Discuss the Book as a Whole: Economic Influences

[Jessica]

Meissonier suffered economic hardship in his youth, while Manet enjoyed a life of extreme privilege. Do you think these circumstances influenced the way they painted?

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Note: This topic refers to the book as a whole.

[marlohill]

Yes, I do think it probably did effect the way they painted, because the way they grew up affected their personalities. Messonier was determined to be successful and he worked hard to provide for his family. He didn't take chances with new art forms, but stuck with the traditional, what he knew best. Manet, who had more has a youth, could afford to experiment with wild artforms, because he had his Mom there to help him out financially. Manet seemed a bit spoiled too because when he traveled to Spain he did not eat the food. Manet found it horrible and I love Spanish food. It is really good! Although I like the work of the Impressionists that I have seen in the books and calendars, I like the pictures in the book of Messonier's paintings too. Even though, you can take a photograph and get the same effect, but I like the paintings that are life like. And after reading "The Judgment of Paris" particularly about Messonier, I felt very attached to him, because I liked his work ethics (hard worker, phew! yet he still took vacations) and his very down to earth style.

[Jessica]

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marlohill wrote: Yes, I do think it probably did effect the way they painted, because the way they grew up affected their personalities. Messonier was determined to be successful and he worked hard to provide for his family. He didn't take chances with new art forms, but stuck with the traditional, what he knew best. Manet, who had more has a youth, could afford to experiment with wild artforms, because he had his Mom there to help him out financially. Manet seemed a bit spoiled too because when he traveled to Spain he did not eat the food. Manet found it horrible and I love Spanish food. It is really good! Although I like the work of the Impressionists that I have seen in the books and calendars, I like the pictures in the book of Messonier's paintings too. Even though, you can take a photograph and get the same effect, but I like the paintings that are life like. And after reading "The Judgment of Paris" particularly about Messonier, I felt very attached to him, because I liked his work ethics (hard worker, phew! yet he still took vacations) and his very down to earth style.

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I also wondered if Messonier had more of an underdog's determination to be successful. Unfortunately, over the years, I think it caused him to feel like he had sold out. After years of painting glorious battle scenes or his trendy bonhommes, when what he thought his defining moment of his career arrived (painting the mural at Sainte-Genevieve), he didn't do it.

(Ross, how exactly did this assignment fall through?)

But I think you're right, marlohill. If money is of little or no concern, it's easier to take risks with your career. And as we've seen, Manet's risks paid off in the end, in the form of posthumous fame.

Jessica
Book Club Editor

[ross_king]

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marlohill wrote:
Yes, I do think it probably did effect the way they painted, because the way they grew up affected their personalities. Messonier was determined to be successful and he worked hard to provide for his family. He didn't take chances with new art forms, but stuck with the traditional, what he knew best. Manet, who had more has a youth, could afford to experiment with wild artforms, because he had his Mom there to help him out financially.

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Hi Michelle

I agree with what you say about Manet and Meissonier. Maybe it’s even inevitable that the two of them came to paint the way they did, given their backgrounds. It’s interesting that many of the Impressionists came from well-to-do families. Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne both had wealthy parents, and so did Berthe Morisot. As you pointed out in another thread, Monet was the son of a grocer and so had humbler origins, but he did have a rich aunt who gave him an allowance (early in his career anyway) and therefore let him keep painting. On the other hand, a number of the most successful painters from the 1850s and 1860s, such as Paul Baudry, came from poorer backgrounds (Baudry was one of 13 children; his father, if I remember right, was a shoemaker). And so they had to learn to practise a style that would sell. If they didn’t sell their paintings, they wouldn’t eat ... and so that obviously concentrated their minds on a commercial style.

There’s something that never fails to surprise me as I study artists and their lives - whether its Michelangelo, or Manet, or Meissonier, or Monet. It seems their parents never want them to become painters. Many young would-be artists really had to struggle - and to disobey their parents’ wishes - in order to paint. Michelangelo’s father and uncle used to beat him when he said he wanted to become a painter: his father thought it was not a "reputable" occupation. The one thing that Manet and Meissonier really did have in common is that their fathers objected when they said they wanted to become painters. Manet’s father wanted him to become a lawyer, while Meissonier’s wanted him to join the family business. Artists had to be strong-willed in those days, and risk the wrath of their fathers. I suspect this is true of many other occupations, such as acting, writing and so forth.

[Mariposa]

Ross King writes:
Artists had to be strong-willed in those days, and risk the wrath of their fathers. I suspect this is true of many other occupations, such as acting, writing and so forth.

I think this is still true today. Those occupations are very risky. Few succeed and there is no financial stability. Today artists risk the wrath of their fathers...and mothers!

I was very "artistic" in my youth and it became clear to me (from my mother) that I needed to find work that would enable me to become financially independent. I moved out of my home at the age of 19 which in those days was rather shocking and always had a passion for teaching, so I became a teacher. It is not a decision I regret, but... If my parents had been rich and could support me for endless years and not question my lifestyle, I wonder (doubt?) if teaching would be the career path I would have chosen.

Lizabeth

[ross_king]

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Jessica wrote:

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After years of painting glorious battle scenes or his trendy bonhommes, when what he thought his defining moment of his career arrived (painting the mural at Sainte-Genevieve), he didn't do it. (Ross, how exactly did this assignment fall through?)

