A widely known style of painting called Impressionism emerged into the art scene and carved its way into art history during the late nineteenth century. This art style was unlike its predecessors. In fact, it was so different, a lot of people rejected it and refused to call it “art.” Impressionist artists would paint something or someone in a scene as if they just caught a glimpse of it. These scenes would usually be outdoors. For example, an impressionist would possible paint a picture of a couple having a picnic outside in a park scene. Impressionist artists used bright, vibrant colors and painted their pieces without a lot of detail. Instead of taking colors and blending them together, impressionist artists took these bold colors and in a sense, spotted them on their easel. In this technique, these artists were able to show effects of light emerging through their paintings. The primary goal of impressionist artists were to capture the feeling of an overall scene instead of capturing feeling in specific parts of the painting (Shafa 2007.) In this research essay, I will elaborating on the Impressionism period, its rich history, and two very influential Impressionist artists of the time: Claude Monet and Edgar Degas.
The history of Impressionism began in Paris during the late nineteenth century, in the year 1874 to be specific (Frank, 339.) During this year, a group of artists had created a group and planned to create their own art exhibition after they had been rejected the right to show their art in the Salon the year before. Some of the artists that were in this group included Cezanne, Pissarro, Renoir, Degas, Monet, and Manet (Shafa 2007.) This group called themselves the “Societe Anonyme des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, ...
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...ndscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast” (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History 2000.) It was because of Monet’s painting Impression Sunrise and the guy who critiqued it that Impressionism got its name. Due to Monet’s profound style, he carved the path of modernism into the twentieth century (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History 2000.)
Works Cited
Frank, Patrick. "Late Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." Prebles' Artforms. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, 2010. 339-345. Print.
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." Claude Monet (1840-1926). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2013. .
Shafa, Anahita. "History of Impressionism." History of Impressionism. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2013. .
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Show MoreThe term impressionism was initially created by a critic when responding to Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise. Although the
Gibbs, Beverly Jean. "Impressionism as a Literary Movement." The Modern Language Journal 36.4 (1952): 175-83. JSTOR. Web. 14 Jan. 2014.
"Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History." John Frederick Kensett: Hudson River Scene (07.162). N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
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.
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.
Goldwater, Robert and Marco Treves (eds.). Artists on Art: from the XIV to the XX Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1945.
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 ...
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.
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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.
Janson, Harry W. History of Art. 5th Ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995. Print.
Barnett, Peter. “The French Revolution in Art”. ArtId, January 7th 2009. Web. 5th May 2013.
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Holt, Elizabeth G. From the Classicist to the Impressionists: Art and Architecture in the 19th Century. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.