Blossoms at Giverny

Blossoms at Giverny is one of two closely related paintings by Theodore Robinson that show views looking down on figures walking beneath blossom-laden apple trees in the bright sunlight of springtime. A little girl and a woman carrying a watering can almost blend in with the screen of slender branches and white blossoms and the dappled shadows they cast on the ground. Robinson probably captured the view from a window of his upstairs studio in Giverny, the rural village in Normandy, France, where he worked between 1887 and 1892. The almost perfectly square proportions of the canvas and the tipped-up, horizonless composition, in which forms are arbitrarily cropped at the edges, suggest the contributions of both photography and Japanese prints to the artist’s maturing impressionist approach. The subject and composition of Blossoms at Giverny also reflect the influence of the artist’s friend Claude Monet (1840–1926), a leader of the impressionist movement and Giverny’s most famous resident after 1883. Robinson certainly knew Monet's Spring (Fruit Trees in Bloom) (1873; Metropolitan Museum of Art), an elevated view of a blossoming apple orchard, for it illustrated his admiring essay on the French painter published in the American magazine The Century in 1892.

Traces of grid lines in pencil indicate that Robinson may have worked from a photograph of the scene, as he did in other works. The artist, who suffered greatly from asthma, used photography to avoid the physical strain of long periods spent painting out-of-doors; the practice also saved him the expense of hired models. Ironically, painting from photographs helped Robinson realize the impressionist ideal of capturing the scene before him with fresh, seemingly unedited immediacy. As an outdoor scene glimpsed—and painted—from within the shelter of the studio interior, Blossoms at Giverny embodies Robinson’s reconciliation of traditional methods of painting in-studio from props, such as photographic studies, and the impressionist method of painting outdoor subjects on-site as they immediately appear.

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Masterworks in American Art from the Daniel J. Terra Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, Illinois, April 27–September 12, 1985.

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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.]

From Camera to Canvas: Theodore Robinson's French Photographs and Paintings, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, April 24–July 1, 1990.

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.]

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Première exposition: les carnets de dessins et les photographies de Theodore Robinson (First Exposure: The Sketchbooks and Photographs of Theodore Robinson), Musee d'Art Americain Giverny, France (organizer). Venues: Musee d'Art Americain Giverny, France, April 1–July 13, 2000; Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 14–December 31, 2000 (in modified form). [exh. cat.]

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, January 2001.

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En plein air: personnages dans un paysage (En Plein Air: Figures in a Landscape), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2004 (on exhibit partial run: April 1–July 5, 2004).

In Monet's Light: Theodore Robinson at Giverny, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland (organizer). Venues: Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland, October 17, 2004–January 9, 2005; Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, February 4–May 8, 2005; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut, June 4–September 4, 2005. [exh. cat.]

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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.]

American Impressionism: a New Vision, 1880–1900 (L'Impressionnisme et les Américains/Impresionismo Americano (French & Spanish titles), Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny, France and the Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (organizers). Venues: Musée des Impressionnismes Giverny, Giverny, France, March 28–June 29, 2014; Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, United Kingdom, July 19–October 19, 2014; Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain, November 4, 2014–February 1, 2015. [exh. cat.]

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Cartwright, Derrick R. The City and the Country: American Perspectives, 1870–1920. (exh. cat., Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1999. Text p. 26 (checklist); ill. p. 48 (color).

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Joyes, Claire. The Taste of Giverny: At Home with Monet and the American Impressionists. Paris, France: Flammarion, 2000 Ill. p. 117 (color).

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Bourguignon, Katherine M. et al. Giverny impressionniste: une Colonie d’artistes, 1885–1915. (exh. cat. Musée d'Art Américain Giverny). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2007. Text pp. 103, 211 (checklist); ill. cat. p. 124 (color).

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