For the final paper, I chose to talk about the 19th century art movement of Impressionism and its main artist influencers. I chose this movement because I loved Claude Monet’s paintings, even before I was an art lover I was a fan of his. I was so inspired by the painting techniques he used. When looking at an Impressionism painting up close, it looks like nothing, just random paint strokes with very pigmented colors. However, when stepping back and looking at it from farther away, the painting is incredibly detailed. Impressionism is all about seeing beauty in everyday life and nature. It is this controlled disarray and love of the world around all of us that drew me towards the Impressionist movement. The artists that contributed to the Impressionism movement were a relatively tightly knit group of people that made this art movement so successful.
Artists that contributed to the Impressionism movement had a tendency to turn away from traditional painting styles and painting subjects. Most artists were not funded by government or commissioned by wealthy families, this let them decide what they wanted to paint and how they wanted to paint it. They were artists that didn’t conform to the standards of the time. These artists would find beauty in the streets of their hometown, or in simple scenes of nature. I love Claude Monet’s lilies because I find the colors and brush strokes to be very calming and therapeutic in the way that everything looks so light and fluffy. The way that Monet paints the lilies is interesting in the way that the lilies are composed of several different overlapping brush strokes each with its own color.
This trend of artists painting what they want how they want is what started Impressionism. The movement, considered the first distinctly modern movement in art history, started in Paris around the 1860s (“Impressionism Movement…”). The name of the movement is derived from Impression, soleil levant, a title of one of Claude Monet’s pieces (Walther). The artists of the Impressionist movement focused less on perfection and symmetry, and instead found their inspiration in the beauty and simplicity of nature the streets. Idealized forms and symmetry were turned away from and instead the artists focused on painting the world around them as they saw it, imperfect and beautiful.
Characteristics of Impressionism include light overlapping brush strokes that are accomplished by painting small strokes of paint (Walther). The colors are not mixed on the palette, they are usually mixed on the canvas by applying wet paint onto wet paint, before the previous layer has dried. This produces soft edges and colors that intermingle and create that velutinous, tumultuous but detailed look. Darker colors are created by mixing complimentary colors, the use of black paint is typically avoided since the color is not prevalent in nature. Various techniques were used to get the correct effect of shadows, similar to the use of paint color. Artists would paint in the evening for the “shadowy effects of the light” called effets de soir (Walther). The shadows were also painted boldly with a new technique of highlighting the dark shadows with the same blue of the sky, which was inspired by blue shadows on snow (Walther).
The subject of Impressionism paintings were usually somewhat ordinary, as opposed to a wealthy family that commissioned a family portrait, or a religious painting done for the church. The most prominent Impressionist artist, Claude Monet, is famous for his waterlily paintings, which was actually Monet painting his own garden (“Biography of Claude…”). Edgar Degas painted ballet studios and café tables. Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted an abundance of nature scenes, such as rivers, beaches, valleys, and others. Most Impressionist subjects are natural or ordinary scenes, made special by the artists by focusing on the subjects’ detail and simplicity.
Claude Monet is the main contributor to the Impressionism movement. His waterlily series is among the most recognizable Impressionism pieces because of the brilliant use of color and the iconic Giverny garden and bridge. Monet and his family rented a house in Giverny, where he used the barn as a painting studio (“Biography of Claude…”). There was a small garden that Monet and his family slowly built up into the beautifully ornate garden that Monet depicts in his famous Waterlily series.
Edouard Manet was an influencer in the development of Impressionism. He painted everyday objects such as boats on a river, the streets of France, and croquet parties. As an early artist, he painted bullfights, people in cafes, and other everyday scenes with brush strokes that were very simple and loose and had little transition between the colors (“Biography of Claude…”). Even though he strayed from these themes of simple subjects and progressed in historical and religious depictions, these early paintings were important to the Impressionism movement.
Edgar Degas was not a traditional Impressionist painter. His depictions of dancing ballerinas were considered to be Impressionist for the painting style and common subject, but he mocked other Impressionist artists like Manet for painting outdoors (“Edgar Degas”). He openly rejected the Impressionist label, and even some art critics, like Frederick Hartt, even claim that Impressionism is not an accurate way to describe his painting style because of the colors Degas used when he painted. Degas did not use the effects of light to show bright colors, and as Hartt says, Degas “never adopted the Impressionist color fleck,” because the colors Degas used were not as reflective and bright as traditional Impressionist colors (“Edgar Degas”).
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was in Impressionist artist that worked alongside Claude Monet. Renoir focused on the human element of ordinary subjects to bring a modern and middle-class feeling to the movement. He was known for painting families in domestic settings such as dancing, enjoying a picnic, and riding in a boat. Renoir had an eye for modern fashion and it shows in paintings with his depiction of the clothes of middle-class families (“Pierre-Auguste Renoir…”). In working with Monet, he discussed the limitations of the reliance of light effects in art, so he enforced the need for a base structure in paintings with this particular painting style. Renoir also liked to depict flowers and figures and how they were affected by sunlight (“Impressionism”). Almost all paintings done by Renoir take place outside in the sunshine.
The mingling of the artists created friendships, such as Renoir and Monet had, but also created distance with some, such as Degas’s relationship with other Impressionist artists. These artists all turned away from the government exhibitions, called salons, and also rejected traditional art style of focusing on fine details and instead turned to painting a scene the way a viewer would see it if they took a quick glance at the scene (“Impressionism Movement”). These artists also focused on mixing colors, not on the palette, but on the canvas itself. In doing this, the artists created an illusion. The closer the viewer, the less detail they will see. The father away the artist, the more detail they will see. The colors do not mix entirely on the canvas, instead the artist relies on the viewer’s eyes to, in a sense, mix the colors themselves. This is a trait that all Impressionist artists share.