Too Much Art?!!! After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art @ The National Gallery, London

My first impressions after seeing After Impressionism was the vast amount of works on display, almost too much and just wasn’t expecting room after room after room. Such variety and quality too — really wondrous exhibition. And not just old familiars like Van Gogh, Cezanne, Manet, Degas etc, but names I’d never heard of before, and who inspired the household names of Impressionism. Paintings, but also sculpture and ceramics too. A comprehensive sweep of the early Modern Art movement, I wish that the room arrangements had been larger throughout as some Pointillist works really benefitted from being viewed far away, not to mention Van Gogh’s textures. Only here it led to you nearly being trampled by art viewers and at times getting away from paintings was like playing cultural American football! Plus at five foot 1 and a quarter, very tall people really want to use me as some kind of viewer stand sometimes. I am not an exhibition prop! How I wish Lockdown distancing was a thing again (just for exhibitions!) But I survived unsquashed and loved most of the works I saw.

Could not get enough of this lady driving her car at me — the glow and gleam of the headlamps! It’s astonishing!

The Van Gogh textures and colours popped, still vivid a 100 years on. Yet he could make a wintry ploughed field look like an abandoned battle field or turn a summery field undergoing ploughing into a swirling sea, with a beautifully curved sky swirling around a glowing sun.

Van Gogh does Constable here!

I began to appreciate Cezanne for the first time — there were portraits on display as well as his trademark Cubist landscapes. Not to mention a beautiful, colour popping still life with fruit.

And look at what André Derain did with Van Gogh’s style!

Klimt got the biggest rooms to himself as his famously ruffled society lady in white glowed (Hermine Gallia) and I spotted the details I’d never noticed before behind another — horses?!! I love the enormous picture hat. Equally beautiful was a portrait of a woman in a striking green blouse, confidently meeting the viewer’s gaze.

There was also so much beauty, even if the information cards alongside were a bit naff at points. The beauty of this work was reduced to a cloak disappearing into the landscape and some surrounding spiritual art. Ignore the cards — it’s gorgeous!

We could also follow through later influences on artistic groups and techniques, plus there was a global sweep.

The light, the glow of colours! Love Paul Signac making sardine fishing look beautiful and a river in Antwerp by the brilliantly named Théo van Rysselberghe!

This was wild — I did enjoy the dancing or somewhat witchy nymphs scaring the frog! Even the snake appears to be trying to join in.

And behold, there was Kandinsky, whose charming village reminded me of the colourful wooden blocks and houses I used to play with as a child.

Then we are drawn in by the arc of glowing street light — then to the woman staring in at a shop front. Depending on where you stand, either the lamps or the street glow predominate. I loved the murkiness of a twilight street scene, perhaps rainy, perhaps just evening setting in. Also wondering what level the man with an umbrella is on at the back — presumably climbing some steps. It looks like he’s precariously balanced on top of a cab! and gives some startling perspective. The wonder of how the light blooms out around the woman is beautiful, although she looks vulnerable too.

Felt blurry to look at and yet the colours, the textures! Such an unusual room perspective.

Some of it felt quite matt and flat, and yet the structural elements here really inspired others.

Not to mention the Japanese influences! Very ‘The Wave’ here but by Gauguin:

Before Barbie, Camille Claudel was smashing the patriarchy. Her sculpture ‘The Implorer’ was amazing. Not at all sexy, but a vulnerable young woman pleading with us the viewer.

Then there was the psychedelic — it’s like these works are almost made of petals or leaves. And the colours! Yet it’s very Manet and also like Claude’s classical pastorals too, using the blockiness and outlines of Cezanne too.

I can’t find a good image of it, but Paul Signac’s sunset pastel landscape with a castle folly in the background was the same kind of style. Just amazing! and such beautiful colours.

Whereas this was like Manga before Manga was a thing. Amazingly from 1900!

