Impressionism and Post-Impressionism

On View: West Building, Main Floor

127 artworks on view.

Woman Viewed from Behind (Visit to a Museum)

Edgar Degas

c. 1879-1885

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1985.64.11

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M89

Painted almost entirely in tones of topaz, lapis, and sky blue, the façade of a building abutting a waterway fills this horizontal painting. Brushstrokes are visible throughout and they blend to make the scene appear hazy. The top two-thirds of this painting shows the front of a building with two stories of rows of pointed, arched windows. Two long, low boats, gondolas, are pulled up side-by-side to one of the arched openings at the water level of the canal, to our right. A few touches of amethyst purple and mauve pink delineate some of the architectural features and shadows amid a field of denim and pale blue. The water below is painted with short, horizontal strokes to create a shimmering effect. The building’s reflection is captured with touches of emerald and cool green against the blue water. The artist signed and dated the work with cobalt-blue paint in the lower left: “Claude Monet 1908.”

Palazzo da Mula, Venice

Claude Monet

1908

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.182

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

Rue des Moulins, 1894

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

1894

Oil on cardboard on wood Accession ID 1963.10.69

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

We look across a placid pond at sandstone-white buildings with brown and terracotta-red roofs nestled within a grove of green trees and plants in this vertical landscape painting. To our left, the brown roofs cover extensions to the main building, which has the terracotta roof. Between us and the buildings, the remains of a slate-gray wall are partially hidden by a vine or tree. The plants in front of the buildings are created with short daubs of yellow and green with touches of blue. The pond or other small body of water close to us spans the lower width of the canvas. The plants are reflected in the water's smooth surface. The trees to our right and behind the house have olive-green trunks stretching beyond the top edge of the composition. Their leaves blend together to fill the space next to and behind the house with a patchwork of shades of emerald, pine, and celery green. These greens are layered with short, angled strokes over smoother patches, and they fill the upper third of the composition. Patches of orange and a slice of azure-blue sky are visible among the leaves on the left side over the brown roofs. The artist has signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “P. Cezanne 73.”

House of Père Lacroix

Paul Cezanne

1873

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.102

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M82

This painting shows a riverside with a cream-colored bridge cutting horizontally across the scene in front of a bustling city. The bridge is decorated with flags that have stripes of red, white, and blue. Closest to us, at the bottom of the painting, large white barges are moored on the reflective blue river, with small people in white shirts floating nearby on wooden platforms. On the left, a pale gray path stretches along the side of the river, with some pedestrians walking on it. In the distance on the right, tall buildings are visible in shades of yellow, blue, peach, and cream. They have pointed roofs with many dark chimneys sticking up into the air. The sky above is blue and full of soft white clouds. The brushstrokes in the painting are thick and visible, and details are suggested with dashes of paint, rather than illustrated clearly.

The Bridge of Louis Philippe

Jean-Baptiste-Armand Guillaumin

1875

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.155

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M82

We look across the water at two sailing ships with cream-white sails and dark rigging floating in a shimmering, ice-blue river against a distant shore lined with trees, hills, and buildings in this nearly square landscape painting. The horizon comes about halfway up the painting, and the ships’ masts and sails are silhouetted against a topaz-blue sky with wispy white clouds. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout so many of the details are indistinct. One boat floats near the left edge of the painting and the second is situated a little father back, to our right of center. Both have rust-orange anchors painted near the pointed bows, which face us. Tall, narrow, asparagus-green trees line the far riverbank between the boats. Tall spires and towers of buildings rise in a cluster to our left near that edge of the canvas, and boats cluster near the distant shore to our right. Oatmeal-brown hills rise beyond the trees and town. The trees and boats are reflected in the water, which is painted with horizontal dashes and squiggles. The artist signed the painting in the lower left, “Claude Monet.”

Ships Riding on the Seine at Rouen

Claude Monet

1872/1873

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1970.17.43

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M87

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 azure blue, peach, lavender purple, and camel brown 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, dark rose window, which is the same width as the portal surround below. Spires flank the central section and rise precipitously off the top edge of the painting. The sky above is painted with daubs of white and pale blue. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “Claude Monet 94.”

Rouen Cathedral, West Façade

Claude Monet

1894

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.49

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

A long, brightly lit room is filled with at least nine young ballerinas in robin’s egg-blue dance costumes and pale pink shoes in this wide, horizontal painting. They all have light skin and brown or dark blond hair. The studio is lit from the left, and more light pours in through two windows toward the back. The wall closest to us is mint green with brown wainscoting covering the lower half, and a small mirror hanging a short distance down the wall. The walls of the space farther from us and the scuffed, worn floor are both painted with tan layered with washes of moss green and denim blue. A dancer in the lower left faces us and sits near a cello lying on the floor. The instrument’s curved upper body and neck emerge from the tutu near her left hip, on our right. She leans forward with her right arm, on our left, draped across her lap, and she rests her head on the other hand, propped up on her elbow. We look slightly down on her so only see the top of her head and the point of her nose. She wears a red jacket with her ice-blue, knee-length tutu spread around her. Her splayed feet are cropped by the bottom edge of the canvas. In the center are two dancers, one seated and the other standing. The seated girl is perched on a wooden chair with the back of her tutu draped over its top. She also wears a petal-pink jacket dotted with darker mauve. She gazes at the girl in front of her. That girl stands with her back to us, bowing her head slightly as she adjusts the bow of her emerald-green belt at the small of her back. At least six more dancers sit or stand along the far wall, in the upper right corner of the composition. One looks down at her tutu spread wide between her hands, and another holds a canary-yellow fan up to her face. The features of this group are loosely painted, making them indistinct. The artist signed the lower right, “Degas.”

