AT THE ALLEN / FALL 2025 / 5 Collaborative efforts of three institutions have allowed a special reunification of these important works: Oberlin College’s Garden of the Princess, Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin’s Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, and the Kunstmuseum in the Hague’s Quai du Louvre. These three cityscapes are some of Monet’s earliest renderings of Paris, painted shortly after the April 1867 opening of Paris’s Exposition Universelle (World’s Fair) and during the waning years of Baron GeorgesEugene Haussmann’s radical project (1853–1870) to modernize and gentrify Paris. Monet’s cityscapes from 1867 attest to Paris’s importance as a growingmodern metropolis. The Allen’s presentation of these three works highlights Monet’s attention to two emerging facets of modern life in Paris: the Parisian cityscape transformed by Haussmannization and exposure to Japanese aesthetics during the Exposition Universelle. Monet’s Early Years In the 1860s, Monet moved from Le Havre to Paris and began to establish a name for himself in the city. He was surrounded by a supportive network of artists, including Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley, and the writer Émile Zola. In 1865, Monet had his first taste of success: his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture’s annual exhibition—the Salon. For young French artists in the mid-19th century, entry into this governmentsponsored exhibition was the only place to establish their reputations and gain favor with critics and patrons alike. A favorable Salon review could launch an artist’s career. However, the Royal Academy was known for its old-fashioned tastes and stifling aesthetic values. Salon critics often conflated avant-garde artists together; despite their distinct styles, artists like Monet, Gustave Courbet, and Édouard Manet were all described as Realist painters at the Salon because of their attention to modern-life subjects. Paris, 1867 Although Monet experienced early success at the Salons of 1865 and 1866, his luck changed the following year. In many ways, the events of 1867 were not only a creative catalyst to Monet’s three cityscapes of Paris but had broader implications for the development of Impressionism. In the spring of 1867, Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle and the Royal Academy’s annual Salon at the same time. The fair boasted a record-breaking number of attendees— estimated at 15 million people—with more than 40 countries represented at the Champs de Mars. The fair was intended to showcase the best of French art and culture while celebrating the industrial progress, modernity, and innovation of Emperor Napoléon III’s Second Empire (1852–1870). Because of this, Salon jurors grew increasingly conservative in 1867 and rejected approximately two-thirds of the submissions, including works by Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, and two paintings by Monet. These sweeping rejections spurred the artists to think about an alternate exhibition outside the government-sponsored Salon. Seven years later Monet and Edgar Degas established the Société Anonyme des Artistes and held an exhibition in 1874 of works by about 30 artists, including Monet, Degas, Eugène Boudin, Renoir, Sisley, Opposite left: Claude Monet (French, 1840– 1926), Garden of the Princess, Louvre, 1867. Oil on canvas. AMAM, R. T. Miller Jr. Fund, 1948.296. Above left: Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Quai du Louvre, 1867. Oil on canvas. KunstmuseumDen Haag, Bequest Mr. and Mrs. G.L.F. Philips-van der Willigen, 1942, 0332453. Above right: Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, 1867. Oil on canvas. Alte Nationalegalerie, 1906 gift from the bankers Karl Hagen and Karl Steinbart, Berlin, AI 984 ON VIEW / STERN GALLERY / AUG 19–DEC 23 Claude Monet was one of the founding figures of the first Impressionist exposition in 1874. In Picturing Paris: Monet and the Modern City we focus on Monet’s early career, centering three of Monet’s cityscapes of Paris painted in 1867 from an elevated viewpoint inside the Louvre. CONTINUED
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