Impressionism was a 19th-century The 19th century was a period in history marked by the collapse of the Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Ottoman, Holy Roman and Mughal empires. This paved the way for the growing influence of the British Empire, the German Empire and the United States, spurring military conflicts but also advances in science and exploration art movement According to theories associated with the concept of postmodernism, art movements were especially important during the period of time corresponding to modern art. The period of time called "modern art" is posited to have ended approximately three-quarters of the way through the twentieth century. During the period of time corresponding that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions Art exhibitions are traditionally the space in which art objects meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood to be for some temporary period unless, as is rarely true, it is stated to be a "permanent exhibition". In American English, they may be called "exhibit", "exposition" (the French word) or " brought them to prominence in the 1870s and 1880s. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a Claude Monet Claude Monet also known as Oscar Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term work, Impression, Sunrise Impression, Sunrise is a painting by Claude Monet, for which the Impressionist movement was named (Impression, soleil levant), which provoked the critic Louis Leroy to coin A neologism ; from Greek νές (neo 'new' + logos 'word') is a newly coined word that may be in the process of entering common use, but has not yet been accepted into mainstream language. Neologisms are often directly attributable to a specific person, publication, period, or event. According to Oxford English Dictionary the term neologism was the term in a satiric review published in Le Charivari Le Charivari was an illustrated newspaper published in Paris, France from 1832 to 1937. Le Charivari published caricatures, political cartoons and reviews. In 1835 the government banned political caricature, thus Le Charivari began publishing satires of everyday life.

Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, open composition In the visual arts — in particular painting, graphic design, photography and sculpture — composition is the placement or arrangement of visual elements or ingredients in a work of art, as distinct from the subject of a work. It can also be thought of as the organization of the elements of art according to the principles of art, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. The emergence of Impressionism in the visual arts The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as traditional plastic arts , modern visual arts (photography, video, and filmmaking), and design and crafts. These definitions should not be taken too strictly as many artistic disciplines (performing arts, conceptual art, textile arts) involve aspects of was soon followed by analogous movements in other media which became known as Impressionist music The impressionist movement in music was a movement in European classical music, mainly in France, that began in the late nineteenth century and continued into the middle of the twentieth century. Like its precursor in the visual arts, musical Impressionism focused on suggestion and atmosphere rather than strong emotion or the depiction of a story and Impressionist literature.

Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.

Contents

Overview

Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley was an English Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France. Sisley is recognized as perhaps the most consistent of the Impressionists, never deviating into figure painting or finding that the movement did not fulfill his artistic needs, Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art, known colloquially as The Met, is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile in New York City, USA. It has a permanent collection containing more than two million works of art, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, often referred to simply

Radicals in their time, early Impressionists broke the rules of academic painting. They began by giving colours, freely brushed, primacy over line, drawing inspiration from the work of painters such as Eugène Delacroix Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix was a French Romantic artist regarded from the outset of his career as the leader of the French Romantic school. Delacroix's use of expressive brushstrokes and his study of the optical effects of colour profoundly shaped the work of the Impressionists, while his passion for the exotic inspired the artists of the. They also took the act of painting out of the studio and into the modern world. Previously, still lifes A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural (food, flowers, plants, rocks, or shells) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, and so on) in an artificial setting. With origins in ancient times and most popular in Western art since the and portraits A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the person. For this reason, in photography a portrait is generally not a snapshot, but a composed image of a person in a still as well as landscapes Landscape art depicts scenery such as mountains, valleys, trees, rivers, and forests. Sky is almost always included in the view, and weather usually is an element of the composition. In the first century B.C., Roman frescoes of landscapes decorated rooms that have been preserved at Pompeii and Herculaneum. Traditionally, landscape art depicts the had usually been painted indoors.[1] The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they emphasized vivid overall effects rather than details. They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed colour, not smoothly blended, as was customary, in order to achieve the effect of intense colour vibration.

Although the rise of Impressionism in France happened at a time when a number of other painters, including the Italian artists known as the Macchiaioli The Macchiaioli were a group of Italian painters from Tuscany, active in the second half of the nineteenth century, who, breaking with the antiquated conventions taught by the Italian academies of art, painted outdoors in order to capture natural light, shade, and colour. The Macchiaioli were forerunners of the Impressionists who, beginning in the, and Winslow Homer Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art in the United States, were also exploring plein-air painting, the Impressionists developed new techniques that were specific to the movement. Encompassing what its adherents argued was a different way of seeing, it was an art of immediacy and movement, of candid poses and compositions, of the play of light expressed in a bright and varied use of colour.

