French Art of the 19th Century: A Window into the Past
Friday: October 4, 9:30 a.m. – 12 noon
Bethany Congregational Church 556 N. Hope Avenue, Santa Barbara
VISTAS member price: $20; non-member price: $30
Presented by Lori Windsor Mohr
Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree’s recent bequest to the Santa Barbara Museum of Art includes thirty-one 19th-century French paintings by such luminaries as Gustave Corbet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Signac, as well as Barbizon artists including Theodore Rousseau, Charles Daubigny, and Charles Jacque. These paintings give us a window into the past to see how artists responded to the massive cultural changes that transformed everyday life, issues still relevant today—exploding population growth in cities, over-production of consumer goods, deforestation, and our impact on the planet. In this talk we will look at these paintings from inside and outside the frame—what the artists were telling us, and more importantly, what they left out, to see what art and life were all about in 19th century France.