Turner to Cezanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum of Wales will be on display from 9 October 2009 to 3 January 2010 at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, New York. This is the first of a series of articles relating to the art and artists in the exhibition.A GUIDE TO THE IMPRESSIONIST LANDSCAPE: Day Trips from Paris to Sites of Great Nineteenth Century Paintings
By Patty Lurie Boston, Little, Brown and Company: 1990 758.144 LUR
It’s not easy to remember from this distance in time that the early French Impressionists were regarded as a bunch of lunatics, unable to paint a subject straight. Painting outdoors, painting quickly, painting the homely scenes of land, water, and sky before them, they produced works that affronted sensibilities accustomed to painstakingly worked visions of literary and historical allusion.
Author Patty Lurie’s inspired idea to follow the trail of these artists from the English Channel, up the Seine and along the Oise and the Loing Rivers, gives the book its organizing principle. Placing works of art next to photographs taken by the author and by Bertrand de Chasuvigny, what is more surprising than signs of modernity encroaching on beloved images is the verisimilitude that the Impressionists achieved with their fracturing of realist technique.
Alfred Sisley’s views of Marly, just northwest of Paris are those of one who lived there, familiar with the movement of light across buildings and down in streets through days and years. He juxtaposed warm and cool colors to admirable effect. Sad then, to realize that these works did not bring the artist commercial success.
For those who are only familiar with Pontoise through the works of Pissarro, Morisot, and Ceanne, it may come as a surprise that the town is a suburb of Paris. Thanks to the Impressionists, Pontoise lives in the imagination as a bucolic retreat saturated in greens. Pontoise was where Berthe Morisot moved away from the Barbizon style toward Impressionism. Next to arrive was Pissarro, who then persuaded Cezanne to visit. Where Morisot painted the light of early morning, Pissarro turned his back on the River Oise to focus on the hillside houses by the old road.
Argenteuil, Monet’s refuge from the Franco-Prussian War became the quintessential Impressionist town. The trains, boats, and bridges of Monet’s Argenteuil paintings hint at the industrial suburb that it became in the 20th century. Monet’s sweeping views of the Seine are now interrupted by office buildings in the distance.
Honfleur and Trouville on the Nomany coast are still the seaside resorts that they we
re in the 1870s and the ghosts of Monet and Eugene Boudin would not be lost for long if they could return. Lurie even managed to find s group of cows who appeared familiar with Boudin’s Seven Cows In A Meadow, Stormy Sky, c. 1881-1888. 
For those fortunate enough to be able to use this volume as a travel guide, Lurie includes maps, directions and walking and transportation information.
By Patty Lurie Boston, Little, Brown and Company: 1990 758.144 LUR
It’s not easy to remember from this distance in time that the early French Impressionists were regarded as a bunch of lunatics, unable to paint a subject straight. Painting outdoors, painting quickly, painting the homely scenes of land, water, and sky before them, they produced works that affronted sensibilities accustomed to painstakingly worked visions of literary and historical allusion.
Author Patty Lurie’s inspired idea to follow the trail of these artists from the English Channel, up the Seine and along the Oise and the Loing Rivers, gives the book its organizing principle. Placing works of art next to photographs taken by the author and by Bertrand de Chasuvigny, what is more surprising than signs of modernity encroaching on beloved images is the verisimilitude that the Impressionists achieved with their fracturing of realist technique.
Alfred Sisley’s views of Marly, just northwest of Paris are those of one who lived there, familiar with the movement of light across buildings and down in streets through days and years. He juxtaposed warm and cool colors to admirable effect. Sad then, to realize that these works did not bring the artist commercial success.
For those who are only familiar with Pontoise through the works of Pissarro, Morisot, and Ceanne, it may come as a surprise that the town is a suburb of Paris. Thanks to the Impressionists, Pontoise lives in the imagination as a bucolic retreat saturated in greens. Pontoise was where Berthe Morisot moved away from the Barbizon style toward Impressionism. Next to arrive was Pissarro, who then persuaded Cezanne to visit. Where Morisot painted the light of early morning, Pissarro turned his back on the River Oise to focus on the hillside houses by the old road.
Argenteuil, Monet’s refuge from the Franco-Prussian War became the quintessential Impressionist town. The trains, boats, and bridges of Monet’s Argenteuil paintings hint at the industrial suburb that it became in the 20th century. Monet’s sweeping views of the Seine are now interrupted by office buildings in the distance.
Honfleur and Trouville on the Nomany coast are still the seaside resorts that they we
re in the 1870s and the ghosts of Monet and Eugene Boudin would not be lost for long if they could return. Lurie even managed to find s group of cows who appeared familiar with Boudin’s Seven Cows In A Meadow, Stormy Sky, c. 1881-1888. 
For those fortunate enough to be able to use this volume as a travel guide, Lurie includes maps, directions and walking and transportation information.
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