Formerly a Buffalo Bill circus site, now owned by a gentleman who we will see later on too. It’s a race track and some red streaking lines suggest this.

The same art dealer later on — a multi-tasking man if ever there was one. I love the wife who is shown staring warmly and curiously out at us, breaking the 4th wall, and in the act it seems of shushing us and shutting us out. I think she’s about to draw the curtain on us, or reversely could be welcoming us to join in and join the group. The cat! Plus some sneaky Renoir or perhaps Degas on the back wall. The art dealer and his friends are admiring a Cezanne, which we could similarly admire on the walls of the exhibition. In this work you could also spot sitters from other surrounding portraits.

The portrait of the artist’s mother at work made me think of Whistler. Again it needs to be seen in person as the gold background pops! Perspective and layers are amazing.

The portrait of a Absinthe drinker made me laugh. I know it’s meant to be sad and tragic, and it is, and yet the whole grumpy posture made me laugh. A garish woman was also round the other side, and a gentleman with a beard had been turned into a greenish vampire with a backdrop of mirrored Turkish dancers. Ladies, does your man look at you like this? If so, run like the wind!!! (Which is, gosh, a Piccaso!) More charming was the Munch full-length portrait of a man, which did not have any legs added until much later. It’s a shame there was so much miserable stereotypical Munch on offer here as the recent exhibition of his wider works showed that he had so much range beyond the sad and tragic. Though there was a burst of vivid colours with his cabbage field, which I had never seen before.

This was a household decoration, a picture of the daughter of the house for embellishing furniture. Wonderful — for colour and scale, and I think capturing a real fifteen year old.

This too is Van Gogh! The soft colours, and wallpaper, and yet the celebration of an educated woman from Arles is superb. It’s a warm and thoughtful portrait.

The wider image gives a better representation of the colours as the larger image makes everything look shadowing and muddy, which it wasn’t. Everything also slants making the image seem much more intimate.

Not shown here, but the blue background really pops, making the subject look photographic.

Hard to find a decent image of this work, but this Perseus and Adromeda scream New Woman to me. She’s being rescued, but actually standing triumphant on the deceased Kraken beast, with its murder weapon embedded in its chest. A real ‘ ta da!’ moment as Andromeda seems to have broken her own chains, perhaps slain her own beast and is now marshalling her ‘rescuer’ to provide appropriate clothing. ‘See what I can do’ she seems to be saying, ‘I’m unstoppable’. Just stand back and see what she does next! It does look like St George slaying the dragon, but I think this was more classically inspired.

There was also a tremendously moving image of two women wrapped in shawls suffering economic and even social disadvantage. Yet it did not patronise. They were humanely portrayed in subdued colours and yet so beautifully.

Not to mention the delightful full length portrait of a girl in a blue evening dress against a shimmering fireplace, incredibly pleased with how she looked — and so she should be. Charmingly portrayed were a mother and squirmy baby (almost made into a relief collage), and a delightful group of mother, sister and children in a warm red glow, as well as a room where the women seemed to disappear into the textile elements — where did woman begin and pattern end? Extraordinary! There was also a painting of a tiny woman and some children perilously walking by a shady pond.

This portrait of miners about to go on strike was also incredibly heart rending and sympathetic. You can feel the despair of working people wondering how they’re going to survive as they wait for the strike to end and work to resume.

Who can not love the floof and smoke and mirrors (literally) of Degas ballerinas? Amazing movement here, and yet the light and angles of their mirrored rehearsal room.

We end with Picasso!

@ Images are not the author’s own, but used to purely illustrate the National Gallery’s exhibition of After Impressionism: Inventing Modern Art, August 2023. I did not take any images myself as I would have been constantly snapping away and I wanted to be present and look!

* *Trying to improve my use of captions — as far as I can these are added into ALT-Text**

• Intriguingly were there enough women artists in this exhibition? Also noticed that Renoir was conspicuously absent https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/mar/28/after-impressionism-national-gallery-women-artists