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Past Exhibitions

19th-century France: Painting and Sculpture
Collection Insight
April 23, 2005–January 4, 2006
SAM Fourth Floor Galleries


In this installation of paintings and sculptures from the collection of the Seattle Art Museum, familiar masters of Impressionism—Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Edgar Degas—are presented in the context of broader developments in 19th-century French art. Approximately 15 works reveal parallel currents in academic art, realist landscape painting and Impressionism that fueled the rise of the modern avant-garde at the end of the century.

Exemplifying the style and taste of the French Academy—against which several generations rebelled to define their own visions—is Portrait of Madame la Comtesse de Cambacérès, 1895, by William Adolphe Bouguereau, exhibited in the Salon of 1869. During the period of Bouguereau's greatest fame, a group of painters working outside the academy challenged its hierarchies and conventions, and brought new status to landscape paintings outdoors. These artists, including Charles Francois Daubigny and Paul Guigou, achieved heightened naturalism through their reliance on painted sketches. Their interest in spontaneity paved the way for the even more radical innovations of the Impressionists, whose call for a "painting of modern life" emphasized the casual and momentary in their compositions and techniques.

This exhibition will close on January 4, 2006 to prepare for construction of the expanded Seattle Art Museum. This collection gallery will reopen in spring 2007.

William Adolphe Bouguereau, France, 1825-1905
Portrait of Madame la Comtesse de
Cambacérès, 1895
oil on canvas
47 5/8 x 35 1/2 in.
Purchased with funds from the Eugene Fuller Memorial Collection, by exchange, 88.16

 
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