Somewhere (but exactly where ….?) I once read that the availability of photographic studio portraiture in France by the mid-1800s was one catalyst for the advancement of Impressionism in painting. It seems to me now that the argument was that painters could no longer gain a steady stream of commissions for portrait work, which required too much time (and hence money) in comparison with photography. And so they dived off into other artistic waters. Well, that seemed less than fully credible at the outset, and, the more I’ve learned about the Impressionist school, the more implausible it has become over time. (Anyway, what’s perhaps more worthy of some better understanding are the influences that photography and painting had one upon the other (within France, in that same timeframe, wherein both had a preeminent standing).)

As far as painting by itself is concerned, there’s no doubting that the Impressionists very deliberately set themselves apart from the conventional establishment. However, it is often argued that one of the key catalysts in this was the invention not of the daguerreotype but of flexible metal tubing. This permitted paint to be stored for prolonged periods, and to be transported, and to be used outdoors – a key step in allowing plein air sessions (and painting away from the confines of the studio). So, as an example of the innovation which this brought about, Claude Monet painted almost all of the 23 foot wide canvas which became ‘Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe’ (1865-1866) outdoors, from nature, only being able to complete his work at the top of the piece by lowering the bottom into a man-made ditch. Actually, it seems as though Monet’s primary intention was to (literally) dwarf a work with the same title completed in a studio just two years before by Édouard Manet (see below). The earlier piece had, however, set a new standard in France by virtue of its supposedly non-virtuous subject – the nude female, sitting in the center foreground of the work, gazing directly at the painter/viewer, while in the presence of two bourgeois, clothed gentlemen, has always been assumed to be a prostitute.

More follows here (but later).