Impressionism

By Rachana Sudhaman

A1-501

Impressionism

An art movement developed in France in the 1870-1890s

- Started by radical painters who rejected the traditionalist Academie des Beaux-Art.

- Named so by a Parisian art critic- Louis Leroy.

Impression- Le Soleil Levant (The Rising Sun) by Claude Monet,1872

CHARACTERISTICS OF

IMPRESSIONIST PAINTINGS

Emphasis on the general impression produced by a scene or an object.

Armand Guillaumin Sunset at Ivry (Soleil couchant à Ivry) 1873,

Rejection of established styles.

Claude Monet, The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm, 1885

In the Voorhees Garden by Matilda Brown 1914

Rejection of established styles.

Play of light expressed in bright & varied use of color.

The cradle by Berthe Morrisot,1872

The boating by Eduard Manet 1874

Short brush strokes. The colors remained unmixed.

Freely brushed colors took precedence over lines and contours.

The Japanese Bridge by Claude Monet

The overall visual effect was more important than the visual details- the colors were not blended smoothly.

Water Lilies by Monet

Use of unmixed primary colors

Allee of Chestnut trees Alfred Sisley

Rather than neutral whites, grays and blacks, colors were used for the shadows.

Manet, Le Grand Canal

Incorporation of new ideas, technology and depictions of modern life

Train in the Snow by Claude Monet

Gustave Caillebotte, (1848–1894), Paris Street on a rainy day, 1877

History

Voiliers devant Trouville by Eugene Boudin

• Founders• Eugene

Boudin• Stanislas

Lepin• Jongkind

• Influenced the future impressionists

• Started the tradition of painting “en plien air”

• Need to break out of the limitations set forth by traditionalists

• Rejection of Eduard Manet’s “Dejeuner sur l’Herbe” by Salon of the Academie de Beaux-Arts

• Salon des Refusees

• Franco-Prussian War• Pissarro, Monet, Sisley move to

London

Other Influences

En Plein air (in open air)

On the terrace by Pierre Auguste Renoir

The Hay Harvest at Eragny by Camille Pissarro

• Influence of the spontaneity of Photography

Lady in the boat by Edmund Greacam

Trouville by Eugene Boudin 1864

Bridging the Lieutenant by Harry Hoffman

Japanese Woodblock Prints• The space and

depth using perspective

Some important Impressionist painters

Claude Monet• His style of

painting light through color

• Painting in the open air.

• Lyrical composition of a vision

Colorful sensations

The Dance class by Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas• Remained influenced

by traditional styles• Work in progress

from a new perspective. Painted the working class people- Dancers, circus artistes etc…

Ballet Dancers at the bar

At the milliners shop

Eduard Manet

• Photographic depictions

• Challenged the renaissance e style

• Retained his distinctive use of black.

• Paintings of urban upper class life.

Still life with Melon and peaches

Impressionist Music

• Started in France

• musical impressionism focuses on a suggestion and an atmosphere rather than on a strong emotion or the depiction of a story as in program music

• Use of whole tone scales or dissonance.

• Exploration of the “Fantasy of sound”.

• Concentration on the individual, unusual features of each instrument and use of rarely applied registers

• Charles Debussy used the suggestions like ‘similarly to flute’, ‘from a distance’ …

• Pink Floyd – modern Rock Band

Impressionist Literature

• Prose, poetry & other literary works

• Works relied heavily on associations• Stream of consciousness.

• An author centres his story/attention on the character's mental life

• Portrayal from an explicitly subjective point of view on reality

• Also referred as Symbolism/Surrealism • Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Henry James, Virginia

Woolf.

Neo –Impressionism• From 1880s• Different

percepts for use of color, pattern, form, line.

• Pointillism• Pissarro,

Cezanne, Van-gogh

Children on a farm by Camille Pissarro 1887

The Scream by Vincent Van-Gogh

Starry night by Vincent Van-Gogh

The Card Players by Cezanne1892

Merci Beaucoup !!