:00:07motif.
01:00:11And these pictures
01:00:12sold fabulously
01:00:14and they made
01:00:15him a very
01:00:15wealthy man.
01:00:37In 1889
01:00:38Monet bought
01:00:39the house
01:00:39he and Alice
01:00:40had been renting
01:00:41for the past six
01:00:42years
01:00:42in the Norman
01:00:43village
01:00:44of Giverny.
01:00:46He could finally
01:00:48afford
01:00:48his expensive
01:00:50lifestyle.
01:00:51He brought
01:00:52in a butler
01:00:53a cook
01:00:54and he hired
01:00:55gardeners.
01:00:58Monet had always
01:00:59enjoyed gardening
01:00:59now
01:01:00it became
01:01:01his passion.
01:01:03He designed
01:01:04his garden
01:01:05ordered
01:01:06greenhouses
01:01:06built
01:01:07and traded
01:01:08plants
01:01:08with friends.
01:01:11I'm good
01:01:12for nothing
01:01:12Monet said
01:01:13but gardening
01:01:14and painting.
01:01:21In 1892
01:01:22Monet traveled
01:01:23to Rouen
01:01:24to paint
01:01:25the cathedral.
01:01:28He struggled
01:01:29to apply
01:01:30what he had
01:01:30learned
01:01:30about painting
01:01:31a series
01:01:32of poppy fields
01:01:33or haystacks
01:01:34to a building.
01:01:38my dear
01:01:39Elise
01:01:41I had
01:01:42a night
01:01:42filled
01:01:43with bad
01:01:43dreams
01:01:44the cathedral
01:01:46was collapsing
01:01:47on me
01:01:47it seemed
01:01:49to be blue
01:01:50or pink
01:01:51or yellow
01:01:54Claude
01:01:57what you have
01:01:58with the
01:01:59Rouen
01:02:00cathedral
01:02:00series
01:02:01was the
01:02:02absolutely
01:02:03startling
01:02:04range
01:02:05of emotions
01:02:07and of
01:02:08situations
01:02:10you realize
01:02:11that
01:02:13the building
01:02:14itself
01:02:15is
01:02:15an armature
01:02:17on which
01:02:17to hang
01:02:18the strokes
01:02:23is a skeleton
01:02:25to be clothed
01:02:27with paint
01:02:31this guy
01:02:32was flying
01:02:33by the seat
01:02:34of his pants
01:02:34this is
01:02:36pure
01:02:37innovation
01:02:38and invention
01:02:50we left
01:02:51this morning
01:02:52for Giverny
01:02:53it rained
01:02:54all day
01:02:56Monsieur Monet
01:02:58showed us
01:02:58his cathedrals
01:03:00there are
01:03:0126 of them
01:03:03they're
01:03:03magnificent
01:03:04painted
01:03:06in broad
01:03:06areas
01:03:07and yet
01:03:08one can
01:03:08see
01:03:09every detail
01:03:12Julie Manet
01:03:15in 1895
01:03:16Julie Manet
01:03:18was 16
01:03:19years old
01:03:21she had spent
01:03:22nearly every day
01:03:23of her life
01:03:23with her mother
01:03:24Berthe Morisot
01:03:26Morisot painted
01:03:27her
01:03:28gave her art
01:03:29lessons
01:03:29and schooled
01:03:31her at home
01:03:35late that
01:03:36winter
01:03:37Morisot
01:03:37became ill
01:03:39had trouble
01:03:40had trouble breathing
01:03:41and was so weak
01:03:42she could barely
01:03:43pull herself
01:03:43out of bed
01:03:46she had contracted
01:03:47pneumonia
01:03:47and there was little
01:03:49her doctor could do
01:03:50to help her
01:03:54my dearest little
01:03:55my dearest little Julie
01:03:57I love you
01:03:58as I die
01:04:00I will still love you
01:04:01when I am dead
01:04:06I beg of you
01:04:07do not cry
01:04:09this parting was inevitable
01:04:13I would have been able to be with you
01:04:14I would have liked to be with you until you married
01:04:17you have never caused me one sorrow in your little life
01:04:23tell Monsieur Degas that he is to choose one of my mayonnaise
01:04:26a keepsake for Monet
01:04:28one for Renoir
01:04:32do not cry
01:04:33do not cry
01:04:35I love you more than I can tell you
01:04:37I love you more than I can tell you
01:04:38Maman
01:04:44Berthe Morisot died
01:04:46Saturday morning March 2nd
01:04:481895
01:04:50she was 54 years old
01:05:00one year after Morisot's death
01:05:03Renoir, Degas and Monet
01:05:05organized a retrospective exhibition of her work
01:05:08at Durand-Ruel's
01:05:13Degas, as always
01:05:15argued over every possible detail
01:05:17refusing to compromise
01:05:19on even a single point
01:05:22as he grew older
01:05:24Degas became increasingly difficult
01:05:26and obsessive
01:05:30he was consumed
01:05:32by nearly anything
01:05:33that he found of interest
01:05:45when Degas saw
01:05:47Rose Caron play Brudhilde
01:05:49in the opera Sigurd
01:05:50he was so enraptured
01:05:52that he painted her
01:05:53composed sonnets to her
01:05:55and went back to see her perform
01:05:57the same role
01:05:5837 times
01:06:03but not all of his obsessions
01:06:05were quite so benign
01:06:08in the mid-1890s
01:06:10Degas
01:06:11who'd had Jewish friends
01:06:12all his life
01:06:13became rabidly
01:06:15anti-semitic
01:06:17his shift came
01:06:19as a result
01:06:19of a political controversy
01:06:21the Dreyfus Affair
01:06:24Captain Dreyfus
01:06:25was Jewish
01:06:26and he was accused
01:06:28of espionage
01:06:30the trial that followed
01:06:32fueled an explosive
01:06:33national debate
01:06:34over Dreyfus' guilt
01:06:35or innocence
01:06:36and it gave rise
01:06:38to virulent anti-semitism
01:06:40all across France
01:06:45Degas's behavior
01:06:46over the Dreyfus Affair
01:06:47was simply unforgivable
01:06:49in our terms
01:06:50he was
01:06:52he was openly
01:06:54anti-semitic
01:06:55in his conversations
01:06:56and it brought out
01:06:57the very worst in him
01:07:00he had an old servant
01:07:02who'd been with him
01:07:03for many years
01:07:04she would read him
01:07:06excerpts
01:07:06from the anti-semitic press
01:07:09he cut himself off
01:07:11from the Jew Pissarro
01:07:13who had been
01:07:14one of his closest associates
01:07:17he said
01:07:18that he could not
01:07:19look at Pissarro's work
01:07:20with unprejudiced eyes
01:07:24the Dreyfus Affair
01:07:25was not easy
01:07:26for Pissarro
01:07:27for a number of reasons
01:07:28he was in Paris
01:07:32working
01:07:32and he realized
01:07:34that he had
01:07:36this terrible problem
01:07:37which is that
01:07:37he couldn't go out
01:07:39because Pissarro
01:07:40looked like a Jew
01:07:43it was a very
01:07:44very difficult thing
01:07:45and one of his
01:07:46greatest and most moving
01:07:47self-portraits
01:07:48he only painted himself
01:07:49four times in his life
01:07:50in oil
01:07:51was made in the hotel room
01:07:53that he couldn't get out of
01:07:58Pissarro painted many
01:08:00of his Paris scenes
01:08:01from his hotel room window
01:08:08and despite the trouble
01:08:10that confronted him
01:08:11on the streets
01:08:12his paintings
01:08:13were a hit
01:08:14in the galleries
01:08:17Camille Pissarro's time
01:08:19had finally come
01:08:21fun
01:08:25and
01:08:49I'll be right back
01:08:51because if the
01:08:53At the turn of the century, Camille Pissarro's paintings began selling like never before.
01:09:02He had spent much of his adult life barely earning enough to get by.
01:09:07Now, the Pissarro's were living comfortably.
01:09:12He began to make marketable paintings, and he actually thought about that.
01:09:19He was making images of La Bellefonte.
01:09:24And the paintings were extraordinary, and the paintings sold.
01:09:32Pissarro's paintings sold for over 5,000 francs apiece.
01:09:43And he turned out nearly a painting a week.
01:09:50But he would enjoy his success for only a short while.
01:09:54In October of 1903, the 73-year-old Pissarro fell sick.
01:10:01In the depth of his illness, he relived the discomfort he had felt years earlier when his wife had borrowed
01:10:08money from Claude Monet.
01:10:11He started having hallucinations, in which he imagines that Monet is absolutely fiercely angry with him and his wife for
01:10:23having borrowed that money.
01:10:24And that this is staining their relationship.
01:10:29It's over a decade later.
01:10:31Pissarro is dying, and he relives that episode.
01:10:41When Monet heard not only of Pissarro's illness, but of his anguish, he immediately wrote a note to reaffirm their
01:10:49friendship.
01:10:52But the letter arrived too late.
01:10:57On November 13th, 1903, Camille Pissarro died.
01:11:11Monet traveled to Erigny to say goodbye to his friend of 43 years.
01:11:29Upon his return to Giverny, Monet focused on a series of paintings he called Nymphaeus, the botanical name for water
01:11:38lilies.
01:11:52A decade earlier, he had started work creating his water landscape, a pond he'd had constructed below his flower gardens.
01:12:13Monet's pond captured his attention like nothing else.
01:12:17Monet's pond captured his attention like nothing else.
01:12:17Monet's pond is a váş«n.
01:12:44But then, early in 1910,
01:12:46all his attention suddenly shifted.
01:12:51Alice, his partner for over 30 years, was sick.
01:12:57The woman who had raised eight children,
01:12:59and who liked to take Monet to see the local wrestling matches,
01:13:03was now confined to her bed.
01:13:07After months of suffering,
01:13:10Alice Monet died May 19, 1910.
01:13:15Monet's loss of Alice was devastating.
01:13:18Devastating.
01:13:19He wrote letter after letter to friends
01:13:22about how he simply couldn't survive.
01:13:23He couldn't paint. He couldn't think.
01:13:26In fact, he stopped painting for an entire year.
01:13:35Friends visited, trying their best to boost Monet's spirits.
01:13:42But Monet could not bring himself to work.
01:13:49He spent days on end, reading and re-reading the letters
01:13:53that Alice had written him
01:13:54when he was away on his painting expeditions.
01:13:58Then, one by one, he threw them into the fire
01:14:03and watched them burn.
01:14:16It was just too painful a moment in his past.
01:14:19I think the depth of his feeling for Alice was so powerful
01:14:23that he simply couldn't bear the notion of her presence
01:14:27even in her own written hand.
01:14:30Monet wrote a short note to Durand-Ruel.
01:14:34In it, he said simply,
01:14:36I no longer feel anything.
01:14:47Not long after Alice died,
01:14:49Edgar Degas arrived at Giverny to pay his respects.
01:14:53Monet was pleased to see the difficult man.
01:14:56He always thought of Degas as an old friend.
01:15:01Degas was growing deaf
01:15:02and the two had difficulty carrying on a conversation.
01:15:06His sight was so bad that he had trouble discerning
01:15:10the nuances of the paintings in Monet's studio.
01:15:16But when Degas returned to Paris,
01:15:18he kept pressing forward with his own artwork,
01:15:21despite his terrible eyesight.
01:15:27Degas's art had become increasingly abstract.
01:15:31He admitted that the shift reflected, as he put it,
01:15:34not my mind, but my eyes.
01:15:40Then, in December of 1912, Degas gave up.