Jessica
Book Club Editor

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The painting of the mural fell through because Meissonier couldn’t finish it ... or even start it, for that matter, since he never even began work on the wall of the church. He was used to painting on a small scale (many of his paintings are only about 18 inches wide by a foot high), and so working on a wall 40 feet high was probably always going to be a difficult job for him. (Some people in Paris did find it amusing that an artist like Meissonier, who was known for his exquisite little paintings, was suddenly going to work on an enormous mural.) But he wanted to do a large mural because that was the most prestigious form of painting in 19th-century France. He beieved that he would only make his reputation for posterity if he could execute something as grand as what Michelangelo or Raphael painted. The irony is that he would have preserved his name more assuredly if he had stuck to his landscapes of the riverside around Poissy, which are very beautiful.

[marlohill]

I think that Meissonier was such a perfectionist about his work that it almost overwhelmed him. Like "Friedland", it took him ten years to finish the painting, because he used so much detail. I don't think that he was really that angry with his son for piercing it with the sword, maybe it was a relief to him to be done with it?? Didn't the book say it only took 6-8 years to paint those huge murals? Yet, it took Meissonier ten years to complete "Friedland"!
I do think that you are right about Meissonier, Ross. The irony that if he had stuck to landscapes of the riverside around Poissy, he would have been still remembered. You say it is very beautiful and we will never know, because Meissonier didn't paint landscapes. Most people don't choose to hang war scenes in their livingrooms, like Meissonier was painting of Napoleon. Makes me think of Kenneth Grahame's "Wind In the Willows". I love that children's story, Ratty, Badger, Moley and Toad. The whole scene that is described is so beautiful and the title, "Wind In the Willows" is too. Did you know that Kenneth Grahame considered calling it: "Mr. Mole and His Mates"!

[marlohill]

It was unbelievable some of the things we learned that have really happened in "The Judgment of Paris". There were fencing rooms in the printing and publishing houses, so the journalists could practice in case, and because they most often were, called to duel for something they put down in print!

During the siege in Paris, even though food was really scarce, the Parisians would not eat the pigeons, because they used them to carry messages and therefore protected them like citizens. That was nice!
(They shot the elephants, but they didn't have food to feed them. That was a sad part and the animal keeper cried.)

The photography business must have been very lucrative, because Nadar had a very expensive hot air balloon with a lot of extra features. Has anyone ever been in a hot air balloon ride? I think it would be fun, but I am scared of heights, so I probably wouldn't like it. In the book, Nadar's balloon crashed and several were injured.
Michelle

[marlohill]

No wonder parents didn't want their children to become writers!
Michelle

[ross_king]

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marlohill wrote:
I think that Meissonier was such a perfectionist about his work that it almost overwhelmed him. Like "Friedland", it took him ten years to finish the painting, because he used so much detail.

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It was probably a safe bet that poor Meissonier would never finish his mural. You’re right that he was a perfectionist: he used to scrape down his oil paintings again and again until he managed to create the desire effect. That may have worked well with oil painting, but you couldn't do that with a fresco, where you had to work quickly. Meissonier's fresco was going to be at least 5x larger than Friedland, which is his biggest painting (it's about 8 feet wide). If Friedland took him 10 years, working at the same speed it would therefore have taken him 50 years to do his mural!

I find it funny that Meissonier used to doodle on walls and doors, and even on the sides of buildings in Poissy. Maybe he was practising for his fresco ... or maybe he was a graffiti artist in advance of his time.

[ross_king]

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marlohill wrote:
The irony that if he had stuck to landscapes of the riverside around Poissy, he would have been still remembered.

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Like many other people during the 19th century, Meissonier just didn’t think landscapes were particularly important as an art form. But he loved the French countryside and would often set up his easel alongside the river to make sketches. He didn’t ever really exhibit these works - he simply didn’t regard them as his "true" art. But many of them are quite beautiful. The Philadelphia Museum of Art has a good example:

http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/101720.html

It’s interesting that Meissonier was in some ways the first artist to discover the South of France as a painting ground. We tend to associate it with Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso. But Meissonier went there first, in the 1860s, long before Monet and Renoir. So Meissonier was ahead of his time in attempting to capture on canvas the effects of Mediterranean light. But the great irony, as Michelle points out, is that his sense of self-importance meant that he didn’t exploit his talents as a landscapist.

[hasenbein]

Artists had to be strong-willed in those days, and risk the wrath of their fathers. I suspect this is true of many other occupations, such as acting, writing and so forth.

Hi Ross,

Don't you think this is often the case today, especially if the artist comes from a more humble background? Parents want their children to succeed (read: make a good income, have a stable life) and life in the arts is anything but.

KathyH

[ross_king]

Maybe young would-be artists will always have a fight on their hands: if they come from a wealthy family (like Manet or Michelangelo), their choice of career is seen to be "disreputable"; and if they come from a poor family, the economic uncertainty of an artist’s life means they may well stay in poverty. I suspect that’s as true today as it ever was. But maybe a bit of rebellion is not a bad thing in a young artist?

[hasenbein]

I think that "rebellion" would encourage an artist to "push the envelope," no matter what the artistic outlet. Often that is to our (viewer, listener, reader) benefit. If, however, it is rebellion for rebellion's sake, often the "message" gets lost in the dust.

KathyH