SEATTLE — Save the expense of visiting Washington, D.C.
Instead, make a day trip to the Seattle Art Museum where the “Intimate Impressionism” exhibition — 68 paintings from the National Gallery of Art — is on now through Jan. 10.
Given to the National Gallery in 1970 by the wealthy Mellon family, this collection of French paintings from the impressionistic period is considered one of the finest of its kind.
But unless you’ve paid the big bucks to visit our nation’s capital or you are an art historian, you may not recognize many of the paintings.
You will, however, know the names of the artists and the style of their work.
The collection is a revelation.
The paintings are “intimate” because the subjects include family, friends, everyday activities, food, pets, self-portraits and favorite “en plein air” landscapes, and because most of the paintings are of small scale, as if they were made as gifts for friends to be hung in their homes or perhaps as studies for larger works.
Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Eugène Boudin, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Bonnard, Alfred Sisley, Edouard Vuillard, Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh are among the artists.
This is the first time the collection has been on tour (other stops included Rome, Tokyo, San Antonio and San Francisco), and it’s been allowed because the East Building of the National Gallery, where the paintings are hung, has been closed for renovation. SAM hosts the final chance to see the collection before it is shipped back to the District of Columbia.
The exhibition was curated locally by SAM’s deputy art director Chiyo Ishikawa, who manages European painting and sculpture.
Ishikawa has done a fine job with the display.
It opens with what she terms a “disarming, beckoning” portrait of a dog painted by Manet. It sets the tone for a more personal glimpse into the lives and works of the famous artists.
The exhibit rooms are arranged chronologically. One can see works by painters who influenced those who became known as the impressionists, as well as paintings from the post-impressionistic period.
In the late 1800s, impressionism was a derisive term used by critics who subscribed to the conventions of the Academie des Beaux-Arts to describe artists such as Degas, Monet and Berthe Morisot. The impressionists began to rebel against the notion that only historical or mythological subjects painted in realistic styles were worthy as art. They painted life as they saw it in the moment and they used new techniques that gave the impression of their subjects.
The young artists painted on wood (which kept colors bright) and cheap cardboard. They took their easels and new tubes of oil paint outside into the countryside where they painted farmworkers and peasants, or into the streets where they focused on prostitutes and beggars.
One painting, by Degas, looks at activity at the horse race track outside of Paris, but includes the industrial smoke stacks in the background, belching pollution into the air.
“The artists did not edit,” Ishikawa said.
Van Gogh’s painting of colorful but tame Dutch tulip fields bridges his dark “Potato Eaters” period and his wild sunflower paintings done in Southern France.
And then came the post-impressionistic period with work by Cezanne, Gauguin and Georges Seurat, known best for his “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of la Grande Jatte.” The collection even includes work by Bonnard that he created during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
A few of the don’t-miss paintings include “Madame Monet and Her Son” by Renoir, “Still Life with Milk Jug and Fruit” by Cezanne, “Beach at Trouville” by Louis Eugene Boudin, “Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carriere” by Gauguin, “Argenteuil” by Monet, “The Artist’s Sister at a Window” by Morisot, “Mound of Butter” by Antoine Vollon, “Child Wearing a Red Scarf” by Vuillard and the subtle but stunning portrait of Carmen Gaudin by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
The exhibition catalog is for sale in all of the museum book shops, and it is laid out at the entrance to the exhibition where you can take iPhone photos of the paintings you like. The exhibit is sure to be popular and crowded, and it’s best not to elbow people or even to take shots of the paintings themselves.
Also at the Seattle Art Museum until January is an amazing and huge painting titled “Gallery of the Louvre” by Samuel F.B. Morse. Yes, he’s the inventor of the telegraph and Morse code — sort of the Bill Gates of the dawning of the information age.
He painted the work as a way to transmit the art of the Louvre to young American audiences. The 37 paintings and sculptures he thought were most important at the Louvre were copied in miniature in his painting, which then toured the United States. History buffs will enjoy this exhibit on the third floor.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
If you go
“Intimate Impressionism,” a collection from the National Gallery of Art, is exhibited through Jan. 10 at the Seattle Art Museum, 1300 First Ave., Seattle. Cost is $24.95 to see the special exhibit and the rest of the museum, with discounts for students, seniors and military. For information about tickets and programs related to the exhibition, go to www.seattleartmuseum.org/impressionism. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thursdays when you can visit until 9 p.m.
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