INVENTING IMPRESSIONISM │ National Gallery, London → 31 May 2015

Paul Durand-Ruel in his gallery in Paris, c1910. Photograph: Dornac/ AACV

“Wɖt hm, sd Mone, w wd’nt hv svîvd.

So ynivrsli popylr r ɖ Imprešnists tde, it’s hād t imajin a tîm ẇn ɖe wr’nt. Bt in ɖ ŕli 1870z ɖe strugld t b axptd. Šund bî ɖ ātistablišmnt, ɖe wr īvn lambastd az lūṇtcs bî wn critc.

Wn man, hvr, recgnîzd ɖer wrʈ fṛm ɖ bginñ. Pwl Dŭrã-Ruel, an ontṛpṛnŕı̣l ātdīlr fṛm Paris, dscuvrd ɖs grūp v yuñ ātists – includñ Mone, Degā, Mane, Renwā, Pīsaro n Sisle – n gambld.

Paul Durand-Ruel’s grand salon at Rue de Rome, with Renoir’s ‘Dance in the City’ on the left (Picture: Archives Durand-Ruel)

Riylîzñ ɖ fašnbl ptenšl v ɖer ḍrîdd imprešnz v ŕbn n sbŕbn lîf, Dŭrã-Ruel dedicetd ɖ rest v hiz lîf t bildñ an ōdı̣ns fr ɖer wrc – crietñ ɖ modn ātmācit in ɖ prôses.

Sč wz hiz prsviṛns, Dŭrã-Ruel nirli bancruptd hmslf twîs, bfr sxesfli glôblîzñ hiz oṗrešn wɖ âtposts in Lundn, Bruslz n Ny Ywc, n istablišñ ɖ wn-man šo az ɖ inṭnašnl nwm fr xbišnz.

Ɖ Imprešnists – a trm frst yzd ḍrogtvli bî critcs – wz t bcm ɖ hâshold nem ɖt standz tde.

Invntñ Imprešnizm fīčrz 85 mastrpìsz fṛm ɖ muvmnt, ol bt wn hvñ pást ʈru Dŭrã-Ruel’z handz, includñ ʈri v Renwā’z fems Dansz n fîv fṛm Mone’z Popḷrz siriz.”

The Sheepfold, Moonlight, 1856-60 by Jean-François Millet. Photograph: Alamy

Edouard Manet’s Boy with a Sword, 1861. Photograph: Alamy

Manet’s sketch for his 1882 work A Bar at the Folies-Bergère

Édouard Manet, Music in the Tuileries Gardens (1862) Photo: The National Gallery

Édouard Manet: The Battle of the U.S.S. “Kearsarge” and the C.S.S. “Alabama”, 1864

Claude Monet, The Thames below Westminster, about 1871. Oil on canvas. Picture: The National Gallery, London

The Artist’s Garden (detail), Monet, 1873 (Picture: Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)

The Galettes, 1882 by Claude Monet. Photograph: © Archives Durand-Ruel & Cie

Poplars in the Sun, 1891 by Claude Monet. Photograph: Alamy

Fox Hill, Upper Norwood, 1870 by Camille Pissarro. Photograph: © National Gallery, London

Horses before the Stands, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas. Oil on paper, laid down on canvas, 1866-8. (Picture: Paris, Musée d’Orsay)

‘Peasant Girls Bathing in the Sea at Dusk’ by Edgar Degas (c1869-75)

The Ballet Scene from Meyerbeer’s Opera Robert le Diable, 1876 by Degas. Photograph: © Victoria and Albert Museum, London

The Ballet Class, Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas. Oil on canvas, about 1880. (Picture: Philadelphia Museum of Art)

Two Sisters (on the Terrace)’, 1881, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The daughters of Paul Durand-Ruel, Marie-Thérèse and Jeanne, Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Oil on canvas, 1882. (Picture: Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia)