Impressionism
Impressionism was first created by Claude Monet in his painting “Impression, Sunrise.” From here on out remarkable works of art in this style would flourish throughout the 19th century despite the several struggles it faced in the beginning. As Impressionistic painting first appeared, people were not fond of its style; which was mostly in part to the new paintings it produced. This was because it was a new idea in painting, and it took people awhile to grasp the idea of these works; as society tends to to with anything new or different. Despite this minor setback, several artist flourished under this category: artists such as Edgar Degas, Van Gogh, and James Whistler. This style of art encompassed a series of rough brush strokes with distinctives colors, that when grouped together would form an image, as seen in “Rue Montorgueil” by Claude Monet. This effect was possible due to the perspective of which the human eye would view the paintings.
Granted the way these paintings were created based upon imagery and perspective is very amazing, I was still not fond of these paintings. I believe I feel this way because of the end result of the paintings. In my opinion the final result looks “sloppy,” granted this is the style, I preferred the more detailed paintings of Realism and the Hudson River School Artists with works such as The Oxbow by Thomas Cole circa 1836 from Massachusetts. With the paintings of the Hudson River School, one can see the lovely contrast of color and detail within the paintings, something of which I feel is missing from the Impressionistic paintings. In addition to this, I also found the subject matter of Impressionism to be less appealing to my eye. The paintings of amusements, pastimes, and pleasant moments of which Impressionism focused on did not effect me in the same way as did the topics and subject matter of Realism.
After the development of Impressionism, there was the creation of Post-Impressionism in the 1900′s which appealed a little more to me than earlier Impressionism. One reason why I was more fond of this style painting was it appeared to be more uniform and flowed together better. The paintings made more sense to me as they were clearer and engulfed a different subject matter. This is apparent in the painting “Place du Carrousel” by Camille Pissarro, the focus of this painting is the scenery and images of the building and contains more even and thoughtful strokes in my view. This ultimately allows for the image to stand out more and makes the painting clearer when viewed from a closer perspective. The era of Post-Impressionism also contained bold intense colors in hopes of transcribing visual effects upon the admirer of the work.
In the end, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were not my favorite styles of painting from the 19th century. I much preferred the realistic paintings of the Hudson River School Artists and the subject matter of realism. However, the Post-Impressionistic paintings were more apparent to me for several reasons. Despite the setbacks that Impressionism had to overcome, it was a widely accepted art for of the 19th century of which many artist partook in its practice and were able to create amazing works of art. From all of this I have truthfully found that art is really in the eye of the beholder.
Pictures of discussed works and examples can be found below:
Link to Monet’s first Impressionism painting – http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/monet.html
From these images, we can see the style of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, as well as their corresponding subject matter. Also in this gallery is a painting from one of The Hudson River School Artist to show the style of which I am much more fond.
Sources:
http://oer.uaf.edu/learn/AMTF200-v1/2009/149/
https://classes.uaf.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_60839_1%26url%3d
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/monet.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impressionism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Monet-montorgueil.JPG
http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg84/gg84-main2.html
brandonartblog said,
October 26, 2009 at 10:19 pm
In terms of taste, I appreciate the case you make against impressionism. The basis being that the detail and sharp contrast of a resulting image is what you find appealing. Making this case, Impressionism has lost something in the translation or at least by comparison to more representational art from the Romantic era. Sources are approprite for this type of comparsion and thankfully correct. The key here, I think, is that the image stands alone from the experience of viewing that image. The resluting image is being judged on its own merits and the artists intention, while acknowledged, is discounted. My comment about your taste cannot matter much as it is impossible to argue about taste. Nonetheless, the distinction raised between image and experience is instructive and forces some deeper thought about art in general. That seems important overall.
Angelica said,
October 26, 2009 at 11:37 pm
I really like the Impressionist works, but the thing that you find most unappealing about them (the “sloppiness”) is what I like the most. It’s funny how people’s tastes differ. I can certainly understand your point of view, however. They DO look somewhat unfinished and rough but I think that makes them very distinctive. You did a good job of explaining why you don’t care for Impressionism and how it differs from other styles. I appreciate that you put in more than one example of work from this time period so viewers can see the difference between the styles more clearly. Looking at them side by side is not the same as reading a page about Realism and then another about Impressionism, etc.
lia said,
October 28, 2009 at 4:43 am
I too appreciate your case against Impressionist works, but at the same time both Impressionist works and Post-Impressionist works have alot in common. To me it seems one style has more color and attention to detail that the other, but all in all I enjoy both Impressionist and Post-Impressionist types of work. In the end one must give the Impressionist artists some credit, seeing how many artists in the Post-Impressionist era looked to many of the Impressionist works for inspiration.