Impressionism

A Bar at the Folies-Bergère , Édouard Manet, 1881-82, Oil on

canvas, 95.3 × 129.7 cm, Courtauld Institute of Art,

London

The Salon jury of 1863 had been exceptionally brutal and thousands of paintings had been refused. To counter these refusals, the Salon

des Refuses was established and it was here that Dejeuner sur l'herbe (also known as the Luncheon on

the Grass) was exhibited

a benchmark in academic discussions of modern art. The

nude in Manet's painting was no nymph, or mythological

being...she was a modern Parisian women cast into a

contemporary setting with two clothed man.

Many found this to be quite vulgar and begged the question "Who's for lunch?" The critics also had much to say about

Manet's technical abilities. His harsh frontal lighting and

elimination of mid tones rocked ideas of traditional academic

training.

it is also important to understand that not everyone

criticized Manet, for it was also Dejeuner which set the stage for

the advent of Impressionism.

Photography in the nineteenth century both challenged

painters to be true to nature and encouraged them to exploit

aspects of the painting medium, like color, that photography

lacked.

This divergence away from photographic realism appears in

the work of a group of artists who from 1874 to 1886

exhibited together, independently of the Salon.

They became known as Impressionists because a

newspaper critic thought they were painting mere sketches or

impressions. The Impressionists, however,

considered their works finished.

Realism meant to an Impressionist that the painter

ought to record the most subtle sensations of reflected light. In

capturing a specific kind of light, this style conveys the notion of a specific and fleeting moment

of time.

Impressionist painters like Monet and Renoir recorded

each sensation of light with a touch of paint in a little stroke

like a comma.

The public back then was upset that Impressionist paintings

looked like a sketch and did not have the polish and finish that

more fashionable paintings had.

applying the paint in tiny strokes allowed Monet, Renoir, or Cassatt to display color sensations openly,

to keep the colors unmixed and intense, and to let the viewer's eye

mix the colors. The bright colors and the active participation of the

viewer approximated the experience of the scintillation of

natural sunlight.

The leaders of the independent movement were Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas,

Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt.

Claude Monet

MONET IS REGARDED AS THE IMPRESSIONIST par

excellence,

the impression, the stroke, the contrast of colors, and the consistency with which the

consequences of the Impressionist ideas visible at the beginning of an artist's career are elaborated in the long course of that individual career

- make Monet's position central.

Monet, ClaudeLa cathedrale de Rouen, le portail, temps gris (Rouen Cathedral, the

West Portal, Dull Weather)dated 1894, painted 1892

Oil on canvas39 3/8 x 25 5/8 in. (100 x 65 cm)

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

La cathedrale de Rouen, le portail et la tour Saint-Romain, plein soleil,

harmonie bleue et or (Rouen Cathedral, the West Portal and

Saint-Romain Tower, Full Sunlight, Harmony in Blue and Gold)dated 1894, painted 1893

Oil on canvas42 1/8 x 28 3/4 in. (107 x 73 cm)

Musee d'Orsay, Paris

The River ( On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt ), Claude Monet, 1868, Oil on canvas,

81.8 x 100.5 cm, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

Edgar Degas

The glass of Absinthe, L'Absinthe, Edgar Degas,

1876 , Oil on canvas , 91.3 × 68.7 cm , Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Renoir seems to have had the enviable ability to see anything as potentially of interest. More than any of the Impressionists, he found beauty and charm in the modern sights of Paris.

. He does not go deep into the substance of what he sees but seizes upon its appearance,

grasping its generalities, which then enables the spectator to

respond with immediate pleasure.

He deliberately sets out to give the impression, the sensation of

something, its generalities, its glancing life. Maybe, ideally,

everything is worthy of attentive scrutiny, but in practice there is no

time. We remember only what takes our immediate notice as we

move along.

Many Impressionists painted pleasant scenes of middle class

urban life, extolling the leisure time that the industrial revolution had won for middle class society. In

Renoir's luminous painting Luncheon of the Boating Party, for example, young men and women eat, drink, talk, and flirt with a joy

for life that is reflected in sparkling colors.

