French Impressionism

[skiguy]

Why did French impressionism rise at this time?   There were some quite famous artists that came out of this period. (Renoir, Monet, Cezanne).

[Phidippides]

All art rose as a reaction or result of movements going before it.  Impressionism was the same, as it was an experiment with color and light which went beyond the approaches to painting before it.  Although it's been a while since I've studied 19th Century art, I do believe that Renoir was actually not technically part of the Impressionist group. 

[Aetheling]

Impressionism rose as a reaction to different facts:

- the invention of photography
- the paint tube, invented in 1841, allowed artists to be liberated from the studio.
- the spread of railway allowed artists to travel to the countryside and was a testimony of a new "Modern" era.
- the new theory of colours. (by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published in 1810)
- against the "Académie des Beaux-Arts" which was dominating the French art scene with its compulsory standards:  historical subjects, religious themes and portraits were valued (landscape and still life were not), finished images which mirrored reality when examined closely. Colour was somber and conservative and the traces of brush strokes were suppressed, concealing the artist's personality, emotions and working techniques.
- Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air.   Painting realistic scenes of modern life and emphasizing vivid overall effects rather than details.

[Aetheling]

All art rose as a reaction or result of movements going before it.  Impressionism was the same, as it was an experiment with color and light which went beyond the approaches to painting before it.  Although it's been a while since I've studied 19th Century art, I do believe that Renoir was actually not technically part of the Impressionist group. 

Renoir was a full member of impressionism but his paintings slowly differed from the first impressionist rules; he developed a more "commercial" work due to his poor economical background, child of a working class family. (by opposition to the one of Monet who was from a wealthy family) and started to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings in an attempt to return to classicism.

About the impressionists, they were among the first to turn their back from the public and "mecènes" expectations to fully dedicate themselves to their art, starting the Modern Art era.

[scout1067]

We have a saying about a certain type of girl. We say she is a "Monet" because she looks good from a distance but when you get close she is all messed up.

That being said, I actually like the impressionist's work.  It is probably the closest I get to appreciating abstract art and it is not very abstract at all.  I find most modern art revolting, if you have to make up a meaning then it is not art.

[Wally]

....
... if you have to make up a meaning then it is not art.

Who said it? (Or at least to whom it is attributed...)

"If they (the artists) do see the fields blue they are deranged, and should go to an asylum. If they only pretend to see them blue, they are criminals and should go to prison."

[Aetheling]

Who said it? (Or at least to whom it is attributed...)

"If they (the artists) do see the fields blue they are deranged, and should go to an asylum. If they only pretend to see them blue, they are criminals and should go to prison."

Another great artist: Adolf H.