The Dance Lesson

Edgar Degas

c. 1879

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1995.47.6

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M83

Shown from the knees up, a young woman with peachy skin and red hair sits facing us on a pine-green bench in this vertical painting. She sits with her body angled to our right, and her left elbow, on our right, hooks over the top slat of the bench. Her head tilts slightly to our right to rest on the curled fingers of that hand. In her other hand, she holds up a red flower on a short stem. Her hair is pulled up and back over a high forehead, and her cheeks are deeply flushed. Her pink lips are closed, and she looks down and to our left at the flower with gray eyes. She has an oval-shaped face and a hint of a double chin. Her white dress is painted with ice-blue shadows and folds. It has a deep V neck that reaches to an apron-like pinafore patterned with vertical bands of pale lilac that alternate with angled daubs of blue. Beyond her is a loosely painted landscape with grassy areas and clusters of tall trees painted in spring, emerald, and sea glass green. The edge of the grassy field nearly brushes the top edge of the canvas, and the trees are cropped by it. The artist signed the lower right, “Mary Cassatt.”

Woman with a Red Zinnia (Revery)

Mary Cassatt

1891-1892

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.99

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M86

A cloud of canary-yellow flowers with pumpkin-orange centers on tall stems with emerald and pine-green leaves fills the top half of this vertical still life painting. The flowers, vase, the round tabletop on which they sit, and the background are loosely painted with visible brushstrokes of vibrant color. The flowers have long, pointed petals like daisies. The bouquet is rimmed with a ring of verdant leaves near where the stems gather in the narrow neck of the cylindrical, ivory-white vase. The vase might sit on a circular cloth edged with alternating sage-green and plum-purple forms like pompoms, but the loose painting style makes these details difficult to make out. The round tabletop is cropped by left and bottom edges of the canvas. The background behind the bouquet and table is painted with long, vertical brushstrokes in salmon pink, pale turquoise, denim blue, and creamy white. The artist signed and dated the painting in red in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet 1880.”

Jerusalem Artichoke Flowers

Claude Monet

1880

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1963.10.181

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M80

About a dozen rust-orange and golden yellow apples and peaches are arranged on a white plate next to white and floral-patterned cloths nestled around a white pitcher and bowl, all on a wood tabletop that tilts toward us in this nearly square still life painting. A curtain patterned with royal blue, olive green, and beige falls along or near the back wall of the room and rests on the table to our left. The white pitcher is painted loosely with the suggestion of harvest-gold and pale lilac-purple flowers, and it sits amid the pooling folds of the curtain to our left. The white tablecloth is bunched under and next to it to our right, at the middle of the composition. The fruit is arranged on and around a white plate next to the tablecloth. A tall bowl with fluted sides and a ruffled, scalloped rim sits behind the fruit, near the right edge of the table. The curving skirt of the table reaches nearly to the bottom edge of the canvas. All the objects in the painting are outlined with dark blue and the shadows are painted with patches of spruce and cobalt blue.

Still Life with Apples and Peaches

Paul Cezanne

c. 1905

Oil on canvas Accession ID 1959.15.1

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M84

We look slightly down onto a balding, bearded man with pale, peachy skin and wearing a three-piece suit, seated in a wooden armchair behind an L-shaped desk, in this loosely painted vertical portrait. A tabby cat with a white chest sits on his lap. The room around them is packed with piles of papers, books, and paintings hung on scarlet-red walls. The man’s body faces us, and he looks off to our right under dark, bushy, peaked eyebrows. His round head is fringed with gray hair, and he has a full, light gray beard. His gray eyes are bloodshot beneath heavy lids, with dark rings underneath. He has a short nose, and the flesh of his cheeks hangs in loose paunches alongside his nose. Close inspection finds strokes of plum and lavender purple, mint and sage green, and ice blue creating highlights and shadows on this face. His left hand, to our right, hangs loosely over the arm of the chair, while his other hand gently rests around the chest of the small cat that sits on his lap. The man wears a chocolate-brown jacket over a charcoal-gray vest, and a dark bowtie with a white shirt that just shows at his throat and wrists. Reams of pink, yellow, white, green, and gold paper are arrayed on the desk in front of the man, and in tall, uneven piles to his left, with more on a chair against the wall behind him. A small paperweight globe of multicolored glass on a brass base rests on one sheet of paper on the desk. Two small and one large gilt-framed portraits hang on the velvety red wall in the background, and others are reflected in a gilt-framed mirror at the upper right corner of the painting. A white door with four horizontal panels is closed behind the man at the upper left corner. The brushwork in the painting is quick and loose, with touches of contrasting colors throughout. The artist signed and dated the lower left corner, “E. Vuillard 1912.”

Théodore Duret

Edouard Vuillard

1912

Oil on cardboard on wood Accession ID 1963.10.70

On View: West Building, Main Floor, Gallery M86