Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

On View: West Building, Main Floor

127 artworks on view.

Green hills roll back to a turquoise-blue sea in this almost square painting. The scene is built with layers of small dots in lavender, lilac, cool blue, warm green, yellow, and peach. The hill angles from nearly the top left corner of the canvas to the lower right, filling the bottom left half of the canvas. It is mostly variegated shades of green but there are two cliff-like, purple surfaces to our left and a lighter patch of yellow to our right. A pole and a cross-shaped structure atop the hill to the left could be utility poles. An object on the water in the distance to our right may be a buoy or a boat. Peach lines the horizon, which comes just over halfway up the composition, and straw yellow and cornflower blue ripple across the sky above.

Seascape at Port-en-Bessin, Normandy

Georges Seurat

1888

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1972.9.21

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M88

In a dance studio, two ballerinas wearing knee-length tutus and ballet slippers sit on a bench and stretch to our right while four more pose at the back of the space, to our left, in this long, horizontal painting. The scene and dancers are loosely painted so many features are indistinct. All the women have light skin and dark brown hair. Each pale, robins’ egg-blue costume has a low-cut, tightly fitting, sleeveless bodice and a full skirt. Dabs of off white, teal, and blue suggest flowers lining the deep U of the neckline at the front and down the back of each bodice. Closest to us and nearly brushing the edges of the lower right corner of the canvas, one dancer sits on the end of a wooden bench and leans down between her legs, her feet widely planted. She rests her torso on an elbow folded onto one knee as she reaches for her left foot, farther from us, with her other hand. Her hair is pulled up and her face, looking downward, is deep in shadow. Sitting behind her on the bench, to our left, a second dancer lifts her right leg, toe pointing, as she pulls on her pale pink tights. Her other leg stretches straight, pointed toe brushing the floor, in front of her. This woman’s hair hangs loose around her shoulders. The pair is brightly lit from a source to our right, and an arched area of electric blue and mustard yellow behind them is difficult to interpret. The floor, which takes up about two-thirds of the composition, is painted with dabs of teal blue, pale fuchsia pink, and caramel brown. It leads us back to the upper left corner of the painting where four more four ballerinas stand in a line. The pair to our left stands with their backs to us, facing the wall with their right legs raised to shoulder height, toes pointed. The pair to our right faces us. They also stand with their right legs raised, creating a wide angle with their standing legs. All four ballerinas bend their arms gently at the elbow, and some tip their heads toward the raised legs. The rightmost dancer is illuminated by a pair of French doors at the back corner, at the top center of the painting. The wall behind the bench is streaked with mint green over honey brown, and the wall at the back of the room is leather brown. The visible, soft brushstrokes give the image a blurred, ethereal appearance in the dimmed studio. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “Degas.”

Before the Ballet

Edgar Degas

1890/1892

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1942.9.19

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M83

A dimly lit ballet studio is filled with about two dozen young dancers tying on their shoes, stretching, or practicing en pointe in this horizontal painting. The girls all wear dance costumes with knee length tutus, tight bodices, and belts in canary yellow, rose pink, or royal blue. The girls all have brown or dark blond hair. The room seems to be mostly lit from windows on the wall opposite us so some of the girls’ faces are in shadow, but all appear to have light skin. Starting from the left, two dancers are visible from the waist down as they descend a spiral staircase that rises along the left edge of the canvas and off the top. To our left of center is a knot of several dancers, two of whom stand on their toes en pointe, with arms raised. Further right and closest to us, four dancers cluster around a mahogany-brown bench. Rose-pink ballet slippers are piled next to a seated dancer wearing a scarlet-red jacket over her costume. Her head is turned to our right, looking at the girl standing next to her. On the other side of the bench, another dancer bends over to reach her feet, presumably tying on her slippers. The fourth stands on the far right with her back to us, her head turned to our left to look back at the central group. More dancers practice in a room beyond, seen through a wide, squared opening in the upper right of the composition. The room we seem to be in has dark olive-green walls and the room beyond has brighter, parchment-yellow walls. The faces and some details of the costume are loosely painted so their features are indistinct. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Degas.”

