You Need a Creative Crew | Art Doctor Quickies | Henri Fantin-Latour, Studio at Batignolles, 1870

Hello everyone and welcome to Art Doctor Quickie where we take an in-depth yet brief look at one work of art. Today it's a group portrait done in 1870 by Henri-Fantin Latour Atelier au Batignolles or Studio at Batignolles which was a Boho neighbourhood in Paris. It depicts a group of painters and writers many of whom would come to be synonymous with the Impressionist movement. Yes, yes, this is a group of white guys. Yes, they even thought they were oppressed by society, bless their hearts. And in a way, if you squint at it, they kind of were. And yes, they are posing together because they believed it was an important moment and that they were important in it. And all that might be true, but it's not why I'm showing you this painting today. After all, the Art Doctor has no time for great white men history. This is about creativity and the friends you make along the way. So let's meet these guys and see what's going on. First, in the middle, we have the great painter arguably the founder of the French avant-garde at this time, Edouard de Manet. He is shown painting a portrait of his good friend the writer, painter and sculptor, Zachary Astruc. Behind him, studying his work, is the German painter and forgive me for this German, Otto Schlölderer. The man in the hat, you might know. His head perfectly centered in an empty frame on the wall. This is Pierre-Auguste Renoir, one of the names practically synonymous with Impressionism. Next to him are the writers, Emile Zola, with the glasses in his hand, and Edmond Metre, who looks directly at us from the back of the crowd. The imposingly tall man in tartan trousers, which was très casual for the time, is the painter Frédéric Bazille. And finally, hiding in a corner, almost blurring into the background, is another painter you may have heard of, Claude Monet. Fantin-Latour's aim was to show how this new group of young artists, writers and thinkers were not completely disconnected from previous generations. Sure, they were gathered around Manet, whose reputation for getting in trouble with the establishment was well known. But on the table we see a classical statue of Minerva, goddess of the arts. She's next to an ever-so-trendy Japanese vase, Japanese art and design being a huge inspiration to the younger generation. So it seems as if Fantin-Latour is saying, yes, we're young, avant-garde, and totally into trendy Japanese stuff, but we have lineage in the classical art movements that came before us, so don't scoff at us boomers, or whatever their boomer equivalent was. So yes, this might be a group portrait of the It Boys of Paris, but it's also a fond record of their friendship. They often met Manet at his favorite hangout in Batignolles, Café Guerbois. Monet describes their evenings. In 1869, Manet invited me to join him every evening in a café at the Batignolles Quarter, where he and his friends would gather and talk after leaving their atelier. There I met Fantin-Latour, Cézanne and Degas, who joined the group shortly after his return from Italy, the art critic Duranti, Émile Zola, who was then embarking on his literary career, as well as some others. I myself brought along Sisley, Basile and Renoir. Nothing was more interesting than our discussions, with their perpetual clash of opinion. They sharpened one's wits, encouraged frank and impartial inquiry, and provided enthusiasm that kept us going for weeks and weeks until our ideas took final shape. One always came away feeling more involved, more determined, and thinking more clearly and distinctly. So this was a group that shared ideas, disagree, and became good friends in the process. And creativity is like that. It's better when it's exposed to others. There is a kind of mythology of the lone artist or writer creating works of genius up in a back room somewhere. But if you look at most artists, they work together. Maybe not on individual pieces, but certainly they need to bounce ideas off each other, to be inspired by one another, and to be understood in that mind-bendingly tough process of creating something real from a spark of an idea. The other thing about this painting is that they are all depicted as real, ordinary people. Just look at them. You might run into someone who looks exactly like Renoir or Monet in your daily life. Heck, you may look like one of them if you've got a beard. Great names are just people, ordinary people, with ordinary needs, ordinary relationships. They weren't superhuman or blessed with genius, whatever that is. They were brave enough to try, privileged enough to follow that creative drive, and fortunate enough to find encouraging friends along the way. You might think you're not creative, but creation is simply taking an idea and making it real. We all do that every day of our lives. So find a group of people who will make that process exciting for you, who will challenge you and excite you to try new things. Hey, then maybe get a group portrait done. Why not?