Willows and Stream, Giverny

With its pollarded (trimmed) willow trees, narrow, slow-moving stream, and cattle grazing in the distance, Louis Ritter's placid Willows and Stream, Giverny is a typical view of the scenery surrounding the French village of Giverny, in rural Normandy. Mirroring a calm, overcast sky, the narrow band of water leads the eye into the distance between two rhythmic series of trees—clubbed trunks lining the right bank of the stream and tall poplars on the horizon—which are echoed in the vertical line of flat stones rising from the center of the composition's bottom edge. Ritter's loose brushwork delineates the feathery lightness of foliage and the slender lines of tree trunks in a composition dominated by complementary greens and browns.

Willows and Stream, Giverny is a product of the single summer the artist spent in Giverny. With its first influx of American artists, including Theodore Wendel, Willard Metcalf, John Leslie Breck, Theodore Robinson and Ritter, Giverny soon would be transformed from a sleepy farming community into a lively international artists' colony. Most of its members only gradually embraced the spontaneous application of paint and brightly colored sunlight effects pioneered by French painter Claude Monet (1840–1926), Giverny's most famous resident. The loose, spontaneous brushwork, restrained earth-toned color range, and emphasis on clear representation of forms in space in Ritter's landscape are characteristic of the style in which many of America's progressive but academically trained painters worked before they began to absorb the newer ways of Monet's impressionism. Ritter's approach may reflect the influence of landscape paintings by Frank Duveneck, with whom he studied between 1879 and 1881. A reviewer of Ritter's 1892 memorial exhibition noted another possible influence: the moody delicacy of landscapes by French painter Camille Corot (1796–1875), a member of the earlier colony of French landscape painters known as the Barbizon school whose works were prized among American collectors in the 1880s and 1890s.

Landscape painting dominated the work of the American artists who worked in Giverny during the colony's early years. Their images celebrated the distinctive features of the local scenery in all its bucolic charm. With their verdant willow-lined banks, the small streams that flowed near the village proved a particularly rich source of subjects, as demonstrated by related river views in the Terra Foundation's collection by Wendel, Metcalf, Breck, and Philip Leslie Hale, all made around Giverny in 1887 or 1888. Ritter may well have painted Willows and Stream, Giverny while working side-by-side with these colleagues as they painted en plein air—outdoors, before their subject—in accordance with modern notions of painting nature truthfully. 

Americans in Brittany and Normandy, 1860–1910, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona (organizer). Venues: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 24–November 28, 1982; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, December 16, 1982–February 6, 1983; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, March 18–May 1, 1983; National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., June 10–August 14, 1983. [exh. cat.]

A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 21–June 21, 1987. [exh. cat.]

In Nature's Ways: American Landscape Painting of the Late Nineteenth Century, Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (organizer). Venues: Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, February 21–April 12, 1987; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 10–November 1, 1987. [exh. cat.]

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Americans at Home and Abroad, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 6–29, 1987.

An American Revelation: The Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 28–October 1, 1988.

American Painters in France, 1830-1930, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, June 14–September 3, 1989. [exh. cat.]

Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915 (Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 1–November 1, 1992; April 1-October 31, 1993; April 1–October 30, 1994; April 1–October 31, 1995. [exh. cat.]

Giverny: une impression américaine (Giverny, An American Impression), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–November 1, 1998.

Ville et campagne: les artistes américains, 1870–1920 (The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 15, 1999. [exh. cat.]

Rivières et rivages: les artistes américains, 1850–1900 (Waves and Waterways: American Perspectives, 1850–1900), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2000. [exh. cat.]

Permanent collection installation, Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 1, 2001.

Les impressionistes américains, de 1880 à 1915, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland (organizer). Venue: Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, Switzerland, June 7–October 20, 2002.

En Plein Air: American Painters in Giverny, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 8–May 25, 2003.

French Impressionism and Boston: Masterworks from the Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts (organizers), Venues: Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, November 19, 2005–March 5, 2006.