The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if it did not receive the approval of the art critics and establishment.

By re-creating the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than recreating the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism became a precursor seminal to various movements in painting which would follow, including Neo-Impressionism During the emergence of neo-impressionism, Seurat and his followers strived to refine the impulsive and intuitive artistic mannerisms of impressionism Neo-impressionists used disciplined networks of dots in their desire to instill a sense of organization and permanence . In further defining the movement, Seurat incorporated the recent explanation, Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, thick application of paint, distinctive brushstrokes, and real-life subject matter, but, Fauvism Les Fauves were a short-lived and loose grouping of early 20th century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only three years, 1905–1907,, and Cubism Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music and literature. The first branch of cubism, known as "Analytic Cubism", was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art.

Beginnings

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau", Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876

In an atmosphere of change as Emperor Napoleon III Napoleon III , Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was the first President of the French Republic and the last monarch of France. He was also the nephew of Napoleon I. Made President by popular vote in 1848, he undertook a coup in 1851, becoming dictator before ascending to the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary rebuilt Paris and waged war, the Académie des Beaux-Arts The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France dominated the French art scene in the middle of the 19th century. The Académie was the upholder of traditional standards for French painting, both in content and style. Historical subjects, religious themes, and portraits were valued (landscape and still life were not), and the Académie preferred carefully finished images which mirrored reality when examined closely. Colour was somber and conservative, and the traces of brush strokes were suppressed, concealing the artist's personality, emotions, and working techniques.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau", Girl with a Hoop, 1885

The Académie held an annual, juried art show, the Salon de Paris The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon (French: Salon de Paris), beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the western world. Since 1881 it was organized by the Société des Artistes Français, and artists whose work displayed in the show won prizes, garnered commissions, and enhanced their prestige. The standards of the juries reflected the values of the Académie, represented by the highly polished works of such artists as Jean-Léon Gérôme Jean-Léon Gérôme was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax and Alexandre Cabanel Alexandre Cabanel was a French painter. Some younger artists painted in a lighter and brighter manner than painters of the preceding generation, extending further the realism Realism in the visual arts and literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life, without embellishment or interpretation. The term also describes works of art which, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the ugly or sordid of Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix), with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century and the Barbizon school The Barbizon school of painters is named after the village of Barbizon near Fontainebleau Forest, France, where the artists gathered. They were more interested in painting landscape and contemporary life than in recreating scenes from history. Each year, they submitted their art to the Salon, only to see the juries reject their best efforts in favour of trivial works by artists working in the approved style. A core group of young realists, Claude Monet Claude Monet also known as Oscar Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term, Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau", Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley was an English Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France. Sisley is recognized as perhaps the most consistent of the Impressionists, never deviating into figure painting or finding that the movement did not fulfill his artistic needs, and Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille was a French Impressionist painter whose major works often foreground the figure within a landscape painted en plein air, who had studied under Charles Gleyre, became friends and often painted together. They soon were joined by Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist painter. His importance resides not only in his visual contributions to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, but also in his patriarchal standing among his colleagues, particularly Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new, and Armand Guillaumin Armand Guillaumin , was a French impressionist painter and lithographer.[2]

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau", On the Terrace, oil on canvas, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago is an encyclopedic fine art museum located in Chicago, Illinois's Grant Park. The Art Institute has one of the world's most notable collections of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art in its permanent collection. Its diverse holdings also include significant Old Master works, American art, European and American Claude Monet Claude Monet also known as Oscar Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term, Woman with a Parasol, (Camille and Jean Monet), 1875, National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art is a national art museum, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum was established in 1938 by the United States Congress, with funds for construction and a substantial art collection donated by Andrew W. Mellon plus major art works donated by Lessing J. Rosenwald, Italian art contributions from Samuel, Washington, DC. Washington, D.C. , formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States, founded on July 16, 1790. The City of Washington was originally a separate municipality within the Territory of Columbia until an act of Congress in 1871 effectively merged the City and the

In 1863, the jury rejected The Luncheon on the Grass Le déjeuner sur l'herbe — originally titled Le Bain (The Bath) — is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet. Created in 1862 and 1863, its juxtaposition of a female nude with fully dressed men sparked controversy when the work was first exhibited at the Salon des Refusés. The piece is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. A smaller, (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) by Édouard Manet Édouard Manet , 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883, was a French painter. One of the first nineteenth century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism primarily because it depicted a nude woman with two clothed men at a picnic. While nudes were routinely accepted by the Salon when featured in historical and allegorical paintings, the jury condemned Manet for placing a realistic nude in a contemporary setting.[3] The jury's sharply worded rejection of Manet's painting, as well as the unusually large number of rejected works that year, set off a firestorm among French artists. Manet was admired by Monet and his friends, and led the discussions at Café Guerbois Café Guerbois, on Batignolles Street in Paris, was the site of late 19th century discussions and planning amongst artists, writers and art lovers — the bohèmes , in contrast to the bourgeois where the group of artists frequently met.

