Impressionism, Post Impressionism, Symbolism: Europe and America 1870 - 1900
- Born in the late 19th century in industrialized, urbanized Paris
- Painters added to what was already going on in Realism with themes of everyday life, instead of religious, historical, epic, mythic subject matter
- They also sought to convey the elusiveness, the speed, the impermanence and the change of the culture
Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)
- Leading Impressionist
- Living on a studio boat - 1873 - having a floating studio - sought out to capture the light and color of the water Sailboats on the Seine "the painter and modern life"
- Preference in painting outside away from the studio en plain air -- a radical practice of the time
- Here he recorded his impressions of the Seine -- a sharp break from studio traditions
- Fascination with the reflection of light on the water
Edouard Manet, Claude Monet in His Studio Boat, 1874
oil on canvas 2' 8' x 3' 3"
- Manet adopted not only Monet's subject matter, but also the younger artist's short brushworks and his excitement on the reflection of sunlight on water
- In the distance are the factories and smokestacks of modern life - factories and the industrialization along the Seine
The name IMPRESSIONISM was coined by a hostile critic of a work hanging in the Paris Salon because of its "sketchy quality and undisguised brushstrokes." Shortly thereafter, the group of young artists adopted the name "Impressionism"
The Art Academy in France (and other countries throughout Europe) provided instruction to students in traditional subject matter and highly polished techniques
A group of artists unhappy and dissatisfied with the Academy's traditional teachings and conservative works adopted a renegade idea and worked against the academy. Many tried to have works juried into the Salon, many were reject.
A group of artists unhappy and dissatisfied with the Academy's traditional teachings and conservative works adopted a renegade idea and worked against the academy. Many tried to have works juried into the Salon, many were reject.
Claude Monet, Saint Lazare Train Station, 1877
oil on canvas 2' 5" x 3' 5"
At close range, Impressionist paintings often 'fall apart,' but at a distance the eye fuses the brushstrokes and color. The agitated application of paint contributes to the sense of energy in this urban scene.
Source: http://smarthistory.org/monet-the-gare-saint-lazare/
Monet’s painting, The Gare Saint-Lazare, overwhelms the viewer not though its scale (a modest 29 ½ by 41 inches), but through the deep sea of steam and smoke that envelops the canvas. Indeed, as one contemporary reviewer remarked somewhat sarcastically, “Unfortunately thick smoke escaping from the canvas prevented our seeing the six paintings dedicated to this study.”
The Gare Saint-Lazare (also known as Interior View of the Gare Saint-Lazare, the Auteuil Line), depicts one of the passenger platforms of the Gare Saint-Lazare, one of Paris’s largest and busiest train terminals. The painting is not so much a single view of a train platform, it is rather a component in larger project of a dozen canvases which attempts to portray all facets of the Gare Saint-Lazare. The paintings all have similar themes—including the play of light filtered through the smoke of the train shed, the billowing clouds of steam, and the locomotives that dominate the site. Of these twelve linked paintings, Monet exhibited between six and eight of them at the third Impressionist exhibition of 1877, where they were among the most discussed paintings exhibited by any of the artists.
Rouen Cathedral, portal - front entrance
Claude Monet's Rouen Cathedral,
1894 - 1895
Monet's intensive study of some 36 paintings of the entrance to the cathedral.
He observed the structure from almost every angle -- in each, the artist sought to capture the changing atmosphere; the structure bathed in light, in darkness, throughout the day.
Other Impressionist artists included:
Edgar Degas
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Gustave Caillebotte
Berthe Morisot
others
Include your notes from Chapter 23
Post - Impressionists
source: Gardner's Art Through the Ages, 14th Edition
p. 699
By 1886 most critics and a large segment of the public accepted the Impressionists as serious artists. Just when their images of contemporary life no longer seemed crude and unfinished, however, some of these painters and a group of younger followers came to feel the Impressionists were electing too many of the traditional elements of picture making in their attempts to capture momentary sensations of light and color on canvas...
... By the 1880s, some artists were more systematically examining the properties and the expressive qualities of line, pattern, form and color. Among them were Dutch-born Vincent van Gogh and French painter Paul Gauguin, who focused their artistic efforts on exploring the expressive capabilities of formal elements....
- influences of the camera and capturing the momentary 'cropped' picture field
- influences of Japonisme (see pg. 698)
- influences from their earlier predecessors
- capturing the sensibility of fast moving modern life
- exaggeration of the formal elements of design; color, composition, line and form
- Expressionism came forth by using simplification of figures and faces; brighter colors and bolder lines
- ALL of the above impacted the making of the Post Impressionist works and thus increased the effect of the images on their viewers.
> Japonisme
First described by French art critic and collector, Philippe Burty in 1872, Japonism, from the French Japonisme, is the study of Japanese art and artistic talent.
Torh Kiyonaga (Japanese)
Two Women at the Bath
ca. 1780 multi colored wood block print
(each color is a separate carved block from a wooden substrate)
10" x 7"
- America's & Europe's extensive colonization of Japan in the 19th c. thus an exchange of ideas went on.
- Westerners became familiar with Japanese visual culture -- beauty, flat colored wood blocks, eroticism, food, silk / fashion trade, tea, opiates, furniture
- Both Impressionists and Post Impressionists artists were great admirers of Japanese art (especially the way in which illusionistic spatial fields were depicted in flat, 2D multi colored wood block prints
- The decorative quality also impacted artists associated with the Art and Craft Movement (moving back to hand made quality due to the 'machine' made goods following the Industrial Revolution). Art should be available to the masses. Was one of the ideals of the Art and Craft Movement.
Henride Toulouse - Lautrec (1864 - 1901)
admired Degas and shared Impressionists' interests in capturing momentary modern life.
He created many posters, paintings, drawings of individuals not in the mainstream.
" He became a denizen of the night world of Paris, consorting with a tawdry population of enterntainers, prostitutes and other social outcasts." (p. 699)
p. 700
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891)
Toulouse - Lautrec, Jane Avril poster, 1893
Jane Avril
Lautrec drawing of Jane Avril
Jane Avril photograph
p. 700
Georges Seurat (1859 - 1891)
