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Impressionism

Impressionism was an art movement that started in the 19th century. It was one of the most famous and identifiable movements in history, also called “The First Modern Movement”. It did well in capturing contemporary work and the effects of light and color. They included many founding impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro. The art movement paved the way for future artists and straying from traditional approaches.

Origin & Background

Impressionism started in the late 19th century, between the years of 1867 and 1886. Impressionism was a big discovery when it started but once it reached the 21st century, it didn't have as much interest. It began with a group of artists who had the similar approaches and values to painting. The artists were really into capturing everyday life and how light and color change. The norm in art at the time was creating detailed and realistic paintings, often of historical or religious subjects. This was the opposite of what the Impressionists wanted. There were a numerous amount of artists who helped the movement including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Edgar Degas.

Impressionism describes the art style where little detail is used and emphasis is more in the brushstrokes. Instead of detailed and precise, it aims to convey the feeling or perception of a scene. They usually use quick, short brush strokes and bright vibrant colors to show everyday matters such as landscapes and people. The art style used is to create movement and a sense of the painter is producing what there seeing currently.

Founding Artists

Many of the impressionist artists became familiar with one another due to an unformal art school in Paris. First, Pissarro, Monet, Paul Cezanne and Armand Guillaumin were all familiar with each other. Later down the line, Sisley, Renoir and Frederic Bazille joined the group and they all frequently discussed the way art was presented and their dissatisfaction to it.

Claude Monet was a French painter who is best known for his landscape paintings and focused on capturing the effects of light. When Monet was five, his family traveled to Normandy coast to live, which ended up playing a big role in forming his love for nature and the sea. He started out selling caricatures sparking his career as a artist and later did detailed sketches of ships. His journey as a painter really began when he met Eugene Boudin and he introduced him to painting outdoors, which wasn't seen often at the time. This helped Monet to capture the visible world directly, rather than depending on studio work. Most of the landscapes done were created traditionally based off memory. Whereas, Monet's work was more about painting landscapes of nature in real-time impressions. Eugene Boudin along with Johan Barthold Jongmade were of interest to Monet because they made paintings of the sea and sky by using bright and high colors with textured paint as well. Monet was seen as one of the leaders for this movement since he was a striving advocate for Impressionism. This lead to his influence being significant on other artists as his artwork had a wide variety so he was a inspiration to those of contemporary work and people of a more diverse population. He was a example for French painting so American colonies adopted his techniques and style then introduced them to American Art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born into a family of artisans and moved to Paris around 1845. Since he was young, he showed artistic talent and his parents took note of that and apprenticed him at a porcelain factory at age 13. He learned to decorate plates and paint cloth panels with religious themes. Renoir was able to take some courses at the Ecole des Beauz-Arts since he had saved some money as well as painting lessons with Charles Gleyre. He didn't enjoy his academic style but learned valuable skills from the teachings. Renoir met students Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, and Frederiz Bazille and they became good friends. They all shared the same views of wanting a more life-like art free form tradition. These people influenced his early works with his paintings including them in the title and workpiece. Traditionally, paintings had always been done in studios, but in 1864, Renoir and his friends had moved to the forest of Fontainebleau to paint directly from nature. The area had already attracted artists who wanted to also represent everyday life, Theodore Rousseau and Jean-Francois Millet. The artist, Edouard Manet, took a bold step and shared his Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe and was a violent scandal. It challenged modern reality over the repetition of a traditional piece. This was the setting point leading towards modern art as it gained attention and got its first exhibition in 1874.

Camille Pissarro was a key figure in impressionism. He was the only artist who had his artworks shown in all 8 Impressionist group exhibitions. He also experimented with a variety of styles, including pointillism. He had been given the nickname "Father Pissarro" because he was a supportive and caring mentor to artists Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin. Pissarro was born into a Jewish merchant family and when he reached the age of 12, he was sent away to a school in Passy. Growing up, he started to show a interest in drawing and had a talent for it. Once he returned home, his parents wanted him to join the family business but he had his eyes set on sketching. His parents decided they weren't going to change his mind and allowed him to follow the career he wanted and Pissarro left home to pursue art full-time. In the early 1870s, The Salon was the official art exhibition of the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. They were not on board with what Impressionists were advocating for so Pissarro, along with Renoir, Monet, and others, decided to create an alternative to the Salon. They held their first exhibition in 1874 at Nadar's studio which was known as the first Impressionist exhibition. Pissarro had a showing of five paintings. Despite the groups hard effects, they faced harsh criticism and Pissarro was disappointed in the publics response which he discussed with Theodore Duret.

Impact

Throughout the 1860s, Impressionists artists had some of their artworks accepted but still faced rejection and criticism. The determination to break out from traditional ways helped to start many art exhibitions and influenced many future artists and people. The movement helped artists to break through conventional art styles to use different type of styles to show expression and creativity.

Impressionism

Origin & Background

Founding Artists

Impact

References