The genesis of Impressionism, through the still life
Paul Cezanne - Le pain et les oeufs - 1865
From 11 March to 8 May 2022, the Cincinnati Art Museum presents "One Each: Still Lifes by Cézanne, Pissarro and Friends", an exhibition of still lifes created during the 1860s, the formative period of Impressionism.
Paul Cézanne, "Le pain et les œufs” (Still Life with Bread and Eggs), 1865. Cincinnati Art Museum
Although the "full" Impressionist style was not achieved until the late 1860s, when Claude Monet painted "The Magpie” (La Pie) and his views of "La Grenouillère" (at about the same time that Camille Pissarro created "The Hill of Jalais, Pontoise"), as early as the exhibition of Édouard Manet's "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" at the "Salon des Refusés" in 1863, several artists were beginning to leave behind the realist and academicist style prevailing in the mid-19th century. "One Each: Still Lifes by Cézanne, Pissarro and Friends" exhibits still lifes by five artists associated with the Impressionist group, created during this important period that was to change the history of art. In a press release, the Cincinnati Art Museum explains:
"The paintings in this exhibition, one each by five members of the Impressionist avant-garde, display their artists’ mastery of technique and upending of artistic convention at a precise moment in the mid-1860s. These innovations would have long-reaching effects on the conception and practice of art, making the paintings textbook examples and their makers household names," explained Dr Peter Jonathan Bell, curator of European paintings, sculpture and drawings at the Cincinnati Art Museum, adding that the works in the exhibition "reflect their artist’s obsession with the instantaneous quality of observing the world around us—light, movement—and translating that into paint on canvas. They achieve this in astounding and unprecedented ways".
In addition to works by these late 19th-century painters, two works by non-Impressionist artists are included in the exhibition to give context to the pre-impressionist works: a work by Pieter Claesz, a 17th-century Dutch painter considered a forerunner of realism, and a Cubist work by the French painter Georges Braque, as an example of the influence of the Impressionist painters on the 20th-century avant-garde.

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