Book to read.....

I have just finished a paperback "The Private Lives of the Impressionists" by Sue Roe, published by Vintage Books. This is a thoroughly researched and knowledgeable book, but it reads more like a Russian novel, utterly gripping. The group could be divided into two camps, those with independent wealth - Manet, Caillebotte, Morisot, Cassatt - and those without, the former constantly supporting and bailing out the latter. As the story unfolds you get so familiar with the characters that the way their lives conclude is utterly moving. I confess to feeling quite choked at the vision of Sisley, completely disillusioned by his failure to sell, cutting himself off from colleagues and dealers and seeing out his days in poverty painting his village scenes. And Degas, whose life was the reverse of the others in that his family owned a bank (the De Gas) which went bust and so he kept moving to smaller and smaller premises until he shared his studio with his bedroom. The Franco-Prussian war, the siege of Paris and it's subsequent rebuilding form the backdrop to these fragile lives with wealthy patrons going bust - imagine a liquidation sale where you could pick up a Pissarro for 20 francs! Poor Pissarro, the army requisitioned his house and used his canvasses for floor covering and making aprons. A common theme struck me, that despite desperate poverty (Monet's young wife dying without money to buy medical help) it did not occur to any of them to try earning money any other way, except on occasion painting porcelain as a last desperate measure. These people were painters, it was what they did despite all the agonising pressures of seeing their loved ones suffer as a result. I know I have been going on a bit but if you get a chance do have a read.