Talk:Lise with a Parasol/Archive 1

Archive 1

Issues and errata

•  Done Vollard (1925) reports erroneous dates for the creation and exhibition of this and other works. No other sources support these dates, but I do wonder why this source is so wrong. I've tried to look into it and I couldn't find any explanation. I've even looked at sources about the Salon itself, only to conclude that Vollard is demonstrably incorrect. Viriditas (talk) 04:05, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Done. Viriditas (talk) 23:07, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• That same year, Karl Ernst Osthaus, a patron of the European avant-garde, paid 18,000 Goldmarks for Lise and brought it to his Folkwang Museum in Hagen, Germany. For the time, this was an enormous amount of money, somewhere on the order of more than 100,000 US dollars if the currency convert is accurate for that time period. Still, another source says he may have paid twice that amount, so I'm wondering what the real story is here. Viriditas (talk) 00:21, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
•  Done Karl Ernst Osthaus acquired Lise in 1901 for the Museum Folkwang, making it one of Renoir's first works in a museum collection. As far as I can tell, this is likely true, but without a source I find it difficult to include. For comparison, it looks like the first Renoir acquired by an American museum was sometime around 1907. Viriditas (talk) 03:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Verification in progress. Viriditas (talk) 23:19, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
    • Debunked by Clarityfiend on the refdesk. 1901 was at least a decade too late, as at least two previous works were acquired by museums before this time. Viriditas (talk) 00:13, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

•  Done I've removed the term "Impressionist" from the lead for the moment. Some sources refer to this as an early Impressionist work, but I think those sources may either be wrong or worded ambiguously, as Renoir didn't really paint in the Impressionist style until 1869. There seems to be general agreement in other sources that Renoir was trying to find his technique here, but in the case of Lise, he was influenced by Courbet's realism. I'll keep looking into this. Viriditas (talk) 10:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
•  Done The majority of the sources say that this was Renoir's first critically successful work and that it launched his career (I still haven't added that latter point just yet for various reasons, but I may). OTOH, Janet Whitmore describes its reception as "mixed". Because she's the only source that says that, I haven't yet represented that view, but I'm starting to think she may be right. Viriditas (talk) 20:52, 12 August 2015 (UTC)
•  Done Figure painting, portrait painting, genre painting, or landscape painting? There's no clear consensus in the sources. It seems to be a bit of all four, if that's even possible. Viriditas (talk) 23:09, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

The difference between figure painting and portrait painting is one of intention, and we probably don't know. I don't think it's usefully described as a genre painting, or landscape painting. These distinctions were largely breaking down by this point, & many paintings of the period don't fall neatly into one of them. Johnbod (talk) 11:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

•  Done Was Lise painted in the Chantilly Forest or the Fontainebleau forest? Distel challenges Duret's account of the location. Viriditas (talk) 02:49, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I have been away for a while so have not come back to this until now.

On the Museum Folkwang, I think I got the "first work in a museum collection" from another Wikipedia (probably the French) so it may be properly sourced there; at the least, it must be right to say "one of the first". As to what Osthau's death had to do with the move to Essen, I understand it, Osthaus built up his collection at Hagen and opened it to the public, but the local authorities there refused to pay the asking price to buy the works after his death: the local authorities in Essen did, so the works and the museum moved there.

On most of the other "issues", my inclination would be to suggest simply reporting what the sources say, with direct attribution if necessary: who says it is Impressionist (and who does not); there was some negative comment at the Salon, so to that extent reception was "mixed" I suppose; as Johnbod suggests, I don't think we need to select an artistic genre if the sources don't pigeonhole it; and what do the sources say about the forest?

To raise another issue, I think we should mention the umbrella in the title, something like Lise with umbrella. The Museum Folkwang calls it "Lise – La femme à l'ombrelle" and the umbrella seems to be mentioned in many of the sources. Is Lise really the common name for this painting? -- Theramin (talk) 23:07, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Renoir titled the painting Lise, as the second paragraph of the description section explains, and the museum in question also calls it Lise. I don't know who gave it the alternate title(s), but the sources in question discuss the significance of the title Renoir gave it and the meaning derived thereof. As for the rest, article improvement demands explicit sources. I removed everything I couldn't verify. Viriditas (talk) 18:03, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

@Theramin: I’ve recently revisited this issue and I’ve made some changes. I’m open to more. Viriditas (talk) 22:42, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

@Theramin: The "first work in a museum collection" claim was recently debunked by Clarityfiend. See my comment up above. Viriditas (talk) 00:15, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

@Theramin: The common name question is confusing, so I think it is only appropriate to default to the English name used by the museum which owns the work. Viriditas (talk) 23:32, 24 February 2022 (UTC)