From 1876 To 1882

The art history of the 19th century was marked by a number of important changes and developments. First and foremost, the rise of Romanticism in the early part of the century led to a dramatic increase in the importance placed on emotion and feeling in art. This was in contrast to the more formal, rational approach that had dominated the 18th century. In addition, the growth of the middle class and the rise of nationalism also played a role in shaping the art of the 19th century. Finally, the invention of new technologies, such as photography and lithography, had a profound impact on the way that art was produced and experienced.

The Love Song

    This painting is a representation of a scene from a French folk ballad.
    The painting is a combination of inspirations that shaped Burne-Jones's art.
    The painting is a representation of a mood of dreamy melancholy.

The Forest at Pontaubert

    Seurat spent two months in the late summer and early fall of 1881 in Pontaubert, a village southeast of Paris once frequented by Daubigny, Corot, and other Barbizon landscape painters.
    His visit inspired this sous-bois or forest glade, which Seurat probably completed that winter in the studio he shared with his traveling companion and fellow artist Aman-Jean.
    With its concert of greens, its subtle, shimmering light effects, and its vertical pattern of tree trunks, this work anticipates the verdant settings of Seurat's monumental Bathers at Asnières in London (1884) and A Sunday on La Grande Jatte in Chicago (1884 - 86).

Two Dancers

    Marie van Goethem, who posed for Degas's sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer, was the model for these two fine studies of a dancer adjusting her shoulder strap.
    Degas often used commercially coated paper for his drawings of dancers; this sheet retains its original color.
    The drawings are in pencil and ink on paper.

View of Marly-le-Roi from Coeur-Volant

    Sisley walked up the hill from his rented house in Marly-le-Roi, near Paris, and selected a northwest view overlooking the town.
    The building at left was located within the border of neighboring Louveciennes.
    The lush, manicured grounds to the right of the path belonged to the more extensive property in Marly-le-Roi owned by Robert Le Lubez, an amateur singer and patron of contemporary composers such as Charles-François Gounod and Camille Saint-Saëns.

Côte des Grouettes, near Pontoise

    The purple flowers at the lower left add a sprightly note to this canvas, which probably dates to the spring of 1878.
    Featuring strollers on a path, it is typical of Pissarro's views of Pontoise and its surroundings, almost all of which show the peasants who worked the land or lived in the village.
    Pissarro painted in the region for almost two decades, beginning in 1866; the site of this scene was identified by his son, Ludovic-Rodo, although it cannot be pinpointed today.

The Storm

    Cot exhibited this painting at the Salon of 1880.
    Critics speculated about the source of the subject.
    Some proposed the French novel Paul and Virginie by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, in which the teenage protagonists run for shelter in a rainstorm, using the heroine's overskirt as an impromptu umbrella.
   Others suggested the romance Daphnis and Chloe by the ancient Greek writer Longus

Marguerite-Thérèse (Margot) Berard (1874–1956)

    Renoir depicts the five-year-old daughter of his devoted patron Paul Berard, a diplomat and banker whom he met in 1878.
    The artist often summered at the Berards' country home in Wargemont, near Dieppe, on the Normandy coast, where he painted decorative pictures for the house and a veritable family album of portraits, ranging from formal commissions to more intimate works that reflect a genuine fondness for the four Berard children.

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives