Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

On View: West Building, Main Floor

138 artworks on view.

The Old Musician

Edouard Manet

1862

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.162

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M89

A pale-skinned girl wearing an arctic-blue ballet costume stands looking at us and almost fills this vertical painting. The scene is painted with blended strokes, giving it a soft, almost blurry look. In pale pink ballet slippers, she stands with her feet in fifth position, so the toes are turned out while her feet are almost parallel, the heel of the front foot touching the toes of the other. Her body faces our left, and she turns her head to look at us with blue eyes. She has delicate, dark brows, rosy cheeks, and full pink lips. Her long honey-brown hair is tied with a sky-blue ribbon like a headband. The fitted bodice of her pale blue dress has a lapis-blue bow at the chest, and the short sleeves tie around the sides of her shoulders. A sash around her middle is also lapis blue. The knee-length tutu has layers of light fabric, and seems to fly up behind her. She wears a black choker necklace and a black bracelet on each wrist. She holds a white object, perhaps a lacy handkerchief, in her right hand at her waist. Her other arm, closer to us, hangs down by her side as she touches the tutu. The background is painted with strokes of spring, sage, and pine green with touches of teal blue. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “A. Renoir. 74.”

The Dancer

Auguste Renoir

1874

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1942.9.72

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M85

A nude woman with brown skin and long black hair stands to our right against a landscape swirling with jewel-toned greens, pinks, and purples while a man, also with brown skin, sits under a tree behind her in this stylized vertical painting. The woman's body is angled to our right, and she cuts her black eyes back to look off to our left. She touches her chin with the fingertips of her right hand, closer to us, while her left hand holds a white cloth over her groin. The ground beneath her is swirled with bright pink, lilac purple, and some strokes of canary yellow. To our left and behind the woman, the man wears a topaz-blue robe, and he kneels with his hands on his knees. A band of vivid orange and kelly green in front of his knees could be abstracted flowers. His oval face is rimmed with a band of black. He has a wide nose, and his pink lips are parted to reveal his teeth. His eyes are wide open as he looks down under black brows. A craggy, dark teal-blue tree trunk curves up and across the background, and a red and green faced serpent floats near the upper right corner. The artist signed, dated, and inscribed the title in the lower left corner, "P Gauguin 92 Parau na te Varua ino."

Parau na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil)

Paul Gauguin

1892

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1972.9.12

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M83

A woman with light skin sits facing us across a marble-topped table in a café in this vertical painting. Her body is angled slightly to our right, and she rests her right elbow, on our left, on the table. She leans her right cheek onto the back of her right hand as she gazes into the distance. She holds a cigarette in her other hand, which rests on the tabletop. Her pale pink dress has long sleeves with ruffles at the cuffs, and buttons down the front of the skirt can be seen under the table. A lace bow or ruffles cascade down at her neck. Straw-colored hair peeks out under a black hat encircled with a wide band of lace. A short, stemmed glass sitting on the table in front of her holds a small, round piece of fruit surrounded by caramel-colored liquid. The white marble tabletop is streaked with gray. The burgundy, patterned banquette she sits on takes up the bottom half of the composition, and wood paneling around a slate-gray metal grate fills the top half. Loose brushstrokes are visible throughout. The artist signed the work as if he had written his name on the surface of the table, near the front edge to our left, "Manet."

Plum Brandy

Edouard Manet

c. 1877

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1971.85.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M89

