IMPRESSIONISM

Impressionism The Impressionists painted in the second half of the 19 th Century. Impressionism is characterized by attention to the effects of atmosphere and light on subject matter. Impressionists employed short, quick, often visible brushstrokes rather than using smooth, slick brushwork. Soft blurred edges replaced the hard precise edges of the Neoclassic period. Blues and violets replaced grays and browns in figures and landscapes. Impressionist paintings are more vibrantly and brilliantly coloured than the work of any period that preceded it.

Features of Impressionism (continued) Artists painted on site rather than in their studios, trying to capture local effects of light as opposed to staging scenes and controlling the lighting. Impressionist artists were more interested in contemporary subject matter than in historical or religious subjects. Impressionism shows us the train stations, cafés and theatres of the late 19 th Century. They were greatly influenced by the development of photography in the last half of the 19 th century, both in the “snapshot” spontaneity of their compositions and in the unconventional angles and viewpoints that photography suggested. Japanese prints were another influence. These prints became quite popular in Europe in the late 19 th Century. Impressionist artists learned from them how to create dynamic compositions with cropped figures, elegant patterns of line, and flat areas of delicate colour.

Major Impressionist Artists Camille Pissaro Claude Monet Edgar Degas Mary Cassatt Auguste Renoir

Claude Monet – Self Portrait

Claude Monet - Haystacks

Monet - Haystacks

Monet – Rouen Cathedral

Monet - Waterlilies

Claude Monet "Paint what you really see, not what you think you ought to see; not the object isolated as in a test tube, but the object enveloped in sunlight and atmosphere, with the blue dome of Heaven reflected in the shadows" Claude Monet Quote

Monet - Waterlilies

Monet’s Waterlilies in the Orangerie, Paris

Monet - Waterlilies

Camille Pissaro CAMILLE PISSARRO was born on July 10, 1830 on the Caribbean island of St. Thomas, Danish West Indies His parents sent him to Paris at age 12 to a small boarding school where the director, seeing his interest in art, advised him to take "advantage of his life in the tropics by drawing coconut trees." When he returned to St. Thomas in 1847, this advice had been taken to heart: He devoted all his spare time to making sketches, not only of coconut trees and other exotic plants, but also of the daily life surrounding him…the donkeys and their carts on the sunny roads, the Negro women doing their wash on the beaches or carrying jugs, baskets, or bundles on their heads. In these studies done from life he revealed himself to be a simple and sincere observer.

Since he could not obtain his father’s permission to devote himself to painting, he ran away one day. Pissarro left the Caribbean Paris to further his studies and pursue a painting career. His early efforts to paint the effects of light were scorned by the art establishment of the time, who favoured the traditional painting techniques taught at the academies.

Then a break: a chance meeting with Monet, Cézanne -- and through them, a network of like-minded artists. Discouraged by their attempts to pass the critical scrutiny of the Salon juries, in 1874 Pissarro joined Monet to organize independent exhibitions. Renoir, Sisley, Béliard, Guillaumin, Degas, Cézanne, and Berthe Morisot were among those whose works were shown together. Pissarro and his fellows met with thunderous opposition from the established art community, which valued technical detail and photographic realism -- and expected the artist to idealize the subject; their new style was seen as an absurdity. Articles panning the exhibition coined the term "impressionist" as an insult.

Through years of poverty and despair the impressionists labored to gain a place in the world. Pissarro remained true to the Impressionist vision. He experimented with theories of art; studied the effects of light, climate, and the seasons. And Pissarro was especially regarded as a teacher; he became the centre of a group of painters -- Renoir, Monet, Degas, Cézanne -- who respected his art and turned to him for inspiration.

Camille Pissarro Self Portrait

Camille Pissarro – Orchard in Bloom at Louveciennes

Camille Pissarro – White Frost

Camille Pissarro – Spring Landscape with Flooded Fields

Camille Pissarro – Boulevard Montmartre

Camille Pissarro – The Boulevard Montmartre at Night

Camille Pisssarro – The Tuileries Gardens

Edgar Degas Degas was a masterful draughtsman. Unlike most of the other Impressionists he was concerned with line, form, and movement of the human body. His famous paintings of dancers reveal this fascination with the human form. Rather than presenting only idealized dancers, he gives us intimate glimpses of dancers resting, scratching, or stretching backstage He is also renowned for his pictures of race horses.

Degas – Rehearsal of a Ballet on Stage

Degas – Sketch of a Dancer

Degas – The Dancing Class

Degas Degas often worked in pastels, as in this drawing of two dancers.

Degas – Frieze of Dancers

Degas – A Day at the Races

Degas – Race Horses in the Rain

Degas – race horse

Degas – The Absinthe Drinker

Degas – Place de la Concorde

Mary Cassatt Mary Cassatt was an American woman who lived most of her adult life in France, so that she could study art and develop her career as an artist. She is best known for her portrayals of women and children.

Cassatt admired the work of Degas. Seeing one of his paintings in a shop window one day, she realized suddenly how she wanted to paint. Degas was at first scornful of the idea that a woman could paint, never mind paint well. In response to his challenge, Cassatt painted “Girl Arranging her Hair,” which Degas had to admit, was a beautiful rendering of an unattractive subject. The two artists developed a (sometimes stormy) friendship and worked together for a time making prints.

Cassatt – Girl Arranging her Hair

Degas’ portrait of Mary Cassatt

Degas – Mary Cassatt at the Louvre

Cassatt – Children on the Beach

Cassatt – Young Mother Sewing

Mary Cassatt: Woman Pre- paring to Wash her Sleepy Child

Mary Cassatt – Five O’clock Tea

Mary Cassatt Omnibus (print)

Mary Cassatt (print)

Mary Cassatt La Coiffure (print)

Auguste Renoir Renoir is one of the most beloved painters of the Impressionist period, perhaps because, in his paintings, he presented a world where everything was beautiful. He once said: “For me a picture has to be something pleasant, delightful, and pretty - - yes, pretty. There are enough unpleasant things in the world without us producing even more."

Renoir – Self Portrait

Renoir – Mme Charpentier and her Children

Renoir – Portrait of Mlle LeGrand

Renoir – La Moulin de la Galette

Renoir – Luncheon of the Boating Party

Auguste Renoir – At the Piano

Renoir – The Swing

Renoir - Blonde Bather