Realistic Impressions: Investigating Movements in the Visual Arts

A Real Impression

• Joseph DeckerGreen Plums, c. 1885Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon1994.59.4

Still Life with PeachesArtist: Auguste Renoir (French, Limoges 1841–1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer)Date: 1881Medium: Oil on canvasDimensions: 21 x 25 1/2 in. (53.3 x 64.8 cm)Classification: PaintingsCredit Line: Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960Accession Number: 61.101.12

What’s in a Movement?

John La FargeThe Last Valley - Paradise Rocks, 1867-1868Gaillard F. Ravenel and Frances P. Smyth-Ravenel Fund2000.144.1

The Valley of the NerviaArtist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)

Date: 1884Medium: Oil on canvasDimensions: 26 x 32 in. (66 x 81.3 cm)Classification: PaintingsCredit Line: Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M. Davis, 1915Accession Number: 30.95.251

Move in Closer

The Bodmer Oak, Fontainebleau ForestArtist: Claude Monet (French, Paris 1840–1926 Giverny)

Date: 1865Medium: Oil on canvasDimensions: 37 7/8 x 50 7/8 in. (96.2 x 129.2 cm)Classification: PaintingsCredit Line: Gift of Sam Salz and Bequest of Julia W. Emmons, by exchange, 1964Accession Number: 64.210

View near RouenArtist: Richard Parkes Bonington (British, Arnold, Nottinghamshire 1802–1828 London)

Date: ca. 1825Medium: Oil on millboardDimensions: 11 x 13 in. (27.9 x 33 cm)Classification: PaintingsCredit Line: Purchase, Gift of Joanne Toor Cummings, by exchange, 2001Accession Number: 2001.45

Behind the Movement

J. M. W. Turner’s Keelmen Heaving Coal by Moonlight

Eugene Delacroix’s 1846 The Abduction of Rebecca, a scene taken from Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel Ivanhoe

Sharpening your Eye

• Note: Many paintings contain elements of more than one movement. For example, there may be elements of Realism among the Romantics or the Impressionists, so students shouldn’t focus on searching for a pure or perfect example of each movement. Instead, concentrate on which movement is the best fit for each painting and why. It might help to know the time periods of each of these movements, so that you might better understand that some of these movements were overlapping or very close in time period:– Romanticism: Early 1800s until around 1850– Realism: Around 1840 until the late 19th century– Impressionism: In France: 1874 to about 1890; In America: mid-1870s

to the early 1910s

Thomas Eakins’ The Biglin Brothers Racing

John-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s The Eel Gatherers

Andre Derain’s Palace of Westminster

Thomas Cole’s The Voyage of Life: Youth

Edgar Degas’ The Dance Class

Gustave Courbet’s Le Bretonnerie in the Department of Indre

Winslow Homer’s Breezing Up a Fair Wind

John Constable’s The White Horse

Mary Cassatt’s Little Girl in a Blue Armchair