Within the medium of painting, many millennia of two-dimensional representations have recorded the thoughts and history of those who are creative and those who desired history to be recorded in the image they decided fit. The boundaries that separate painting into defined movements can be vague because they represent the works of a culture such as Greece or as well-defined and distinct as some movements were dictated by churches, governments, and other bodies of influence. Impressionism is a movement composed of works from a culture where the enlightenment of the masses caused “a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques” ("Impressionism,") to emerge and coalesce into a new school of thought. This paper will examine the works of three artist who painted with the Impressionist style; Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Claude Monet. These renowned Impressionists may have had common influences and beginnings, yet these artists differentiate from one another via their unique styles of expression.
Impressionism began in the late 19th century as a result of friendships cultivated in Paris France at Café Guerbois amongst four students of Marc Gleyre including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille with other Parisian artists such as Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet ("Impressionism,"). Their collective style was largely characterized by their attempts “to depict transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from nature, and by the use of pure, broken color to achieve brilliance and luminosity.” ("Impressionism,") Those considered to be part of the Impressionist movement were involved for varied portions of their artistic careers for the exhibition purposes ra...
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... Each artist had a very distinct style that sets their expression of impressions apart.
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Preble, D., Frank, P., & Preble, S. (2008). Prebles' artforms: an introduction to the visual arts (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
During Vincent Van Gogh’s childhood years, and even before he was born, impressionism was the most common form of art. Impressionism was a very limiting type of art, with certain colors and scenes one must paint with. A few artists had grown tired of impressionism, however, and wanted to create their own genre of art. These artists, including Paul Gaugin, Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Paul Cezanne, hoped to better express themselves by painting ...
The Art Bulletin, Vol. 57, No. 2 (Jun., 1975), pp. 176-185. (College Art Association), accessed November 17, 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3049368.
Impressionist paintings can be considered documents of Paris capital of modernity to a great extent. This can be seen in their subjects, style of painting, and juxtaposition of the transitive and the eternal.
Before Impressionism came to be a major movement (around 1870-1800s), Neoclassical and Romanticism were still making their impacts. Remembering last week’s lesson, we know that both those styles were different in the fact that one was based on emotion, while the other was practical and serious. However, one thing they both shared was the fact that the artists were trying to get a message across; mostly having to do with the effects of the French Revolution, and/or being ordered to do so. With Impressionism, there is a clear difference from its predecessors.
Imagine you can own one of the famous painting in the world. Which one would it be? What will you do with it? If I got to own a famous painting, I would hang it in my bedroom and I’ll show it to my family. In this situation, If needed to narrow it down it will be The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali or Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. These paintings are extremely different, and their artistic movement is opposite from one another. By the end of this essay, you’re going to know the differences and similarities of these paintings.
Monet chose to depict exquisite landscapes from his own gardens and elsewhere, particularly in France. He uses small, elegant brush strokes and vibrant colour to match the scenes he paints. In the mid-1870’s, Monet’s influence over Degas lead Degas to lean his colour choices nearer to those of other Impressionists. In addition to this, Degas began employing pastels, which gave his works a more granular affect that more closely resembled those of other Impressionists. For numerous years in his life, after attempting to paint his the first of his famous “Haystacks” ,and, being unable to seize the right shading or colours due to the rising sun, Monet was intrigued by the affect of weather and light on his outdoor projects. On the other hand, Degas, although also concentrated mainly in France, based his works on people, nudes and ballerinas in particular. Monet never painted a nude.
Impressionist painting was the beginning of a cultural shift away from religious and mythic themes, to subjects and styles that are less static such as everyday life of the general people, and the fleeting moments around them. As history progresses, so does art and the movements they create. The impressionism movement started in an already war-ravaged France where the evolution of ideals and way of life were as impermanent as the subject of the paintings of the time.
