British Impressionism Sir George Clausen, Evening Song (1893)

What is Impressionism? Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterised by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (which often accentuates the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience. Call into question centuries of academic painting. Freedom of subjects, new pictorial representation technique. The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting outdoors or en plein air. Claude Monet, Impression Soleil Levant, 1872. Musée Marmottan-Monet, Paris.

Impressionism in Britain: the New English Art Club (1886) Created as an alternative to the academic position of the Royal Academy. Among them Philip Wilson Steer, Sir George Clausen and John Singer Sargent. The artists studied in France where they have experienced the practice of working outside. First exhibition: London Impressionists (1889). Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly; Sickert, Steer. John Singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose 1885–6, Tate Museum, London

French Influence on British Impressionists Edgar Degas, Le Ballet de “Robert Le Diable”, 1876. Victoria and Albert Museum, London Walter R. Sickert, Gatti's Hungerford Palace of Varieties: Second Turn of Katie Lawrence, c 1887-8, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

French Influence on British Impressionists Philip W. Steer, Girls Running, Walberswick Pier (1888-94), Tate Museum, London. Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Impressionism in Britain: Reactions Belief that Impressionism posed a threat to the British school of painting, and therefore to its national tradition and character William Blake Richmond dismissed the Impressionist technique as ‘vapid, incomplete, hasty, and unworkmanlike’ in contrast with the best in British art, which either ‘guided the taste of the public […] upon high lines of thought and taste.’ He insisted that ‘it is necessary to set our faces against ‘ephemeral crazes’, foreign in fact, and foreign to all the traditions of our school, leading nowhere but to an affectation so rightly abhorrent to the English character’. Sir Alfred James Munnings, Langham Mill Pool

Giving Impressionism a British character Philip W. Steer incorporates a veritable history of English ‘impressionism’ into his later work: painted landscapes in a style consciously reminiscent of Constable. His career can be seen as an attempt to align British painting with the continental avant-garde, while drawing attention to the significant part that earlier British painters had played in forming that current. Phillip Wilson Steer, Knaresborough (1900) John Constable, The Stour Valley From Higham (1804)

Giving Impressionism a British character ‘For those who live in the most wonderful and complex city in the world, the most fruitful course of study lies in a persistent effort to render the magic and poetry which they daily see around them’ Walter R. Sickert Walter Richard Sickert, Rowlandson House- Sunset (1910-11)

British Impressionism today A change since 1970s with the publication of monographs on Steer, Sargent and others which deepened the knowledge of their careers. Exhibition in 1995, Impressionism in Britain in London’s Barbican Art Gallery. Tate Britain is expected to open a new room entirely devoted to British Impressionism ‘A first-rate Clausen is available for around the same price as a work by a fourth-rate French Impressionist’ Lindberg. ‘The appreciation of British Impressionism grows; it is a market that will grow too.’ But some might say that this growing can be the consequence of an increasing rarity of French Impressionist works, already bought by public or private investors. ‘British Impressionism’ as too vague a term to gain currency in art historical studies.

Bibliography Websites https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism https://www.christies.com/features/A-guide-to-British-Impressionism-8632-1.aspx?sc_lang=en Books Corbett, D. (2001). English art 1860-1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lambourne, L. (2005). Victorian painting. London: Phaidon. Wilton, A. (2001). Five centuries of British painting. London: Thames & Hudson. McConkey, K. (1989). British Impressionism. Oxford: Phaidon. Article Helmreich, A. (2003). John singer Sargent, Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, and the Condition of Modernism in England, 1887. Victorian Studies, 45(3), 433-455. 10.1353/vic.2003.0125 Video https://www.christies.com/Features/But-what-of-British-Impressionism-8727-3.aspx