A woman wearing a sheer white blouse, short red and gold vest, and full-legged, patterned pants cinched below the knee lies back and looks at us with hooded eyes in this horizontal painting. Her shoulders lean back against an oversized white pillow, up along the right edge of the composition. Her body tips toward us, and her knees are bent so her feet are together in the lower left corner. Her right arm rests along the side of her body, and she props herself up with her other arm. That hand has a gold band on the ring finger. Her light skin is tinged with green on her face. Her head rolls slightly away from us so she looks down her cheeks at us with slitted, dark eyes through heavily lined lids. She has dark brows, and her rose-red lips are parted. The angle of her head creates a slight double chin. Gold hoops with dangling fringe or chains hang from her ears, and she wears three strands of dark beads around her neck. Her black hair is plaited in a thick braid that comes down over her left shoulder, closer to us. A cap made of gold-colored disks and red fringe sits on the far side of her head. The woman’s clothing is more loosely painted. We may see her breasts and pink nipples through her sheer, silver-gray tunic, which has long, voluminous sleeves. The short, bolero-style vest is strawberry red and gold, with narrow cap sleeves. A sea-blue sash around her waist is striped with overlapping burnt-orange and black lines. Her pants have flaring legs gathered with a button just below her knees. The pattern is of sage-green circles with swipes of rust-red in the center, suggesting flowers and vines against a black background. Her knees are spread open so her feet can barely be contained within the composition. Her teal-green slip-on shoes have the suggestion of flowers painted with dabs of yellow, black, and red, and a pompom atop each toe box. A red and gold cushion sits just beyond her feet. On it is a tray of oranges and an emerald-green jug. The pillow the woman leans on is propped against a short section of wall or piece of furniture painted with a border of roses. The room opens up beyond this, and has a turquoise and brown rug leading back to a cranberry-red sofa, on which a gray piece of fabric has been draped. The wall above is patterned with yellow and green diamonds and pink flowers against a laurel-green background. The artist signed the lower left, “A. Renoir. 70.”

Odalisque

Auguste Renoir

1870

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.207

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M81

A dark-haired, disembodied head of a haloed man with pale, peach skin floats against a red and yellow background in this vertical portrait. The man’s hair seems to be flattened against his forehead, and extends beyond his head at the back in a way that suggests it may become a cap or hood. His face turns toward us, and he looks down to our left under arched eyebrows. He has a prominent hooked nose and a brushy mustache. Behind his head, the background is divided into a tomato-red zone for the top half and a golden yellow field below, separated by a thin, pine-green line. Two red and green apples hang from a branch near the upper right corner. The thin yellow halo floats over his head to the left of the branch. A pine-green, stylized, vine-like form curves up from the bottom edge of the panel and ends with flat, sunshine yellow, square shapes, perhaps abstracted flowers or fruit. A hand near the lower right holds one end of the vine like a cigarette between fingertips. The vine seems to turn into a serpent’s head beyond the man’s fingers. Numbers and letters are painted in green in the lower left: “1889” and “P Go.”

Self-Portrait

Paul Gauguin

1889

Oil on wood Accession ID 1963.10.150

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M83

Shown from about the knees up, a young woman sits in a chair angled to our right but she turns her face to look at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her chair has a rounded back and arms made from what looks like bent, woody vines, and the background is a solid field of pale aqua. Her dark hair is parted in the middle and tied at the nape of her neck with a red ribbon. Dark eyebrows curve over brown eyes, and she has a rounded nose, and her petal-pink lips are slightly parted. Her pale peach skin is tinged with green on her face and hands. Her right arm, on our left, rests along the arm of the chair. In her other hand, which rests in her lap, she holds a sprig of blooming oleander, with light pink flowers and green leaves. The bodice of her high-necked dress is striped with brick red and royal blue, and is lined with a row of round gold buttons down the front. The sleeves come down to her forearms and the cuffs and collar at her neck are white. Her full skirt is royal blue with pumpkin-orange dots. The brushwork is loose throughout and individual brushstrokes are visible, especially in the stripes of her bodice and the patchy peach tones that make up her skin.