Impressionism is very pretty and complicated. It was from 1860 to 1910. Monet is the perfect Impressionist. Impressionism had its basic tenants. Their subject matter was the middle upper class, the city, and leisurely activities. They painted on en plein air which means they painted outdoors. They painted in snow, rain, storm, just in order to record directly the effects of light and atmosphere. They painted with strokes and touches of pure color by using a great deal of white and rarely black. They recorded the shifting play of light on the surface of objects and the effect light has on the eye without concern for the physicality of the object being painted. They were influenced by Japanese art and photography. One of Monet’s works is titled Water Lilies. The medium of this work is oil on canvas. Monet is an impressionist. He puts up pure color just describe the water. He said, when you go out paint, the impression of the scene not the exact scene.
In a time when artistic freedom was severely limited, the French Impressionists tirelessly explored new artistic frontiers despite hostile encounters with the public, ultimately redefining the world’s perspective on art.
Everything in life was a magnificent symphony of colors in Monet's eyes. He brought to canvas the technique of preserving one particular moment in time by developing the style of presenting the first impact of what an eye would capture in one glance before the brain had the chance to create the exact image of the subject in the mind. Today over 2,000 oil paintings and 600 pencil sketches are exhibited in museums, galleries, and with private art collectors (Stuckey 10) allowing the world to appreciate Monet's vision forever.
In this essay, I shall try to examine how great a role colour played in the evolution of Impressionism. Impressionism in itself can be seen as a linkage in a long chain of procedures, which led the art to the point it is today. In order to do so, colour in Impressionism needs to be placed within an art-historical context for us to see more clearly the role it has played in the evolution of modern painting. In the late eighteenth century, for example, ancient Greek and Roman examples provided the classical sources in art. At the same time, there was a revolt against the formalism of Neo-Classicism. The accepted style was characterised by appeal to reason and intellect, with a demand for a well-disciplined order and restraint in the work. The decisive Romantic movement emphasized the individual’s right in self-expression, in which imagination and emotion were given free reign and stressed colour rather than line; colour can be seen as the expression for emotion, whereas line is the expression of rationality. Their style was painterly rather than linear; colour offered a freedom that line denied. Among the Romanticists who had a strong influence on Impressionism were Joseph Mallord William Turner and Eugéne Delacroix. In Turner’s works, colour took precedence over the realistic portrayal of form; Delacroix led the way for the Impressionists to use unmixed hues. The transition between Romanticism and Impressionism was provided by a small group of artists who lived and worked at the village of Barbizon. Their naturalistic style was based entirely on their observation and painting of nature in the open air. In their natural landscape subjects, they paid careful attention to the colourful expression of light and atmosphere. For them, colour was as important as composition, and this visual approach, with its appeal to emotion, gradually displaced the more studied and forma, with its appeal to reason.
In this essay, I will contrast and compare the two art movements, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism. I will be concentrating on the works of the two leading artists of these styles Claude Monet and Vincent van Gogh.
In the 1880’s the movement known as Impressionism was coming to an end. The eight and last Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris during 1886 (Time). Although Impressionism was coming to an end new forms of art arose to take its place. Some famous artists producing during this time include, Van Gogh, Georges Seurat, and Odilon Redon (Georges). Odilon Redon started his own movement known as Symbolism, which strives to give form to ideas and emotions (Odilon). Another painter responsible for creating a new style is Georges Seurat. Seurat was a French painter who popularized and developed his own style called pointillism.
The artwork that I picked out was by Edgar Degas Interior. It was created between 1868–1869 and can be found at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I picked this artwork because when I took Intro to Art in my freshmen year this artwork appealed to me because of its mysteriousness and agitation. When I looked at other works of arts by Degas I found this one very striking. There are no clear clues or answers to the questions that are raised when one looks at this work by Degas which makes it very unique.
In conclusion, the art of the 19th century was composed of a sequence of competing artistic movements that sought to establish its superiority, ideologies and style within the artistic community of Europe. These movements, being Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, ultimately spread far beyond the confines of Europe and made modern art an international entity which can still be felt in today’s artistic world.