After seeing the rejected works in 1863, Emperor Napoleon III decreed that the public be allowed to judge the work themselves, and the Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Refused) was organized. While many viewers came only to laugh, the Salon des Refusés drew attention to the existence of a new tendency in art and attracted more visitors than the regular Salon.[4]

Artists' petitions requesting a new Salon des Refusés in 1867, and again in 1872, were denied. In the latter part of 1873, Monet Claude Monet also known as Oscar Claude Monet or Claude Oscar Monet (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term, Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty, and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau", Pissarro, and Sisley organized the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") for the purpose of exhibiting their artworks independently. Members of the association, which soon included Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas, were expected to forswear participation in the Salon. The organizers invited a number of other progressive artists to join them in their inaugural exhibition, including the slightly older Eugène Boudin, whose example had first persuaded Monet to take up plein air painting years before.[5] Another painter who greatly influenced Monet and his friends, Johan Jongkind, declined to participate, as did Manet. In total, thirty artists participated in their first exhibition, held in April 1874 at the studio of the photographer Nadar.

Claude Monet, The Cliff at Étretat after the Storm, 1885, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

The critical response was mixed, with Monet and Cézanne bearing the harshest attacks. Critic and humorist Louis Leroy wrote a scathing review in the Le Charivari newspaper in which, making wordplay with the title of Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), he gave the artists the name by which they would become known. Derisively titling his article The Exhibition of the Impressionists, Leroy declared that Monet's painting was at most, a sketch, and could hardly be termed a finished work.

He wrote, in the form of a dialog between viewers,

Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.[6]
Claude Monet, Haystacks, (sunset), 1890-1891, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

The term "Impressionists" quickly gained favour with the public. It was also accepted by the artists themselves, even though they were a diverse group in style and temperament, unified primarily by their spirit of independence and rebellion. They exhibited together—albeit with shifting membership—eight times between 1874 and 1886.

Monet, Sisley, Morisot, and Pissarro may be considered the "purest" Impressionists, in their consistent pursuit of an art of spontaneity, sunlight, and colour. Degas rejected much of this, as he believed in the primacy of drawing over colour and belittled the practice of painting outdoors.[7] Renoir turned against Impressionism for a time in the 1880s, and never entirely regained his commitment to its ideas. Édouard Manet, despite his role as a leader to the group, never abandoned his liberal use of black as a colour, and never participated in the Impressionist exhibitions. He continued to submit his works to the Salon, where his Spanish Singer had won a 2nd class medal in 1861, and he urged the others to do likewise, arguing that "the Salon is the real field of battle" where a reputation could be made.[8]

Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, 1897, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Among the artists of the core group (minus Bazille, who had died in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870), defections occurred as Cézanne, followed later by Renoir, Sisley, and Monet, abstained from the group exhibitions in order to submit their works to the Salon. Disagreements arose from issues such as Guillaumin's membership in the group, championed by Pissarro and Cézanne against opposition from Monet and Degas, who thought him unworthy.[9] Degas invited Mary Cassatt to display her work in the 1879 exhibition, but he also caused dissention by insisting on the inclusion of Jean-François Raffaëlli, Ludovic Lepic, and other realists who did not represent Impressionist practices, leading Monet in 1880 to accuse the Impressionists of "opening doors to first-come daubers".[10] The group divided over the invitation of Signac and Seurat to exhibit with them in 1886. Pissarro was the only artist to show at all eight Impressionist exhibitions.

The individual artists saw few financial rewards from the Impressionist exhibitions, but their art gradually won a degree of public acceptance. Their dealer, Durand-Ruel, played a major role in this as he kept their work before the public and arranged shows for them in London and New York. Although Sisley would die in poverty in 1899, Renoir had a great Salon success in 1879. Financial security came to Monet in the early 1880s and to Pissarro by the early 1890s. By this time the methods of Impressionist painting, in a diluted form, had become commonplace in Salon art.[11]

Impressionist techniques

Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872, Musée d'Orsay Mary Cassatt, Lydia Leaning on Her Arms (in a theatre box), 1879

Painters throughout history had occasionally used these methods, but Impressionists were the first to use all of them together, and with such boldness. Earlier artists whose works display these techniques include Frans Hals, Diego Velázquez, Peter Paul Rubens, John Constable, and J. M. W. Turner.

