Impressionist art

1. Impressionism was an art movement

2. a group of Paris artists started the movement in 1874.

3. The term impressionism originated from an art critic, who commented that Monet’s painting was just an impression and that it looked un-finished. The impressionists adopted this term and decided to use it for their own benefit.

• early Impressionist painters were radicals, breaking many of the rules of painting that had been set by earlier generations.

Up until the Impressionists, history had been the accepted subject

Impressionists painted subjects in life around them

they rejected attempts to portray ideal beauty,

and instead sought the natural beauty of their surroundings

• The impressionists captured a fresh and original vision that often seemed strange and unfinished to the general public.

Sometimes they painted outside instead of in their studios. Outside they were able to observe nature more closely and to capture the range of sunlight.

4. “Classic" Impressionist paintings used short, brush strokes.

5. impressionist paintings often have very textured thick paint.

6. Compositions are simplified and the emphasis is on the overall effect rather than on details.

Impressionist art is about ELBOW…

7.  E  Everyday life 

8. L  Light 

9. B  Brushstrokes

10. O  Outdoor settings

11.  W  Weather and atmosphere

12. Most impressionist use space to show distance

Space or distance can be shown using the idea of-

13. Foreground- is the or closest part of the picture.

14. Mid ground is the mid distance or middle farthest part of the picture.

15. Background is the farthest part of the picture.

Important impressionist

artists

Georges Seurat

father of pointalism

What is Pointillism?Pointillism is a technique of painting in which a lot of tiny dots are combined to form a picture. The reason for doing pointillism instead of a picture with physical mixing is that, supposedly, physically mixing colors dulls them. Most of the painters of Seurat's time blended the colors to make a picture with a smoother feeling than Seurat's bright, dotty works.

Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Georges Seurat was French painter who founded a painting style called pointillism. He began painting in the style of Impressionism but soon became more interested in scientific color theory. He is famous for using little dabs or points of pure bright color to paint. When viewed from a distance, the eye mixes the colors together

Seurat was the father of pointalism

Seurat's famous "A Sunday in the Park on the Island of La Grande Jatte" (more commonly known as "Sunday in the Park"), which covered a wall (81 inches by 120 inches), took him two years to complete. He was known for amazing devotion and concentration. The dots in a pointillist painting can be as small as 1/16 of an inch in diameter! Based on these measurements, "Sunday in the Park" has approximately 3,456,000 dots!

Sunday in The Park, SeuratThis painting has 3,456,000 dots!

Claud Monet

painted big nature

Claud Monet

background

Mid ground

foreground

                                                 

              

Venice Twilight by Claude Monet

Claude Monet, Rocks At Belle-Ile, Port-Dormois, 1886.

                                                                                               

                 

Wild Poppies at Argentueil (1873) by Claud Monet

                                                                       

                  Water-Lilies (1914) Claud Monet

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

painted people partying

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

                                                                                       

              

Le Moulin de la Galette (1876)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre Renoir, ”Luncheon of the Boating Party”, 1881.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir ”La Moulin de la Galette”, 1876.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879.

Edgar Degas

Painted Dancing women

Edgar Degas, ”Ballet Rehearsal”, 1876.Degas’s fascination with patterns of motion

brought him to the Paris Opéra school of

ballet. His observations of classes there

became his main and most favorite subjects.

Degas frequent cutoff figures and objects,

such as the windows and the stairs indicate

his interest in capturing single moments in

time, like in photography, which is also used

in the process of his paintings. He would take

photographs to make preliminary studies for

his works.

The prominent diagonals of the wall bases and

the floorboards carry the viewers eyes

throughout the painting. The large, off-center

empty space in the center creates an illusion

that floor is continuous, thus connecting the

viewer to the painted figures, as though

viewers are on the same ground as the

dancers.

Degas, as well as other impressionist artists

acquainted with the 1860s “greatly admired

their spatial organization, the familiar and

intimate themes, and the flat unmodeled color

areas and drew much instruction from them.”

Edgar Degas

Very diagonal compositions

Figures tend to run-off sides

Strong but natural light sources

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, 1874.

Edgar Degas, The Dance School, 1874.

Edgar Degas

The Dancing Class 1873-75.

Mary Cassatt

Painted women and children

In the Salon of 1874, Degas admired a painting by a young American artist, Mary Cassatt (1844- 1926), the

daughter of a Philadelphia banker. “There”, he remarked, “is someone who feels as I do”. Degas befriended and

influenced Cassatt, who exhibited regularly with the Impressionists.

She had trained as a painter before moving to Europe to study masterworks in France and Italy. As a woman, she

could not easily frequent the cafes with her male artist friends, and she was responsible for the care of her aging

parents, who had moved to Paris to join her, two facts limiting her subject choices.

Because of these restrictions, Cassatt’s subjects were principally women and children, whom she presented

with a combination of objectivity and genuine sentiment. Works such as “The Bath” show the tender relationship

between a mother and child. Like Degas’s “The Tub”, the visual solidity of the mother and child contrasts with the

flattened patterning of the wallpaper and rug.

Cassatt’s style in this work owed much to the compositional devices of Degas and of Japanese prints, but the painting’s design has an originality and strength

all its own.

Mary Cassatt, ” The Bath”, 1892.

Mary Cassatt

Contrast how Renoir and Cassatt view a mother and child!

Mary CassattMother and Child,c1889.

Cincinnati Art Museum

Mary CassattGirl Arranging Her Hair,1886.

Mary CassattMother and Child,1889.

Mary CassattSummertime,

1894.

Mary CassattMother and Child,1889.

Mary Cassatt, The Boating Party, 1893-94.

Children Playing on the Beach (1884) by Mary Cassat

Paul Cézanne

Painted with geometricshapes

Paul Cezanne 1839-1906

Cezanne began painting outdoors in 1872 and exhibited with the Impressionists a few times before breaking with them in 1887.

Cezanne focused on arrangements geometric shapes

He believed that there was hidden order in nature seen in geometric forms.

His paintings are abstract, yet objects within them are recognizable. Cezanne's revolutionary theories and work lead to Cubism. Notice the geometric forms painted in the brushstrokes.

Do you see the abstraction in the trees?

Gardanne 1885-86

Paul Cézanne

Gardanne 1885-86 by Paul Cézanne

Montagnes en Provence (Mountains in Provence) 1886-90 by Paul Cézanne

Vincent VanGogh

painted with bold color and a bold brushstrokes

Vincent VanGogh

Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear 1889

Self-Portrait 1889 by Vincent VanGogh

Starry Night 1889 by Vincent VanGogh

Landscape at Saint-Rémy 1889 by Vincent VanGogh

Irises 1889 by Vincent VanGogh

1. Seurat- pointalism2. Monet- big nature3. Renoir - people partying 4. Degas- Dancing women5. Mary Cassatt-women and

children6. Cézanne- used geometric

shapes7. VanGogh- bold color and a

bold brushstrokes