01:15:47I no longer work.
01:15:49I don't care.
01:15:50I'm letting everything go.
01:15:53It's astonishing how indifferent you become in old age.
01:15:59Degas.
01:16:02Mercy.
01:16:03What a state he is in.
01:16:06He scarcely knows you.
01:16:08He neglects his clothes.
01:16:11He takes no interest in anything.
01:16:14It is dreadful.
01:16:16Mary Cassatt.
01:16:20The end of his life is a sad story because he was solitary.
01:16:25He didn't have a partner.
01:16:26He didn't have any close family by that stage.
01:16:29He lived in, virtually in isolation.
01:16:36Degas did little other than walk.
01:16:40He walked the streets of Paris aimlessly, alone.
01:16:44And he did it for year after year.
01:16:50It was, it seemed, his final obsession.
01:16:59Edgar Degas died on September 27th, 1917, at the age of 83.
01:17:10It's fortunate for him, Renoir wrote.
01:17:13Any conceivable death is better than living the way he was.
01:17:27Renoir, although his body was ravaged by arthritis, was still painting.
01:17:34He would not allow his pain or discomfort to stop him.
01:17:46He had his brush placed in his hand, and he would sit in his wheelchair and work.
01:17:58The painting itself, just the physical act of manipulating this stuff, was his lifeline.
01:18:04Just actually doing it.
01:18:06And I think that although the fingers must have been inflexible in some ways,
01:18:10when you look at the delicacy of some of the touches of colour, even in the very, very last works,
01:18:14it's perfectly clear that he had all the control he needed to paint the sort of pictures he was painting.
01:18:29Renoir suffers at times greatly.
01:18:35He is doing the most awful pictures of enormously fat, red women with very small heads.
01:18:42His friend, Vallard, persuades him they are fine.
01:18:46Durand Ruel knows better.
01:18:50Mary Cassatt.
01:18:54Late in 1919, Renoir had just completed his large-scale work, The Great Bathers,
01:19:00and turned to paint a small still life of flowers.
01:19:05Before he'd finished the still life, Renoir suffered a heart attack.
01:19:09And on December 3rd, 1919, he died.
01:19:16Pierre-Auguste Renoir was 78 years old.
01:19:23The painter Henri Matisse remembered what Renoir had once told him.
01:19:28Pain passes, Renoir had said.
01:19:31But beauty remains.
01:19:40Renoir's death hits me like a painful blow.
01:19:44A part of my life vanishes with him.
01:19:48The battles and the enthusiasms of youth.
01:19:52And here I am, the only one of the group left.
01:19:57It is hard to carry on alone, though it certainly won't be for long.
01:20:05Every day I feel age gaining on me.
01:20:10Monet.
01:20:11Monet.
01:20:14The Great Burt
01:20:14The Great Burt
01:20:16The Great Burt
01:20:33Since the death of his wife in 1910, Claude Monet had painted precious few canvasses.