Impressionist Giverny: A Colony of Artists, 1885–1915, Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–July 1, 2007; San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego, CA, July 21–October 14, 2007. [exh. cat.]

Impressionist Giverny: The Americans, 1885–1915, Selections from the Terra Foundation for American Art, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Florence Griswold Museum of Art, Old Lyme, Connecticut, May 3–July 27, 2008; Albany Institute of History & Art, Albany, New York, August 23, 2008–January 4, 2009.

Monet and the Artists of Giverny: The Beginning of American Impressionism, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan with the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, Kitakyushu, Japan, October 9–November 28, 2010; The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan, December 7, 2010–February 17, 2011; The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art, Okayama, Japan, February 25–April 10, 2011. [exh. cat.]

Into the Light: The Paintings of William Blair Bruce, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada (organizer). Venue: Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, May 24–October 5, 2014. [exh. cat.]

The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context (L’atelier de la Nature, 1860-1910. Invitation à la Terra Collection). Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny (organizers). Venue: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, France, September 12, 2020–January 3, 2021. [exh. cat. in French]

Sellin, David. Americans in Brittany and Normandy, 1860–1910. (exh. cat., Phoenix Art Museum). Phoenix, Arizona: Phoenix Art Museum, 1982. Text p. 212; ill. no. 99 (black & white as Giverny).

Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-84, p. 193 (color).

Weber, Bruce and William H. Gerdts. In Nature's Ways: American Landscape Painting of the Late Nineteenth Century. (exh. cat., Norton Gallery of Art). West Palm Beach, Florida: Norton Gallery of Art, 1987. Fig. 57, p. 102 (black & white).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Lasting Impressions: American Painters in France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 162; pl. 20, p. 163 (color).

Gerdts, William H. et al. Impressions de toujours: les peintres américains en France, 1865–1915. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1992. Text p. 162; pl. 20, p. 163 (color).

Gerdts, William H. Monet's Giverny: An Impressionist Colony.  New York: Abbeville Press, 1993. Pl. 24, p. 31 (color).

Gomes, Rosalie. Impressions of Giverny: A Painter's Paradise 1883–1914. San Francisco, California: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1995. Text pp. 28, 112; pl. 13 (color).

Joyes, Claire. The Taste of Giverny: At Home with Monet and the American Impressionists. Paris, France: Flammarion, 2000. Ill. p. 7 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. et al. Impressionist Giverny: A Colony of Artists, 1885–1915. (exh. cat. Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. Text pp. 35, 76, 210 (checklist); fig. 1, p. 76 (color detail), cat. p. 84 (color).

Mauvoisin, Jacques and Gwenaëlle Ledot. Écrivins de Normandie. Saint-Lô, France: Normandie Magazine, 2007.  Ill. p. 73 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. "Impressionist Giverny: American Painters in France" American Art Review 20.3 (June 2008): 100–113.  Ill. p.108 (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., Shunsuke Kijima and Sanjiro Minamikawa. Monet and the Artists of Giverny: The Beginning of American Impressionism. (exh. cat. Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, The Bunkamura Museum of Art, Tokyo, and The Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art). Fukuoka, Japan: The Nishinippon Shimbun, 2010. Text cat. no. 25, pp.74 (in Japanese), 182 (in English); ill. p. 75 (color).

Bruce, Tobi and Joan Padgett, eds., Into the Light: The Paintings of William Blair Bruce (1859–1906). (exh. cat. Art Gallery of Hamilton) Ontario: Art Gallery of Hamilton, 2014. Pl . No. 44. p. 105 (color), text p. 117, 245 (checklist).

Bourguignon, Katherine and Valerie Reis. The Studio of Nature, 1860-1910: The Terra Collection in Context. (exh. cat, Terra Foundation for American Art with the Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny). Paris, France: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2020.  Text p. 124; Pl. 53, p. 127 (color).