French painters who prepared the way for Impressionism include the Romantic colourist Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the realists Gustave Courbet, and painters of the Barbizon school such as Théodore Rousseau. The Impressionists learned much from the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Eugène Boudin, who painted from nature in a style that was close to Impressionism, and who befriended and advised the younger artists.

Impressionists took advantage of the mid-century introduction of premixed paints in lead tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes) which allowed artists to work more spontaneously, both outdoors and indoors. Previously, painters made their own paints individually, by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil, which were then stored in animal bladders.[12]

Content and composition

Camille Pissarro, Hay Harvest at Éragny, 1901, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Prior to the Impressionists, other painters, notably such 17th-century Dutch painters as Jan Steen, had focused on common subjects, but their approaches to composition were traditional. They arranged their compositions in such a way that the main subject commanded the viewer's attention. The Impressionists relaxed the boundary between subject and background so that the effect of an Impressionist painting often resembles a snapshot, a part of a larger reality captured as if by chance.[13] Photography was gaining popularity, and as cameras became more portable, photographs became more candid. Photography inspired Impressionists to capture the moment, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape, but in the day-to-day lives of people.

Berthe Morisot, Reading, 1873, Cleveland Museum of Art

The rise of the impressionist movement can be seen in part as a reaction by artists to the newly established medium of photography. The taking of fixed or still images challenged painters by providing a new medium with which to capture reality. Initially photography's presence seemed to undermine the artist's depiction of nature and their ability to mirror reality. Both portrait and landscape paintings were deemed somewhat deficient and lacking in truth as photography "produced lifelike images much more efficiently and reliably". [14]

Alfred Sisley, View of the Saint-Martin Canal, Paris, 1870, Musée d'Orsay

In spite of this, photography actually inspired artists to pursue other means of artistic expression, and rather than competing with photography to emulate reality, artists focused "on the one thing they could inevitably do better than the photograph – by further developing into an art form its very subjectivity in the conception of the image, the very subjectivity that photography eliminated".[14] The Impressionists sought to express their perceptions of nature, rather than create exacting reflections or mirror images of the world. This allowed artists to subjectively depict what they saw with their "tacit imperatives of taste and conscience". [15] Photography encouraged painters to exploit aspects of the painting medium, like colour, which photography then lacked; "the Impressionists were the first to consciously offer a subjective alternative to the photograph".[14]

Another major influence was Japanese art prints (Japonism), which had originally come into France as wrapping paper for imported goods. The art of these prints contributed significantly to the "snapshot" angles and unconventional compositions which would become characteristic of the movement.

Edgar Degas was both an avid photographer and a collector of Japanese prints.[16] His The Dance Class (La classe de danse) of 1874 shows both influences in its asymmetrical composition. The dancers are seemingly caught off guard in various awkward poses, leaving an expanse of empty floor space in the lower right quadrant.

Main Impressionists

Camille Pissarro, Hoarfrost, 1873, Musee d'Orsay, Paris Berthe Morisot, The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France, listed alphabetically, were:

Gallery

Gallery

Edgar Degas, (1834-1917), Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers (Star of the Ballet), 1878

Edgar Degas, Stage Rehearsal, 1878-1879, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City

Edgar Degas, Dancers at The Bar, 1888, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Edgar Degas, Woman in the Bath, 1886, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut

Edgar Degas, L'Absinthe, 1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Édouard Manet, (1832-1883), Plum, 1878, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Armand Guillaumin, (1841-1927), Sunset at Ivry (Soleil couchant à Ivry) 1873, Musee d'Orsay

Gustave Caillebotte, (1848-1894), Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877. Art Institute of Chicago

Frédéric Bazille, (1841-1870), Paysage au bord du Lez, 1870, Minneapolis Institute of Art

Timeline

The Impressionists

Associates and influenced artists

Among the close associates of the Impressionists were several painters who adopted their methods to some degree. These include Giuseppe De Nittis, an Italian artist living in Paris who participated in the first Impressionist exhibit at the invitation of Degas, although the other Impressionists disparaged his work.[18] Federico Zandomeneghi was another Italian friend of Degas who showed with the Impressionists. Eva Gonzalès was a follower of Manet who did not exhibit with the group. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born painter who played a part in Impressionism although he did not join the group and preferred grayed colours. Walter Sickert, an English artist, was initially a follower of Whistler, and later an important disciple of Degas; he did not exhibit with the Impressionists. In 1904 the artist and writer Wynford Dewhurst wrote the first important study of the French painters to be published in English, Impressionist Painting: its genesis and development, which did much to popularize Impressionism in Great Britain.