La Mousmé

Vincent van Gogh

1888

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.151

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M83

A densely packed crowd of men and women, all of them with pale skin and most of them wearing black, stand in a theater lobby beneath a mezzanine level that runs close to the top edge of the composition in this horizontal painting. Because the crowd spans the width of the composition, the first impression is of a mass of deep black stretching across the canvas. Slowly, individual faces and poses become evident. Five of the women wear black, oval masks that cover their eyes and noses, and one more mask has fallen onto the rust-red floor below. Two women, wearing bright white and colorful clothing, engage some of the men in conversation. A man cropped by the left edge of the painting wears the green, red, and gold costume and pointed cap of a court jester. Two gold and glass wall sconces hang on the cream-colored wall behind the crowd, one near each top corner. The space within the mezzanine level above is painted loosely so details are difficult to make out, but a pair of legs clad in black britches and white stockings seems to stand with ankles crossed at the top center. A leg wearing a red, high-heeled ankle boot dangles outside of the railing to the right. The brushstrokes are loose throughout. The artist’s signature appears on a piece of discarded paper on the floor near the lower right corner: “Manet.”

Masked Ball at the Opera

Edouard Manet

1873

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1982.75.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M89

We look down on a few dozen people walking along the sidewalks of a wide, sunlit bridge in this almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted, which gives it a hazy, sun-dappled look and makes some details indistinct. The people wear black, white, light blue, or pale green jackets and pants or long dresses as they walk in all directions. Some wear hats, and a few women carry parasols. The bridge opens into a wide boulevard close to us, as the sidewalks angle into the lower corners of the composition. Several horse-drawn carriages move across the bridge alongside the people. The deck of the oyster-white bridge is lined with black gas lamps. The river beneath shimmers with lapis and turquoise blue. The far side is packed with four and five-story buildings, which are mostly tan with rows of windows painted as blue rectangles. The rooflines bristle with chimneys. Another structure or boat sits on the water near the lower right corner of the painting, and a flag with vertical bands of red, white, and blue flies from a flagpole there. Opposite the flag, on the far bank, is a statue of a man on a horse, both on a tall plinth. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the azure-blue sky above is dotted with puffy white clouds tinged with dove gray and mauve. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “A. Renoir. 72.”

Pont Neuf, Paris

Auguste Renoir

1872

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1970.17.58

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M89

Roses

Vincent van Gogh

1890

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1991.67.1

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M83

Shown from the chest up, a man with short, orange hair and green-tinted, pale skin looks at us, wearing a vivid blue painter's smock in this vertical portrait painting. His smock and the background are painted with long, mostly parallel strokes of cobalt, azure, and lapis blue. His shoulders are angled to our left, and he looks at us from the corners of his blue eyes. He has a long, slightly bumped nose, and his lips are closed within a full, rust-orange beard. He holds a palette and paintbrushes in his left hand, in the lower left corner of the canvas. The background is painted with long brushstrokes that follow the contours of his head and torso to create an aura-like effect.

Self-Portrait

Vincent van Gogh

1889

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1998.74.5

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M83

A pale-skinned young girl with blond hair, wearing a blue dress, stands in a garden in this vertical painting. The girl and background are painted with blended strokes, giving the scene and especially the girl a soft look. She faces our right and stands in the middle of the composition. Her shoulder-length cloud of hair is topped with a red bow, and long bangs frame her round face. Under faint brows, her sapphire-blue eyes look to our right. She has a petite nose, and her coral-pink mouth turns up in a slight smile. Her cobalt-blue dress is trimmed with wide, blue-white lace on the neckline, across the bottom hem, and down the front to either side of a row of white buttons. The white edges her petticoats come down to just below her knees, peeking out from under the flaring skirt. She wears white socks over blue ankle boots, which also have a row of white buttons down the side we can see. Her near hand is raised with her index finger hooked in the handle of a green watering can, and she holds two daisies by her side in her other hand. She stands on a path flecked with ivory white, pale purples, greens, and pink that curves up and to her left. A bush with emerald and pine-green leaves dotted with pink blooms fills the lower left corner. Behind her, green grass runs back to meet a profusion of pink, purple, and poppy-red plants and flowers that run along the top edge of the composition. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Renoir. 76.”

A Girl with a Watering Can

Auguste Renoir

1876

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.206

On View: West Building Main Floor, Gallery M85