Impressionism

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Impressionism

• The late 19th century

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RenoirA Girl with a Watering-Can. 1876
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Outline

• Introduction
• Part I. Definition
• Part II. Location
• Part III. The painters
• Conclusion
• References

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Introduction

• Many of the practices of the impressionists had
  precedents in earlier French painting of the 19th
  century
• Most of the impressionists followed the
  tendencies of earlier French realists such as
  Gustave Courbet
• They emulated French painter Camille Corot in his
  sensitivity to the effects of light in nature
• They also learned from French landscape painters
  of the Barbizon School and admired the vibrant
  color and lively brushstrokes of Eugène Delacroix
• The impressionists specialized in landscape,
  informal portraits in a domestic setting, and
  still life

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Edouard Manet. The Picnic 1862-1863
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Part I. Definition

• Movement in painting that originated in France in
  the late 19th century radical because braking
  many of the rules of picture-making set by
  earlier generations
• The impressionists tried to depict what they saw
  at a given moment, capturing a fresh, original
  vision that was hard for some people to accept as
  beautiful
• Impressionist painters used broken brushstrokes
  of bright, often unmixed colors and simplified
  their compositions, omitting detail to achieve a
  striking overall effect
• In 1874 French art critic Louis Leroy coined the
  term impressionist in a satirical review of a
  private exhibition of paintings, because of
  Impression, Sunrise (1873, Musée Marmottan,
  Paris) by Monet

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Impression, Sunrise
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Part II. Location

• In Paris (Opera Garnier for Degas, la Seine for
  Seurat and Monet, a train station for Monet)
• In 1890, Monet purchased a house in Giverny that
  he had been renting for seven years. He began to
  develop its gardens, introducing an ornamental
  lily pond and a Japanese-style bridge. These and
  other features of his idyllic estate were the
  subject of a steady output of large decorative
  paintings
• Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence, Van Gogh and Gauguin
  in Arles in 1888

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Giverny

• From 1890 until his death in 1926, Claude Monet
  lived and painted in the small village of
  Giverny, near Paris
• Monet planted extensive gardens at Giverny,
  including the water garden pictured here
• Water lilies filled the pond and were the
  frequent subject of the artists paintings
• Monets house, now known as the Foundation Claude
  Monet, has been restored and is decorated in the
  original color schemes selected by Monet
• The house and gardens are open to the public
  during the spring and summer months

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The Bark at Giverny, 1887, Musée d'Orsay, Paris
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Part III. The painters

• Impressionism refers principally to the work of
  Monet, Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley
  Manet and Degas
• Impressionism also refers to the work of artists
  who participated in a series of group exhibitions
  in Paris, the first and most famous of which was
  held from April 15 to May 15, 1874, at the studio
  of the photographer Nadar
• By the 1880s a number of artists had begun to
  react against various aspects of impressionism
• Painters Seurat and Gauguin protested the
  movements exclusive concentration on subjects
  they saw as ordinary
• The next generation of innovators, so-called
  postimpressionists, is best represented by
  Cézanne and Van Gogh

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Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

• Born into the family of bankers of aristocratic
  extraction
• In 1854-1859 he made several trips to Italy, some
  of the time visiting relatives, studying the Old
  Masters
• By 1860 Degas had drawn over 700 copies of other
  works, mainly early Italian Renaissance and
  French classical art
• In 1874 Degas helped organize the 1st
  Impressionist exhibition and participate in all
  the group exhibitions except that of 1882
• Most of his works depict racecourses, theaters,
  cafés, music halls, or boudoirs. Degas was a keen
  observer of humanityparticularly of women
• Famous paintings Race Horses (c.1866-68),
  Carriage at the Races (1869), Dance Class (1871),
  The Star (1876-77)

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Edgar Degas. Ballet Rehearsal on the Set. 1874
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Conclusion

• In 1991, two of Russia's major museums, the
  Hermitage in St. Petersburg and the Pushkin in
  Moscow, revealed they had secretly stored a group
  of impressionist paintings (part of a vast
  collection looted from Germany by the USSR in the
  final months of World War II)
• Most of the paintings had come from private
  collections (some had previously been looted by
  the Nazis) and had not been seen in public for
  many decades
• Both museums exhibited many of these works,
  including paintings by Degas, Renoir, Gauguin,
  and Monet, in 1995

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References

• http//www.giverny.org/gardens/fcm/visitgb.htm
• http//www.intermonet.com/
• http//www.abcgallery.com/M/monet/monetlist.html
• http//www.discoverfrance.net/France/Art/impressio
  nism.shtml
• http//encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.
  aspx?refid761553672
• http//www.abcgallery.com/movemind.htmlImpression
  ism