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Essay about Impressionism
Impressionism easy of art
Essays on impressionism
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Impressionism was born from the urge to break free from the constraints of Art forms in the 19th century. Many studies under mentors who passed on the traditional styles painting form and figure, but some spoke of revolutionizing the art world. World events and public attitude toward art allowed impressionists to break free from the mainstream French Art scene.
Impressionism was initially forged out of a love for nature. The artists were interested in depicting reality as they saw beauty in even the mundane facets of life. The brush strokes and color changes are obvious and the choppy effect sometimes has to be viewed at a distance to determine the picture’s message. When viewed closely, the artist’s emotion is easily discernable with their brush strokes. When viewing impressionist work, it is almost as if you are viewing a memory of what the artist saw. As it loses its accuracy over time, it becomes less focused and sometimes more vibrant in color.
A group of up and coming painters developed the Impressionist art form in France in the late 1800’s. This group of painters, who called themselves “Intransigents”, consisted of Bazille, Monet, Sisley, and Renoir. Fed up with imitating the rigid style of those they studied under, they met on their way home from the studio discussing revolutionizing the art world. They longed to break from the mold. Édouard Manet’s painting of Luncheon in the Grass in 1863 became their inspiration to pursue the artistic form. Manet’s painting was an adaptation of Raphael’s engraving “Judgment of Paris” Years later, as they developed their craft, the need to display their art became apparent. At the time, the Salon was the only contemporary art museum, which was also an artist’s ticket durin...
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...ssionism revealed their craft at an opportune time, as the war had ended many were looking for something other than what the Salon was offering. Though they were criticized and rejected by some, they still pursued their craft influencing painters long after they deceased.
Works Cited
Brodskaya, Nathalia. Impressionism. New York: Parkstone International, 2012.
Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia. Impressionism, in painting. 6th. Columbia University Press, September 2013.
O'Donovan, Leo J. "A promise of happiness -- origins of Impressionism." America. Vol. 171 . no. 17. November 26, 1994. 16-19.
Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. 4th. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1973.
Tucker, Paul. "The First Impressionist Exhibition and Monet's Impression, Sunrise: A Tale of Timing, Commerce, and Patriotism." Art History 7, no. 4 (December 1984): 465-476.
Third Impressionist exhibition in Paris, held in 1877. Currently displayed in the Art Institute of
Walcutt, Charles Child. "Sherwood Anderson: Impressionism and the Buried Life." The Achievement of Sherwood Anderson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. 158-170.
... considered documents of Paris capital of modernity to a great extent. Their subjects, style, and juxtaposition of the transitive and the eternal give effective depictions of life in Paris at the time. Impressionist paintings will stand alongside written documents as records of late nineteenth century Paris for years to come.
When talking about such a diverse subject as Art, opinions on the matter of influences, and even the title of “The First…”, begins to become a bit touchy. When it comes to being the ‘first, true modern art style”, Impressionism usually comes to everyone’s mind, although that can often be greatly debated. I, myself am at a toss-up of whether or not I fully agree or disagree with this argument, however, for the sake of this discussion, I will say that my opinion lies in favor of agreement.
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, located in the Art Institute of Chicago, is one of the most recognizable paintings of the 19th century, a painting made by Frenchman Georges Seurat. Finished in 1886, it has gained much of its recognition over the time of its completion; the pop culture of today has played a pivotal role into the popularity of it. An example of that is being apart in one of the most recognizable scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where one of the main characters is solely staring at the painting until he can’t even recognize the artwork. This painting also gets much attention because it was an early example of the style of pointillism, at the time; pointillism was becoming a new way of expressing one self with the new technique. It also brought upon about the way we saw paintings, and what we gained from the artwork as whole. In all this painting has become an icon in the art scene, due to the technique it used, and how much of an impact it has had in today culture.
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.
In the mid- to late 1800s, a group of artists challenged the conventions that governed artistic expression. These artists, later known as the Impressionists, were initially seen as vulgar and rebellious. It took years for the public and artistic community to accept them and their work. They set up their canvases outside, using wide brush strokes and vibrant colors as they focused on expression over realism.
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.
“Philosophers, writers, and artists expressed disillusionment with the rational-humanist tradition of the Enlightenment. They no longer shared the Enlightenment's confidence in either reason's capabilities or human goodness.” (Perry, pg. 457) It is interesting to follow art through history and see how the general mood of society changed with various aspects of history, and how events have a strong connection to the art of the corresponding time.
Lawrence Gowing, Paintings in the Louvre (New York:Stewart, Tabori & Chang, Inc. 1987), p672.
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.
The impressionist movement is often considered to mark the beginning of the modern period of art. It was developed in France during the late 19th century. The impressionist movement arose out of dissatisfaction with the classical, dull subjects and clean cut precise techniques of painting. They preferred to paint outdoors concentrating more on landscapes and street scenes, and began to paint ordinary everyday people and liked to show the effects in natural light.
The French Revolution, indeed, changed the structure of economics and social sphere of the old regime, and also the ideology of that time. In the years that followed the Revolution, the always increasing senses of both freedom and individuality were evident, not only in French society, but also in art. As stated by Dowd, “leaders of the French Revolution consciously employed all forms of art to mobilize public sentiment in favor of the New France and French nationalism.” In between all the artistic areas, the art of painting had a special emphasis. After the Revolution, the French art academies and also schools were now less hierarchical and there was, now, more freedom of engaging into new themes, not being the apprentices so tied up to their masters footsteps, not being so forced to follow them.
Holt, Elizabeth G. From the Classicist to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.
In order to explore new venues of creativity Modernists tinkered with the perception of reality. During the Renaissance, the depiction of a subject was very straight forward. A painting had to look like what it represented. The truth was absolute and right and wrong were clearly defined. For Modernists, the world is much more obscure. In Impressionist paintings, lines are not definite and things tend to blur together. Faces usually do not differentiate one person from another.