La Vie modern (magazine)

Front cover of La Vie Moderne magazine dated November 5, 1881

La Vie Moderne was a French literary and art magazine published from 1879 to 1883 . Numerous well-known writers were among the authors of the paper. A gallery was attached to the editorial offices of the magazine, which showed important exhibitions by the painters of French impressionism .

The magazine

The publisher Georges Charpentier founded the weekly La Vie moderne in Paris in 1879. The full name of the magazine was La Vie Moderne, journal hebdomadaire illustré (German: The modern life, illustrated weekly magazine ). Émile Bergerat directed the paper and hired numerous important authors. They included Armand Silvestre , Alphonse Daudet , Théodore de Banville , Edmond Duranty and the journalist Edmond Renoir , brother of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir . The magazine repeatedly featured benevolent articles on the painters of French Impressionism, but it also featured reports on other contemporary painters such as Jean-Jacques Henner , Paul Baudry, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes . Illustrations came from painters such as Jean Baptiste Édouard Detaille , Ernest Meissonier , Auguste Leloir and Jean-Louis Forain . The magazine was discontinued in 1883 when Georges Charpentier got into financial trouble.

The gallery

The magazine's offices at the entrance to the Passage des Princes , a shopping arcade on the Boulevard des Italiens , were also a place for art exhibitions. Edmond Renoir received a room from the publisher that was intended for exhibitions of smaller works. In the magazine La Vie Moderne he explained this hitherto very unusual approach: “How often do people interested in art tell us that they would like to visit this or that artist's studio, but they don't dare to go there alone ... Our exhibitions want to temporarily move the artist's studio to the boulevard, a room that is open to everyone ”The first exhibition was dedicated to the Italian painter Giuseppe de Nittis and was a great success with 2,000 to 3,000 visitors a day. The fifth exhibition was organized for Pierre-Auguste Renoir in June 1879 . This show, in which Renoir only showed pastel pictures, was the painter's first solo exhibition. In April 1880, Édouard Manet exhibited his new works here, followed by Claude Monet , who also had his first solo exhibition in June 1880 in the rooms of La Vie Moderne . In addition, Alfred Sisley was able to exhibit his works in the gallery of La Vie moderne in 1881 . One of the extraordinary exhibitions in 1879 was a show with artist-painted tambourines , which was designed as a charity event for flood victims in the Spanish province of Murcia . This was followed by a presentation of artistically painted ostrich eggs at Easter 1880.

• 

  Édouard Manet:
  The plum
  issued in April 1880

• 

  Claude Monet:
  Les Glaçons
  issued June 1880

literature

• Anne Distel: Impressionism: the first collectors . Abrams, New York 1990, ISBN 0-8109-3160-5 .
• John Rewald : The History of Impressionism . 7th edition. DuMont, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-7701-5561-0 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Anne Distel: Impressionism: the first collectors , p. 144.
2. ^ Anne Distel: Impressionism: the first collectors , p. 145.
3. ^ Anne Distel: Impressionism: the first collectors , p. 146.
4. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 254.
5. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 255.
6. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , p. 263.
7. ^ Anne Distel: Impressionism: the first collectors , p. 146.