Impressionism
The impressionism is a pictorial school French, fruit at the beginning of the association of some Parisian artists in second half of the XIXe century. Strongly criticized at its beginnings, the movement appeared in particular, of 1874 with 1886, by eight public exposures to Paris, and marked the rupture of the Modern art with the Académisme. Impressionism is in particular characterized by a tendency to note the fugitive impressions, the mobility of the phenomena rather than the stable and conceptual aspect of the things.
The impressionists had a great influence on the Art of their time, painting of course, but also the Littérature and the Musique.
See also: impressionist Writing, impressionist Music
History
In the middle of the XIXe century, (1874), pictorial art in France is dominated by the royal Académie of painting and sculpture, which fixes since its creation, under the reign of Louis XIV, the rules of the good taste, as well for the topics of the tables as the techniques employed. At that time, only have established among the historical or religious subjects, carried out with a great care of the detail and as much as possible masking the traces of the brush. Moreover, the Academy privileges the teaching of the Dessin, simpler to define in a body of doctrines structured well for which the copy of the models of the ancient sculpture constitutes an ideal of beauty. The Color, regarded since Aristote as an accident of the Light, lent itself much less better to a structured pedagogy. Also she, at the time, was not taught within the Academy itself, but in workshops external with this one. This design of painting will be hustled starting from half of the XIXe century by work of young Parisian painters. Influenced in particular by the realism of works of Gustave Courbet, these artists privilege the bright colors, the plays of light and are much interested by the landscapes or the scenes of the life of the every day that by the great battles of passed or the scenes of the Bible. Welded by criticisms sometimes very violent undergone by their works, like with the refusal successive of the Living room of Paris, institution major of the painting of this time, these young artists start to gather to paint and discuss. Among these pioneers, one counts in particular Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille, soon joined by Camille Pissarro, Paul Cézanne and Armand Guillaumin.
In 1863, the rejection by the jury of the Living room of the Déjeuner on the grass of Manet under the pretext which it represents a nude woman in a contemporary context (the naked female ones are legion in the painting of the time) puts fire at the powders. Manet joined the group of the impressionists, which requires that their works be able to be presented to the public. The Empereur Napoleon III issues the behavior of a Salon of Refused the gathering works not having been able to be presented to the living room of Paris. Criticisms are very violent, most of the public moving even only to make fun of exposed works! However, the visitors of the Refusés are more numerous there this year than those of the true Living room…
In front of the refusal successive, in 1867 is 1872, to organize another Living room of Refused, a group of artists among whom Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Berthe Morisot and Degas finishes in April 1874 by organizing their own exposure, in the studio of the photographer Nadar. Gathering works of about thirty artists, among whom the precursor Eugene Boudin whose example persuaded Monet to try to paint " on the motif" in the open air, the exposure is the first of the eight which will take place between 1874 and 1886.
Once again, the essuie group of the critics very violent, who do not manage to come to end from the ousting from the artists. Thus, a sarcastic article of the critic and humorist Louis Leroy in the review the Hullabaloo , or it turns in derision the table of Monet entitled Impression rising sun , gives to the movement its name: impressionism. The term is taken again soon by the public and the artists themselves, although those estimate to be brought closer by their revolutionary spirit good more than by reality of their Article.
For this reason, many dissensions exist within the group. Thus, Degas continuous to affirm the domination of the drawing compared to the color, and refuses to paint
Its example is followed: already decreased by the death of Bazille at the time of the war against Germany in 1870, the group is marked by the defections of Cézanne, Renoir, Sisley and Monet, which leaves the Impressionist Exposures for the Living room. Mined by the arguments as for which deserves or not the statute of member, the group of the Impressionists ends up separating in 1886 when Signac and Seurat assembles a concurrent exposure. Pissarro will have been the only artist present at the eight Impressionist Exposures.
In spite of these dissensions, the impressionist artists gain little by little the acceptance of the public like their pars, in particular thanks to the assistance of the merchant of art Paul Durand-Ruel, which makes them expose to London and New York. But this success will not benefit all: if Renoir ends up reaching a relative financial safety in 1879, followed by Monet to the beginning of the Années 1880 and Pissaro in the Années 1890, Sisley will die in 1899 in poverty.
Whereas Camille Corot claimed to remain foreign with the movement, he is often regarded as the first impressionist:
“There is only one Master, Corot. We are nothing in comparison, nothing” Claude Monet, 1897.
“It is always largest, it very anticipated…” Edgar Degas, 1883.
Impressionism is a starting point for Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Masters of the Néo-impressionnisme, for Paul Gauguin, Henri of Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent Van Gogh like for many “postimpressionnists”, in France and abroad like Jean Peské.
