No doubt against the advice of the public-relations consultants, “Whistler to Cassatt: American Artists in France,” at Richmond’s Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, plays down its focus on Impressionism to such a degree that the word is almost unmentioned. If “Whistler to Cassatt” is not an Impressionist exhibition, what is it? The catalogue asserts that the aim is a “sophisticated examination of cultural and aesthetic exchange as it highlights many figures, including artists of color and women, who were left out of previous histories.” (Who would consider Mary Cassatt, Cecilia Beaux, and Henry Ossawa Tanner “left out”?) What this show does do is throw a spotlight on a number of lesser known artists with works ranging from academic formalism and plein air Impressionism to Tonalism and early intimations of modernism. Thus, it might best be described as an elaboration of Impressionism, which like any label is more a matter of convenience than definition.
The exhibition opens with a huge photograph of the incomplete Eiffel Tower—described by Gustave Eiffel as “the art of the modern engineer”—and a panoramic painting La Place de Bastille en 1882 (1882) by Frank Myers Boggs. With its street-level perspective, the painting presents the majestic results of Baron Haussmann’s citywide renovation project, which replaced Paris’s medieval buildings and squalid alleyways with parks, squares, and wide boulevards.
Passing through a set of