Impressionism
In the nineteenth century, the development of photography both challenged
painters to be true to nature and encouraged them to exploit the aspects
inherent in painting, like color and texture, were lacking in photos.
The divergence from realism appears in the Impressionists, a group of artists
who exhibited independently from the Salon in the years 1874 to 1886.
Leaders of this movement included Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas,
Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassat. They were coined as the "Impressionists"
by Louis Leroy of the Parisian Journal Le Charivari in response
to Claude Monet's Impression: Sunrise (1872). The Impressionists,
however, considered their works finished.
Impressionist
paintings most often consist of high key colors applied in disconnected
strokes that were intended to be combined by the viewer's eye rather than
the paintbrush. The light, comma like brush strokes were heavily
influenced by realist painter Edouard Manet's sketchy visible brushwork.
Applying the paint in tiny strokes allowed the Impressionists to display
color sensations openly, by keeping colors unmixed and intense, mixed only
by the viewer's eye. The hope was that the involvement of bright
colors and active participation of the viewer's eye would approximate the
experience of scintillation of natural colors and sunlight. To continue
this effort, the use of black, as opposed to colored shadows, was prohibited.
The focus of
Impressionistic painting was often sun dappled middle class urban life.
The Industrial Revolution had won extolling leisure time for this society
and images of newly popular entertainment were displayed. Whatever
the subject, though, the primary concern of the canvases is most certainly
the reflection and filtering of light on natural and manmade objects.
The philosophy
behind the Impressionist movement is better understood by investigating
the different artists of this movement and how they incorporated these
new ideas in their paintings. The greatest help in achieving an idea
of what this movement was like is to view the works of different artists
from this time.
Listed below
are a few artists that are recognized as leaders during the Impressionist
movement. Information on these artists and images of some of their
paintings are provided to better illustrate the ideas behind this revolutionary
time period in art history.
Mary Cassatt (1845 - 1926)
Edgar Degas (1834 - 1917)
Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)
Camille Pissarro (1830
- 1903)
Pierre Auguste Renoir (1841
- 1919)
Links to other sites with information about Impressionism