Impressionism is an artistic movement that originated in the last third of the 19th century in France and later became popular all over the world. Its importance for the development of world art can hardly be overestimated, so we decided to tell you more about Impressionism in the form of questions and answers. We hope it will be interesting.
Claude Monet. Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris, Arrival of a Train
The Academy of Arts in France in those years took a very simple view of Impressionism as its worst enemy and detractor. However, Impressionism would not have received such widespread recognition without certain changes in society and in everyday life, and they were so large and comprehensive that they became a source of inspiration for Impressionist artists.
Until the middle of the XIX century in Paris did not even have a sewer system, and citizens dumped sewage in the canals along the streets. The streets themselves were narrow and represented a labyrinth in which only the locals could navigate.
Gustave Caillebotte. Balcony, Boulevard Haussmann
Napoleon III came to power, and he wanted very much to change Paris, to turn it into the best city in Europe with wide clean streets and satisfied citizens. A large-scale work on improvement began. In just a few years, the labyrinth of streets and small yards where Parisians grew vegetables was replaced by wide boulevards and avenues with gas lamps.
Claude Monet. Boulevard des Capucines in Paris
New bridges, excellent parks and even a hippodrome appeared. The city's population doubled. It is not surprising that artists wanted to capture all these changes, and in an enthusiastic way. And impressionism, showing the moment here and now, addressed to everyday life, focused on the most realistic and artistic display of light, air and water, corresponded to these aspirations in the best possible way.
Claude Monet. European Bridge, Saint-Lazare train station
The main art exhibition in France, the Paris Salon, was authorized by Louis XIV in 1667. Since then, little has changed, 134 years at the exhibition presented their paintings exclusively academicians from the Academy of Arts, and only in 1791 it was allowed to admit other artists to it, but their paintings checked and approved exclusively academicians. That is, nothing fundamentally new in such conditions could not be born, everyone wrote based on strict rules and guidelines imposed by the Academy. It was omnipresent: a well-established artist at the Salon could count on state orders, for example, to paint some church, but only after his candidacy approved by academicians from the Academy of Arts. You can count on recognition, profitable orders and a workshop with students and followers, only if you write “as it should be”, without departing from the rules and norms imposed by the academicians.
Thomas Couture. Romans in Decadence
And they were quite peculiar and moderately conditional: the surface of the painting had to be painted as smooth as possible, with indistinguishable strokes. The smoother - the more skill the artist showed. It is better to write not lowly things and dull everyday life, which in itself is not too picturesque, and colorful historical, mythological, religious paintings and landscapes. Only goddesses, naiads, dryads and other creatures that do not exist in reality can be nude. In light of recent travels to the East and the Western viewer's interest in Eastern culture, nudes are allowed to depict odalisques and concubines in harems.
Alexandre Cabanel. The Birth of Venus
However, Édouard Manet decided to paint in his own way, the way he was interested in. He depicted a nude Parisian cocotte, giving her a haughty and defiant look, as if to defy all the rules of society.
Edouard Manet. Olympia
Instead of ancient Greek gods, there were jockeys at the races, dancers, regulars in the pubs, and even ordinary laborers repairing roads. This was real life as seen by all Parisians.
Edouard Manet. Horse Racing in the Bois de Boulogne
And next to him, sincerely admiring his work, stood young Renoir, Basil, Monet and Pissarro, who had already firmly decided for themselves that they will never create the same.
Impressionism is an attempt of artists to capture the momentary action, changing states of nature, people, not in staged, but real poses, even if they do not always meet all the canons of aesthetics, engaged in the most common everyday activities.
Mary Cassatt. Summertime
Impressionists did not build a fancy composition, did not think about any plot, sometimes the depicted action was not even placed completely on the canvas, creating the effect of a cropped frame. But they paid special attention to the movement of air and the play of light.
When they decided to hold their first exhibition, the critic Theodore Duret told them: “I urge you to choose paintings with a story, with a finished action, with some semblance of composition, painted not so fresh and not so sprawling strokes. However, no one wanted to listen to him, they chose the most favorite and bold ones.
Claude Monet. Magpie
The special mobility of the Impressionist image was achieved by a number of clever techniques. They abandoned sharp saturated dark shadows and pronounced contours of objects, trying to merge them with the surrounding space. Local colors were exposed in the paintings of air: to do this, the Impressionists introduced one paint in the space of another clearly visible strokes. They discarded everything superfluous, which could not immediately grasp the fleeting eye of the viewer.
William Chase. Sunny Day
But the light effects came to the fore: bright sunlight made the image somewhat flickering, bright theatrical light distorted the faces of the ballerinas and actresses. And you don’t need to think that blurriness and broad brushstrokes are the first sign of impressionism, and no one else did it. For example, Joseph Turner became famous for his paintings in which the depiction of water or air was the main thing, and the clarity of the composition and the plot faded into the background.
Joseph Turner. Rain, Steam and Speed. The Great Western Railway.
But with all this he first wrote, like all artists before the Impressionists, sketches in nature, and then finalized them in his studio, creating a picture based on his own artistic vision. For the Impressionists, the first priority was to capture on canvas the initial impression of what they had seen, which had the greatest value, rather than the consequences of the artist's mental work in the studio, as in classical paintings.
Claude Monet. Impression.
In the next article we will try to talk about other issues related to Impressionism, we hope it will be interesting and informative.
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