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NGV’s French Impressionism Show: 7 Iconic Paintings You Must See
- Ankita Shaw
- Jul 25
- 5 min read
The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Australia’s oldest and most-visited art museum, houses over 75,000 artworks across two sites. Every year, the gallery hosts a special exhibition, a tradition that has been followed since 2004. This year, NGV’s French Impressionism show is giving art lovers the opportunity to step into the light-soaked boulevards of 19th-century Paris. The gallery hosted the same exhibition in 2021, but was interrupted due to COVID-19.
Impressionism, the 19th-century modern art movement that originated in Paris, drew strong criticism from the art community at the time. The public was enraged and unsure of this innovative art style, which defied traditional painting techniques. As time passed, they realized that these radical painters had actually invented a new style. In fact, impressionism emerged as the precursor of other art movements like Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism.
From seasoned admirers to first-time visitors, NGV’s French Impressionism show is a visual feast for all. It exhibits over 100 masterpieces from Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts from iconic artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt, Berthe Morisot, Paul Signac, and Alfred Sisley. Curated across ten thematic sections, the French Impressionism show will also feature letters, journals, and articles that shed light on the personal connections between these artists as well as their admiration for each other.
While one of the key features of NGV’s French Impressionism show is a circular room arranged with 16 Monet pieces including Monet's water lilies, NGV curator Dr Ted Gott and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Dr Katie Hanson’s believe that there are seven paintings that you must not miss. Grab a seat and join us in our exploration of these seven unmissable masterpieces.
Édouard Manet’s ‘The Street Singer’
Inspired by his meeting with a street singer, modernist French painter Édouard Manet painted ‘The Street Singer’ in 1862. When the singer Manet encountered refused to pose, he turned to Victorine Meurent, a model who posed for several of his paintings.
In The Street Singer, Meurent can be seen posing as a singer standing next to the entrance of a cabaret. Dressed in a fashionable contemporary outfit, she is depicted as a musician popular around the Pantheon Mountains. She is tightly holding a guitar in one hand and eating cherries with the other.
Besides Édouard Manet, Victoria Meurent posed for several other painters, but a model was not all that she was. She was a former cancan dancer turned artist. So, while you are at NGV’s French Impressionism show, you should also not miss her self-portrait.
Pierre‐Auguste Renoir’s ‘Dance at Bougival’
‘Dance at Bougival’ is one of the three paintings that Pierre‐Auguste Renoir painted for the art dealer Paul Durand-Ariel between January and April 1883. The paintings are similar to each other as they all depict a couple dancing, albeit in different environments.
‘Dance at Bougival’ is one of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston’s most famous paintings, and is known to show a scene from the village of Bougival, located at a distance of 15 km from Paris. The oil-on-canvas painting puts the spotlight on a dancing couple that is surrounded by lively cafe-goers. Although the identity of the subjects is disputed, most people believe that the couple is Renoir’s friends, Suzanne Valadon and Paul Lhote.
Pierre‐Auguste Renoir’s ‘Grand Canal Venice’
Besides stunning portraits, Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted many landscapes throughout his artistic career. ‘Grand Canal Venice’ is one such landscape that he painted in 1881 during his trip to Venice and Florence to study the works of Leonard da Vinci, Veronese, Raphael, and Michelangelo. When the painting was first exhibited in 1882, it was harshly criticized for not detailing the architectural views.
The water surface in this painting dominates the composition while landmarks such as Ca’ Foscari palace and Rialto Bridge are subtly abstracted. On the other hand, gondolas are painted as dark silhouettes, giving the painting some contrast. Renoir is considered one of the leading artists of the Impressionist era. ‘Grand Canal Venice’ is also one such painting that highlights his tendencies to depart from traditional artistic techniques.
Gustave Caillebotte’s ‘Fruits Displayed on a Stand’
Unlike his Impressionist contemporaries, like Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro, Gustave Caillebotte was wealthy. ‘Fruits sur un étalage’, the French name for ‘Fruits displayed on a stand’, was a painting that allowed Caillebotte’s millionaire status to take the center stage, as it depicts a lavish display of fruits that evokes temptation and visual seduction.
One might think that this is just a fruit display. What is so special about it? That’s what some of Gustave Caillebotte’s contemporaries also thought. However, this display underscores the allure of market stalls and Parisian consumer culture. NGV curator Ted Bott also pointed out how each fruit is individually wrapped in a little tissue paper, a mark of the rich society that Caillebotte hailed from.
Another notable fact about this painting is that, despite being an Impressionist, Caillebotte did not employ the typical loose brushwork in this painting. Instead, his technique is more controlled and polished.
Frits Thaulow’s ‘Riverside, View of Abbeville’
‘Riverside, View of Abbeville’, also known as ‘Abbeville’, is one of the landscapes that Frits Thaulow painted in 1894. The Norwegian Impressionist spent a major part of the 1890s in small French towns like Montreuil-sur-Mer and Abbeville after moving to Northern France in 1892 to capture urban waterways. This oil-on-canvas landscape painting showcases his proficiency at painting reflective surfaces and atmospheric subtlety.
One key feature of ‘Riverside, View of Abbeville’ is that while the exquisite water surfaces are painted with meticulous detail, the surrounding buildings and other such background elements are handled with looser strokes. This contrast in technique emphasizes mood over architectural precision. MFA Boston curator Katie Hanson stated that Thaulow’s paintings are a “surprise” hit of NGV’s French Impressionism show.
Théodore Rousseau’s ‘Edge of the Wood’
‘Edge of the Wood’ is one of the many astounding landscapes Théodore Rousseau painted in his lifetime. It was painted in the Fontainebleau Forest near Barbizon, which was an important site for landscape painters of the 19th century. Rousseau’s love for nature can be felt through the care with which he painted these landscapes. In fact, he played a huge role in uplifting the reputation of landscape painting as a respected genre.
NGV curator Ted Gott revealed that Rousseau used this painting to convince Napoleon to declare the Foutainebleu Forest the world’s first national park. So, ‘Edge of the Wood’, also known as ‘Plain of Barbizon near Fontainebleau’, did not just immortalize the beauty of the forest, but also helped save it from getting cut down for building Baron Haussmann’s Paris.
Jean‐François Raffaëlli’s ‘Garlic Seller’
In contrast to Gustave Caillebotte’s ‘Fruits Displayed on a Stand’, Jean‐François Raffaëlli’s ‘Garlic Seller’ highlights the struggles behind the glamorous world of Paris. Raffaëlli took a keen interest in sociological realism and character as subject matter, which reflected in his paintings of individuals from Belle Époque’s working-class society.
‘Garlic Seller’ depicts an elderly garlic vendor, carrying a wicker basket of garlic across a bleak field just outside industrial Paris. A dog can be seen accompanying the vendor. The colors in the painting are subdued, which emphasizes the subject’s weariness and quiet dignity.
So, what are you waiting for? Grab your tickets to NGV’s French Impressionism show now! It started running at NGV International on St Kilda Road, Melbourne, from June 6 and will be there until 5 October 2025.