The Dance Class

Edgar Degas

c. 1873

Oil on canvas Accession ID 2014.79.710

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M83

A young girl with pale skin and long brown hair looks at us as she braces a tall, wooden hoop with one hand by her hip in this vertical painting. The girl stands close to us with her body angled to our right, and she looks at us from the corners of her dark blue eyes. Her delicate nose, rosy cheeks, and closed, rose-pink lips are set in a heart-shaped face. She has wavy, chestnut-brown hair that falls loosely around her shoulders. Bangs brush across her forehead, and her hair is pulled back in half, tied in a pale blue ribbon. She wears a sky-blue dress with a ruffle around the wide collar. The long sleeves are rolled back over her wrists, and the dress is tied at the waist with an aquamarine-blue sash tied into a bow at her lower back. The knee-length skirt flares out from the waist. She wears ice-blue socks pulled halfway up her shins and black, low-heeled Mary Jane-style shoes tied with bows over the arches. One foot turns to rest on the bottom edge of the wooden hoop she braces with her left hand, farther from us. She holds a short stick by her side with the other hand. The ground around her is painted with blended areas of muted topaz blue, peach, and canary yellow. The top third of the background is a loosely painted garden, with lime and spring-green leaves, and a cluster of shell-pink flowers to our right. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Renoir. 85.”

Girl with a Hoop

Auguste Renoir

1885

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.58

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M85

Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned woman holds an open, gold-colored fan in her lap in this vertical, loosely painted portrait. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the clothing and background, so some details are indistinct. The woman’s body is angled slightly to our left, and she looks off in that direction with her chin pulled in. Her dark eyes seem unfocused under faint brows. She has an oval face with a straight, flaring nose, and her full, pale pink lips are closed. Her brown hair is pulled back, and she wears a white scarf tied under her chin. Her high-necked dress is painted with strokes and dabs of celery green and butter yellow and is shaded with mauve pink. The cuffs are scarlet red where they fold back over her forearms. The woman sits on an upholstered sofa with a rounded back, painted in similar shades of pale green and yellow with touches of red. The back of the sofa and the woman’s head are reflected in a framed mirror just behind the couch. The area in the top right corner of the composition is especially loosely painted but strokes in white, red, green, and blue. The artist signed the painting near the woman’s shoulder to our left: “Mary Cassatt.”

Woman with a Fan

Mary Cassatt

c. 1878/1879

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.95

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M86

We look up at the exterior of a church that soars the height of this vertical painting. The church is painted with visible dabs and strokes of sky blue, cream white, golden tan, and a few touches of pale, shell pink to create a blurred look, as if seeing a reflection in the rippling surface of a puddle. The church façade is angled to our left, away from us. The main door and its surround takes up the center of the composition, where a rectangular door is set within nested, pointed arches that lead up to a narrow, tall, triangular gable. The point of that gable overlaps the round rose window, which is the same width as the portal surround below. Spires flank the central section and rise steeply off the top edge of the painting. The sky above is painted as a field of pale lapis blue. A few dabs of darker blue and green suggest people, tiny in scale, standing near the lower left corner. The artist signed and dated the lower right, “Claude Monet ‘94.”

Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight

Claude Monet

1894

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.179

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

A small child stands facing us on a sun-dappled path that runs up the center of a garden dominated by towering yellow and burnt-orange sunflowers in this loosely painted, vertical scene. The light comes from our right so long, sea-green and plum-purple shadows cross the peach-colored path. The path is wide at the bottom center of the canvas and narrows as it reaches the steps of a house, beyond the garden. Close to us, four blue and white porcelain urns line the path, separating it from the grassy banks to either side. The urns are filled with tall stems with coral-pink and cardinal-red flowers. The child stands about halfway back along the path, where the garden transitions from grass to the banks of tall sunflowers. A few strokes in front of the child could be a small dog. Behind the child, a woman and another child stand on the steps. The woman wears a cornflower-blue and white dress, while both children have bare legs and wear white clothes and yellow hats. All three have indistinct facial features and peach-colored skin. The house spans with width of the composition. It has an amethyst-purple roofline with two chimneys, and the petal-pink walls have mango-yellow highlights. Windows are covered with blue latticework. Above the house, fluffy white clouds float against a vibrant blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting at the lower right in dark blue, “Claude Monet 80.”

The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil

Claude Monet

1881

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1970.17.45

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M85

This painting shows a woman sitting upright in a yellow-and-tan reclining chair, her body turned to the right, her face turned toward us. Her skin is pale, with shades of pale yellow and light pink, and shadows in a pale green shade. She has deep-set brown eyes, arched eyebrows, and a small pink mouth set in a neutral expression. Her curling hair is light purple and put in an updo. She is wearing a white and lilac polka-dot blouse with puffy sleeves, complemented by a long skirt with stripes of black, gray, and green. In her lap, she holds a small black, tan, and light-green dog, cradling it gently with both hands. The background features a grassy area enclosed by a wooden fence painted with lines of green, teal, and dark red, with a large, slightly bent tree trunk visible to the left. The sky above has a cloudy appearance made by crisscrossing lines of white, purple, pink, and green. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible, especially those in the background. In some places, like the fence, the tree trunk, and the back of the chair, the light brown surface under the paint is visible.

Lady with a Dog

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1891

Oil on cardboard Accession ID 1972.9.22

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

We look across a forested ravine painted in deep greens and blues at a terracotta-orange building at the top of a hill at the center of this nearly square, loosely painted landscape. Spring and moss-green trees grow along the ravine in front of us and up the left side of the canvas. Shadows within the densely forested area are painted with slate and royal blue with touches of plum and lavender purple, and the blue continues into the sky in the upper right quadrant of the composition. The sky is visible through the pointed, arched windows on the upper level of the building, giving the impression that it might be incomplete or in ruins. The building is made up of two stories over a protruding base, which could be a fortress-like structure below or a cliff face. Loose, thick brushstrokes are visible throughout.

Château Noir

Paul Cezanne

1900/1904

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1958.10.1

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M84

Orchard in Bloom, Louveciennes

Camille Pissarro

1872

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1970.17.51

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M87

We look down onto a wide, bustling, tree-lined avenue filled with buildings, people, and horse-drawn carriages in this horizontal painting. Muted, warm browns, sage green, slate blue, and brick red dominate the urban scene, which is loosely painted with short and long dotted brushstrokes so some details are difficult to make out. The street extends diagonally up from our lower left with wide gray sidewalks on either side, which are lined by slender trees sparsely dotted with brown leaves. Dozens of pedestrians meander individually, in pairs, and in small groups on the sidewalks in coats and hats. Across from us, multi-storied buildings with store fronts at street level stretch across the width of the canvas. Rows of windows line the facades. Horse-drawn carriages move in both directions on the street and two omnibuses have pulled to the curb closest to us, where passengers have lined up. Two brick-red, hexagonally shaped kiosks stand opposite each other on either side of the street about halfway along the boulevard. Sunlight filters onto the scene, creating a dappled effect in some areas, especially over to our right. The artist signed and dated the painting in dark green in the lower right corner: “C.Pissarro.97.”

Boulevard des Italiens, Morning, Sunlight

Camille Pissarro

1897

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.198

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M89

A bank of flowering bushes, possibly roses, fills most of an enclosed garden in front of a white house in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is created using visible dabs and strokes of scarlet red, pale yellow, rust orange, and shell pink for the roses and kelly, teal, and forest green for the greenery. The cloud of flowers fills most of the left two-thirds of the composition, and dabs of shamrock and moss green and delphinium blue indicate grass and other plants around it. To our right of the roses, a couple walks near a fence in the distance. Painted with only a few strokes and touches of paint, one person wears a white dress and hat, and the other a dark gray suit and hat. A celery-green tree grows up the right edge of the canvas and curves toward the ivory-white, three-story house. The upper story is tucked under a pitched, ash-brown roof, and aquamarine-blue shutters flank the windows. More trees surround the house and line the fence. Brushstrokes in white and nickel gray suggest clouds against the ultramarine-blue sky. The artist signed and dated the painting in black near the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 73.”

The Artist's Garden in Argenteuil (A Corner of the Garden with Dahlias)

Claude Monet

1873

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1991.27.1

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M82