Impressionism Notes

Introduction to Impressionism

Impressionism emerged around 1870, influenced by the preceding realism period.
Realism focused on depicting the working class, the poor, and rural life, emphasizing the "unvarnished truth" of humanity.

Impressionist artists shifted their focus to more modern subjects, portraying moments of leisure rather than labor.
They depicted the wealthier middle bourgeois class instead of the poor.
Urban and city landscapes became prominent settings, even in countryside scenes, viewed from the perspective of vacationing bourgeois individuals.

Artists like Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pizarro, and Pierre Auguste Renoir exhibited together in Paris.
The exhibition was under the collective title: "Associate Anonym Des Artiste, Pentares, sculptures, engraviers, etc." (Corporation of artists, painters, artists, sculptors, engravers, etc.).
Camille Pizarro was the mastermind, envisioning the society as a mutual aid group for artists with a revolutionary style.
The exhibition was a declaration of independence from the Academy and its conventions, aiming to gain public attention.
The exhibit faced scrutiny for its "haphazard" and "unfinished" look.
Critic Louis Leroy, inspired by Monet's "Impression, Sunrise," dubbed the exhibition "impressionist" as an attack.
Monet and his colleagues embraced the term, reflecting their concern for capturing instantaneous impressions of nature.

Titian's Venus: Soft, refined, submissive, looking up at the viewer.
Manet's Olympia: Angular, flattened, coldly indifferent, looking down at the viewer, asserting power.
Compositional similarities include a reclining female figure on a bed, similar pillow arrangement, a screen in the back, a drape in the corner, and a maidservant in the background.
Manet employs color patches, using flattened, unblended colors that reduce dimensionality.
Titian's Venus includes a puppy (symbolizing fidelity), while Manet's Olympia features a black cat with its back arched (symbolizing aggression and tension).
Manet's work is a bold statement against artistic conventions, indicating a new direction for art.

Fascination with light and its changes, emphasizing that we see light, not the object itself.
Monet focused on painting the effects of light on objects rather than the objects themselves.
He often painted series of the same structure at different times of day and year to capture variations in light.

Painted from the same perspective at different times, showcasing the impact of light on the structure's appearance.

"When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you. A tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think here is a little square of blue. Here, an oblong of pink. Here, a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you. The exact color, the exact shape, until it gives you your own naive impression of the scene before you."
Monet wished he could paint without preconceived notions of what objects are, aiming for a truer, unprejudiced impression.
His focus was on capturing light and its variations, recognizing that visual perception depends on light.

Renoir combined his interest in figures and leisure with Monet's emphasis on light.

Depicts an upper middle-class scene with leisure, flirtatiousness, and a relaxed atmosphere.
Captures light filtering through trees and gently laying upon figures.
Renoir aimed to capture a mood and a collective consciousness of a class of people.

"For me, a picture should be a pleasant thing, a joyful and pretty. Yes, pretty. There are quite enough unpleasant things in life without the need for us to be manufacturing more."
The act of painting and the product should evoke the same mood as the subject matter.

Degas had traditional training and primarily painted in his studio.
Common subjects included ballerinas or dancers.
Unlike Monet (a plein air artist), Degas typically worked indoors.
Plein air painting involved capturing light quickly in the open air, resulting in sketchy brushstrokes.

Angular viewpoints and foreshortening techniques, influenced by Japanese artwork.
Photography's influence, seen in arbitrary and random cropping of images.

Foreshortening places the viewer in the scene, with foreground elements close and the background receding rapidly.
Highlights and deep shadows demonstrate the importance of light.

Morisot pushed the sketch-like quality and rapid approach to the limits, creating a very unfinished look.
Focused on light, sketch-like qualities, and painting in plein air.
Depicted urban, middle-class scenes of leisure, rooted in realism but taken to a new level.

Impressionism: A nineteenth-century art movement that began in France and broke from many of the styles of conventional painting.
Edouard Manet: A French painter who was one of the first nineteenth-century artists to approach modern life subjects.
Claude Monet: A French painter who was a founder of the impressionist movement.
Pierre Auguste Renoir: A French artist and one of the most well-known impressionist painters.
Edgar Degas: A French painter and sculptor whose works are connected with impressionism.
Foreshortening.