By the early 1880s, Impressionist methods were affecting, at least superficially, the art of the Salon. Fashionable painters such as Jean Beraud and Henri Gervex found critical and financial success by brightening their palettes while retaining the smooth finish expected of Salon art.[19] Works by these artists are sometimes casually referred to as Impressionism, despite their remoteness from Impressionist practice.

Beyond France

Mary Cassatt, The Child's Bath (The Bath), 1893, oil on canvas, Art Institute of Chicago

As the influence of Impressionism spread beyond France, artists, too numerous to list, became identified as practitioners of the new style. Some of the more important examples are:

Sculpture, photography and film

The sculptor Auguste Rodin is sometimes called an Impressionist for the way he used roughly modeled surfaces to suggest transient light effects.

Pictorialist photographers whose work is characterized by soft focus and atmospheric effects have also been called Impressionists. Examples are Kirk Clendinning, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Robert Farber, Eduard Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and Clarence H. White.

French Impressionist Cinema is a term applied to a loosely defined group of films and filmmakers in France from 1919-1929, although these years are debatable. French Impressionist filmmakers include Abel Gance, Jean Epstein, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L’Herbier, Louis Delluc, and Dmitry Kirsanoff.

Music and literature

Main article: Impressionist music Main article: Impressionism (literature) Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

Musical Impressionism is the name given to a movement in European classical music that arose in the late 19th century and continued into the middle of the 20th century. Originating in France, musical Impressionism is characterized by suggestion and atmosphere, and eschews the emotional excesses of the Romantic era. Impressionist composers favoured short forms such as the nocturne, arabesque, and prelude, and often explored uncommon scales such as the whole tone scale. Perhaps the most notable innovations used by Impressionist composers were the first uses of major 7th chords and the extension of chord structures in 3rds to five and six part harmonies.

The influence of visual Impressionism on its musical counterpart is debatable. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are generally considered the greatest Impressionist composers, but Debussy disavowed the term, calling it the invention of critics. Erik Satie was also considered to be in this category although his approach was considered to be less serious, more of musical novelty in nature. Paul Dukas is another French composer sometimes considered to be an Impressionist but his style is perhaps more closely aligned to the late Romanticists. Musical Impressionism beyond France includes the work of such composers as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ottorino Respighi.

The term Impressionism has also been used to describe works of literature in which a few select details suffice to convey the sensory impressions of an incident or scene. Impressionist literature is closely related to Symbolism, with its major exemplars being Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. Authors such as Virginia Woolf and Joseph Conrad have written works which are Impressionistic in the way that they describe, rather than interpret, the impressions, sensations and emotions that constitute a character's mental life.

Post-Impressionism

Main article: Post-Impressionism Camille Pissarro, Children on a Farm, 1887

Post-Impressionism developed from Impressionism. From the 1880s several artists began to develop different precepts for the use of colour, pattern, form, and line, derived from the Impressionist example: Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. These artists were slightly younger than the Impressionists, and their work is known as post-Impressionism. Some of the original Impressionist artists also ventured into this new territory; Camille Pissarro briefly painted in a pointillist manner, and even Monet abandoned strict plein air painting. Paul Cézanne, who participated in the first and third Impressionist exhibitions, developed a highly individual vision emphasising pictorial structure, and he is more often called a post-Impressionist. Although these cases illustrate the difficulty of assigning labels, the work of the original Impressionist painters may, by definition, be categorised as Impressionism.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Exceptions include Canaletto, who painted outside and may have used the camera obscura.
  2. ^ "Vincent Van Gogh" Oxford Art Online
  3. ^ Denvir (1990), p.133.
  4. ^ Denvir (1990), p.194.
  5. ^ Denvir (1990), p.32.
  6. ^ Rewald (1973), p. 323.
  7. ^ Gordon; Forge (1988), pp. 11-12.
  8. ^ Richardson (1976), p. 3.
  9. ^ Denvir (1990), p.105.
  10. ^ Rewald (1973), p. 603.
  11. ^ Rewald, (1973), p. 475–476.
  12. ^ Renoir and the Impressionist Process, The Phillips Collection
  13. ^ Rosenblum (1989), p. 228.
  14. ^ a b c Levinson, Paul (1997) The Soft Edge; a Natural History and Future of the Information Revolution, Routledge, London and New York
  15. ^ Sontag, Susan (1977) On Photography, Penguin, London
  16. ^ Baumann; Karabelnik, et al. (1994), p. 112.
  17. ^ Denvir (1990), p.140.
  18. ^ Denvir (1990), p.152.
  19. ^ Rewald (1973), p.476-477.

References

External links

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Impressionism
Originators

Frédéric Bazille · Eugène Boudin · Gustave Caillebotte · Mary Cassatt · Paul Cézanne · Edgar Degas · Armand Guillaumin · Édouard Manet · Claude Monet · Berthe Morisot · Camille Pissarro · Pierre-Auguste Renoir · Alfred Sisley
Patrons

Gustave Caillebotte · Henry O. Havemeyer · Ernest Hoschedé
Dealers

Paul Durand-Ruel · Georges Petit · Ambroise Vollard
Artists in USA Frederick Carl Frieseke · Childe Hassam · Willard Metcalf · Lilla Cabot Perry · Theodore Robinson · John Henry Twachtman · J. Alden Weir
Other artists Lovis Corinth · Max Liebermann · Max Slevogt · Konstantin Korovin · Valentin Serov · Francisco Oller y Cestero · Laura Muntz Lyall · Władysław Podkowiński · Nazmi Ziya Güran · Chafik Charobim
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See also Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism
19th-century movements Neo-impressionism · Divisionism · Pointillism · Cloisonnism · Les Nabis · Synthetism · Symbolism · Art Nouveau · Jugendstil
Artists Henri Rousseau · Paul Cézanne · Paul Gauguin · Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · Odilon Redon · Georges Seurat · Paul Signac · Vincent van Gogh
20th-century movements Fauvism · Die Brücke · Der Blaue Reiter · Expressionism · Cubism
Artists Henri Matisse · André Derain · Ernst Ludwig Kirchner · Karl Schmidt-Rottluff · Wassily Kandinsky · Franz Marc · Pablo Picasso · Georges Braque
Exhibitions Artistes Indépendants · Les XX · Volpini Exhibition · Le Barc de Boutteville · La Libre Esthétique · Ambroise Vollard · Salon d'Automne
Critics

Félix Fénéon · Albert Aurier
See also Impressionism · Modernism · Modern art · Secessionism
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Avant-garde movements
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Music Ars subtilior · Avant-garde jazz · Avant-garde metal · Free jazz · Industrial music · Krautrock · Musique concrète · No Wave · Noise music · Post-rock · Progressive rock
Literature and poetry Angry Penguins · Asemic writing · Cyberpunk · Flarf poetry · Language poets · Neoteric · Oberiu · Oulipo
Cinema and theatre

Cinema pur · Dogme 95 · Drop Art · Epic theatre ·

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General Bauhaus · Dada · Fluxus · Futurism · Lettrism · Neo-Dada · Neoism · Minimalism · Postminimalism · Primitivism · Situationist International · Social realism · Socialist realism · Surrealism · Symbolism
Western art movements by century
5th to 18th century Merovingian · Carolingian · Ottonian · Romanesque · International Gothic · Renaissance (14th-15th) · Mannerism (16th) · Baroque (17th) · Rococo - Neoclassicism - Romanticism (18th)
19th century Realism · Barbizon school · Pre-Raphaelites · Academic · Impressionism · Post-Impressionism · Neo-impressionism · Divisionism · Pointillism · Cloisonnism · Les Nabis · Synthetism · Symbolism · Hudson River School
20th century Modernism · Avant-garde · Cubism · Expressionism · Abstract expressionism · Abstract · Neue Künstlervereinigung München · Der Blaue Reiter · Die Brücke · Dada · Fauvism · Neo-Fauvism · Art Nouveau · Bauhaus · De Stijl · Art Deco · Pop art · Photorealism · Futurism · Suprematism · Surrealism · Color Field · Minimalism · Nouveau réalisme · Lettrism · Installation art · Lyrical Abstraction · Postmodernism · Conceptual art · Land art · Performance art · Systems art · Video art · Neo-expressionism · Outsider art · Lowbrow · New media art · Young British Artists · Stuckism
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