01:20:41any work that he attempted seemed to him only a failure
01:20:50and to make matters worse
01:20:52Monet found that he was slowly going blind
01:20:59it was the thought of not being able to see
01:21:02that made the 74 year old Monet
01:21:04throw himself into what would be the biggest project of his life
01:21:11he dreamed of creating not just a work of art
01:21:15but recreating the sense and feeling
01:21:17of actually being in his water garden
01:21:24to do it
01:21:25he would paint on canvas panels
01:21:27as big as 7 feet tall and 28 feet wide
01:21:33he would call the series
01:21:35Les Grandes Decorations
01:21:45Monet began work
01:21:47just as the first battles of World War I broke out
01:21:50in the summer of 1914
01:21:56at times he could hear the sound of artillery fire
01:21:59in the distance
01:22:03my dear Duran Rael
01:22:06if those savages must kill me
01:22:09it will be in the midst of my canvases
01:22:12in front of my life's work
01:22:15Monet
01:22:19while others evacuated Giverny
01:22:21Monet kept painting
01:22:23he worked day after day
01:22:25year after year
01:22:29when the war ended in 1918
01:22:31he offered to donate
01:22:33Les Grandes Decorations
01:22:34to the French state
01:22:35in honor of the armistice
01:22:39but
01:22:40there was a catch
01:22:43there's a wonderful moment
01:22:44where he exacts his price
01:22:46he's going to give them to the state
01:22:47but on one condition
01:22:49which is that they buy from him
01:22:51his women in the garden
01:22:52that had been rejected
01:22:53at the Salon in 1867
01:22:56finally
01:22:56in 1922
01:22:58the French government agreed to pay
01:23:00for the once rejected work
01:23:02and they paid handsomely
01:23:04200,000 francs
01:23:08in return
01:23:09Monet agreed to go through
01:23:10with his donation to the state
01:23:15but a year passed
01:23:16and then another
01:23:17and Monet refused to release the paintings
01:23:21he did not consider them done
01:23:23and he continually reworked
01:23:26and retouched them
01:23:31in 1926
01:23:32Monet found that he had little energy to paint
01:23:35he was 86 years old
01:23:37and only managed a few hours of work a day
01:23:42September 18th
01:23:441926
01:23:46my dear Clemenceau
01:23:48I was so much better
01:23:50that I thought
01:23:52to getting my brushes
01:23:53and palette
01:23:54ready for work again
01:23:56but relapses
01:23:58and new pain
01:23:59kept me from doing so
01:24:02if I do not gain the strength
01:24:04to do my panels
01:24:06as I would like to
01:24:07I have decided
01:24:09to give them as they are
01:24:11yours more than ever
01:24:12Monet
01:24:21on December 5th
01:24:231926
01:24:24with his friend
01:24:26Georges Clemenceau
01:24:27by his side
01:24:28Claude Monet died
01:24:31to meet me
01:24:32I was so much better
01:24:33and I could also take
01:24:36and I think
01:24:36I have one more
01:24:46and
01:24:47he
01:24:47was that
01:24:47that
01:24:48I
01:24:59hello
01:25:00Five months after his death,
01:25:03les grandes décorations were installed permanently
01:25:05in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.
01:25:18But by the time Claude Monet died,
01:25:21Impressionism was out of favour.
01:25:26The art world had moved on in a radical new direction.
01:25:35Almost no one came to see Monet's last work at the Orangerie.
01:25:42The Impressionists,
01:25:43artists who had ushered in unprecedented change,
01:25:47had been forgotten.
01:26:00Early in the 1950s,
01:26:03almost a quarter century after Claude Monet's death,
01:26:07historians began to slowly rediscover Impressionism.
01:26:15Major museums brought Impressionist art to a new generation.
01:26:21And Impressionism was reborn.
01:26:29Reborn nearly 100 years after Claude Monet,
01:26:34Auguste Renoir,
01:26:36Camille Pissarro,
01:26:37Bert Morisot,
01:26:40and Edgar Degas,
01:26:42first began making paintings
01:26:44that captured their modern moment.
01:26:49The Impressionists defied the conservative art establishment.
01:26:55They challenged the world to see art in a new way.
01:27:02They freed art from the confines of what was expected.
01:27:21Their commitment to a certain kind of vision,
01:27:24a certain kind of language,
01:27:26a certain kind of creation,
01:27:28tells us a heroic story.
01:27:32The thing that still impresses me is just how brave they were,
01:27:37how original they were.
01:27:39Their art was tough and demanding and difficult,
01:27:43and what they did was extraordinarily brave.
01:27:53Art that had been made in the distant past
01:27:55now struck a new chord,
01:27:58reaching out across a century
01:28:00to engage viewers with its sense of the moment,
01:28:04its immediacy,
01:28:07its beauty.
01:28:39watching you all the time in the past this time,
01:28:40All right.
01:28:54You will be happy with your passion.
01:28:58To be a great strength,
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