European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 31, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                A. A a. London exhibit highlights impressionist revolution by John Russell new York times among the legends that Lurk in the history of French impressionism none was More tenacious than the belief that Claude Monet was the archetypal upstanding impressionist straight shooter. He if anyone was faithful a so legend said a to his immediate and fugitive impressions and set them Down unedited. As for the glazes the sauces a and the Learned combinations that painters had traditionally cooked up in the studio he turned his Back upon them. 11red up by this legend we have no trouble believing to iat As he once said himself Monet took Quot All outdoors for his studio and had no need of indoors. We May even ascribe a certain moral superiority to the impressionist who gave up so much in the Way of accepted eloquence to make  seen. A it was Only partly True of course but ,. A among half truths it was one of the More. A to a. A. A. Seductive. And people needed to believe it the Way the Eri Tiland novelist edouard Duranty needed in 1 876 to speak of the impressionists As having Quot cast aside the techniques 01 the  another  v a. A a there is something very exhilarating about the notion that ones generation tiits witnessed a Complete and constructive break with the past. As it happens the  of a spontaneity in the masterpieces of French impressionism is Ait i us moment being thoroughly investigated in an exhibition it tiled Art in the milking impressionism which opened recently at the National. Gallery in London. Drawn entirely irom the gallery s permanent collection,.it.is an in House at Lair a the joint work of a curator John i Eighton two scientists. Ashok Roy and Joe Kirby and a conservator David Boulord. It is tightly argued richly documented and crammed with new ideas. It also comes with a Book length and groundbreaking catalogue a due out in the Spring irom the Vale University  that has 2 1 8 illustrations m color and a tur Lher 07 in Black and White. Esso . Did w Ell to sponsor the show which is being heavily attended and does Honor to the gallery a but what is new about it Quot people might ask. Why should londoners stand in line to see paintings that they Are used to seeing in out Timur conditions and with no trouble at Alu there is a simple answer Quot i he pictures look   e is not owed to showmanship a. Nor has it anything to do with sociopolitical studies f or 20 and might re years Art historians  6 been. Working on the paintings in who h Monet Renoir Sisley and pm Saul a portrayed the inure a cessiblc1 sub i  i it Paris As a works by Cezanne above and Renoir Are featured at the show in London s National gallery. 1860s, the picture includes diminutive portraits of Manet himself and of. Two 1 major poets Charles Baudelaire and Theophile Gautier a fellow Painter Henri Fantin Latour and Jacques Offenbach who at that time was everyone s favorite operetta composer. So far from being a compost of unedited impressions music in the. Tuil eries is a highly sophisticated and expertly stage managed crowd scene. It was worked up Inch by Inch in the studio. In sketches made on the spot Manet had sought for the Quick Lively inform land uns Tuffy effect that we now prize in this picture. But the documentary material in the show makes it Clear that in the final painting the methods he used were anything but direct. Adding the portraits of his friends he edited the background to make sure that they would not be. Smothered. A ,. A. And for the foliage of the overhanging. Trees he used so the scientists Tell us Quot a dark Green Glaze comprising a mixture of Scheele s Green Emerald Green and yellow Lake with some added Ivory Black and yellow  hard to imagine that mixture being whipped up in the open air. After music in the Tuil eries the show presents among other favourites Monet s precarious Paradise. But this show has nothing to do with the social stresses and. Abrasions that were to put that Paradise beyond our  concern is w Ith paint and pigment trial and error hesitation and  is not about the status or Lack of it of Monet and his colleagues As narrators or As social  is about what they did with the paint. This time around in other words the paint upstages the. Subj i t matter. We done to  think about the train schedules the erosion of the River Banks by Over enthusiastic boaters or the Mutual Connivance of restaurateur and realtor. The show  exactly 15 pictures. They include some of the Best known and most often reproduced of All French impressionist paintings. Where spontaneity is concerned the show gets off to an ambiguous Start with Manet s music in the Tuil eries. A prime  parisian life in the Lazare Renoir s at the theater and the umbrellas tvo of Pissarro s views of. London and Cezanne s Hillside in Provence. With the exception of the Cezanne w hich dates from around 1886-87, we. Are in what is traditionally thought of As pure impressionist territory. In mapping that territory the exhibition goes in detail into the priming of the Canvas the new. Or not so new pigments that were used and the Jare Cise nature of the brushes and the equipment and the dark no reflecting clothes that the artists needed when voicing out of doors. Stripes Magazine january at 1991