The term of impressionism is also employed, by extension, in the field of the literature, to characterize for example the novels of the cantor of Monet, Octave Mirbeau, which are marked with the corner of subjectivity. It gains even musical criticism (1887), qualifying works of Claude Debussy and, more generally, those of all the type-setters worried by the subjective perception of the sound colors and the rates/rhythms: Ravel, Dukas, Satie, Roussel, etc the impressionist musicians reflect with the honor the freedom of the form, the sentence and the harmonic language.
Impressionism is made conspicuous by the fact that one can speak about work without needing external references, unlike the Antique art which is based on the Mythologie, and of the Romanesque art intended to diffuse an ideology. Let us quote in example table Olympia of Manet which explores a traditional topic but in a way shocking for this period: Venus is represented in Demi-mondaine time and the painter works only painting (Colors). This “Amimétisme” (nonrealistic vision) will make its birth with the Modern art.
Another important influence was that of the Japanese prints (Japonisme), which had arrived to France at the origin in the packing paper shape. The technique of these prints contributed in an important way to the “photographic” choices of angles and nonconventional compositions, which were to become one of the characteristics of the impressionist movement.
Edgar Degas was impassioned of photography and collected the Japanese prints. Its fabric the class of dance testifies to these two influences by its asymmetrical composition. The dancers of the foreground on the left seem to be taken on the sharp one, in not very glossy postures, and the corner lower right of the fabric is occupied by a vast empty floor space.
Colors =
id: Been worth Manet: lavender
id: Been worth Bazille: powderblue
id: Been worth Monet: lavender
id: Been worth Renoir: lavender
id: Been worth Sisley: lavender
id: Been worth Pissaro: powderblue
id: Been worth Cézanne: powderblue
id: Been worth Cassatt: lavender
id: Been worth Morisot: powderblue
id: Been worth Degas: powderblue
id: Caillebotte been worth: powderblue
Period = from: 1830 till: 1930
TimeAxis = orientation: horizontal
ScaleMajor = links: year increment: 20 start: 1830
ScaleMinor = links: year increment: 10 start: 1830
PlotData=
align: center textcolor: black fontsize: 8 mark: (line, black) width: 16 shift: (0, - 5)
bar: Pissaro color: Pissaro
from: 1830 till: 1903
bar: Manet color: Manet
from: 1832 till: 1883
bar: Degas color: Degas
from: 1834 till: 1917
bar: Sisley color: Sisley
from: 1839 till: 1899
bar: Cézanne color: Cézanne
from: 1839 till: 1906
bar: Monet color: Monet
from: 1840 till: 1926
bar: Bazille color: Bazille
from: 1841 till: 1870
bar: Renoir color: Renoir
from: 1841 till: 1919
bar: Morisot color: Morisot
from: 1841 till: 1895
bar: Cassatt color: Cassatt
from: 1844 till: 1926
bar: Caillebotte color: Caillebotte
from: 1848 till: 1894
LineData=
At: 1840 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1850 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1860 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1870 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1880 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1890 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1900 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1910 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1920 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
At: 1930 color: black width: 0.5 to bush-hammer: back
Method
The impressionist painters, who want to be realistic, choose their subjects in the contemporary life, in a daily newspaper freely interpreted according to the personal vision of each one of them. Working “on the reason”, like often the painters of the school of Barbizon, like certain English landscape designers, Boudin or Jongkind, they push very far the study from the outdoor, make Lumière the essential component and driving of their painting, drawing aside the dark colors to use pure colors which makes blink a very divided key. Painters of a changing nature, of a happy life seized in the characteristic of the moment, they are indifferent to the research, expensive with traditional (and canted by the academists), of a beautiful ideal and an eternal gasoline of the things. Among the principal representatives of the impressionist current it is necessary to quote Pissarro and Sisley, which accompany by other artists whose respective personalities will evolve/move in a definitely distinct way: Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, Edouard Manet, Cassatt, Caillebotte, etc as Frederic Bazille which died before the recognition of the public.
Topics and composition
Before the appearance of the impressionism of other painters, in particular the Dutchmen of the 17th century such as Jan Steen, had been interested on subjects of the everyday life, while preserving a traditional approach of the composition. This one was conceived so as to place the principal subject in the center of the glance of the observer. The impressionists softened the opposition between subject and background, so that the effect produced by an impressionist fabric often resembles a stereotype, with a fragment of a vaster reality captured as by the result of the chance. The Photographie gained in popularity; the decreasing weight of the apparatuses, the stereotypes became more spontaneous. Photography encouraged the impressionists thus to capture the moment, not only in the moving light of the landscape but also in the daily life of people.
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