The sun filtered through the orange striped awning colors

everything and everyone in the party with its warm light. The diners' glances cut across a

balanced and integrated composition that reproduces a very delightful scene of modem

middle class life.

The Ball at the Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir,

1876, Oil on canvas, 130.7 x 175.3 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Marry Cassatt

in Children on Shore, the viewpoint from which the

subject is observed is low and empathetic - the same level

from which a child would see.

Portrait of a Little Girl that surround the figure seem to be in motion; the floor lifts up, and the chairs appear to have slid into various, almost accidental positions, not unlike that of the

young girl

..Cassatt had completely absorbed from her Impressionist colleagues Degas, and Renoir,

as well as her study of Japanese prints, the modern idea that the background of a

painting might be as significant as the foreground.

Berthe Morisot

Berthe Morisot, French painter and printmaker. She was associated

with Impressionism. She was born in Bourges, the daughter of a

government official who was an enthusiastic amateur painter and

supporter of the arts. She was also the granddaughter of Fragonard.

Throughout her career Morisot often represented a woman and

child in a park or garden, a popular theme both in

Impressionist art and in modern life painting for the Salon.

The motif figured prominently in her relatively limited repertoire

of subjects taken from the world of the modern, upper-middle class woman, the sphere to which she restricted herself

following the social conventions and constraints of her gender

and class.

Her subjects were chosen from her family and domestic circles and from the places familiar to

her.

The Impressionists remained realists in the sense that they

remained true to their sensations of the object,

although they ignored many of the old conventions for

representing the object "out there."

But truthfulness for the Impressionists lay in their personal and subjective

sensations not in the "exact" reproduction of an object for its

own sake

Post-Impressionism: (1885 - 1905)

The Post Impressionist period came when several former

Impressionist painters became dissatisfied with the movements insistence on light and color. The

post-Impressionists aspired to fine more depth in the roles of color,

form and solidity in painting.

Post Impressionism was a continuation of the Impressionist

movement, but rejected the limitations of its predecessor. The terms was first used by English art critic Roger Fry describing the work of painters such as Paul Cezanne,

Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de

Toulouse-Lautrec

The term does not define a singular style or approach, it encompasses all artists that

whose main goal was to express more than a visual

interpretation. Their aim was to portray emotion and intellect in

addition to imagery.

The Post-Impressionists often exhibited together, but, unlike the Impressionists,

who began as a close-knit, convivial group, they painted mainly alone.

Cézanne painted in isolation at Aix-en-Provence in southern France; his

solitude was matched by that of Paul Gauguin, who in 1891 took up

residence in Tahiti, and of van Gogh, who painted in the countryside at Arles.

Vincent Van Gogh 'Starry Night' 1889  

Wheatfield and Cypress trees, Vincent van Gogh, 1889, Oil on

canvas 72.3 × 91.3 cm, The National

Gallery, London

Paul Gauguin

The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob Wrestling with the

Angel), Paul Gauguin, Oil on Canvas , 73 × 92.7 cm (28¾ ×

36½ in), National Gallery of Scotland, Scotland

Paul Gaugin  'When Are You Getting

Married?' 

Paul Cezanne

Still Life with Apples in a Bowl, Paul Cézanne, C. 1879-82, Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 54 cm, New

Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Still Life with Apples in a Bowl, Paul Cézanne, C. 1879-82, Oil on canvas, 43.5 x 54 cm, New

Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Cézanne, one of the creators of modern art, was called the ``solidifier of Impressionism''.

he creates space and depth of perspective by means of planes of color, which are freely associated and at the same time contrasted and compared. The facets which are thus produced create not just

one but many perspectives, and in this way volume comes once again

to dominate the composition, no longer a product of the line but

rather of the color itself

. His still-lifes, in their simplicity and delicate tonal harmony, are a typical work and thus ideal for an understanding of Cézanne's

art.

Georges Seurat

The bathers (Une Baignade, Asnières ), Georges-Pierre

Seurat, 1884 , Oil on canvas , 202 × 300.3 cm , National

Gallery, London

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec