Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), 1872, oil on canvas, Musee Marmottan

Characteristics of Impressionist painting include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

The emergence of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous movements in other media which became known as Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.

Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.

Overview

Alfred Sisley, Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Although the rise of Impressionism in France happened at a time when a number of other painters, including the Italian artists known as the Macchiaioli, and Winslow Homer in the United States, were also exploring plein-air painting, the Impressionists developed new techniques that were specific to the movement. Encompassing what its adherents argued was a different way of seeing, it was an art of immediacy and movement, of candid poses and compositions, of the play of light expressed in a bright and varied use of colour.

The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if it did not receive the approval of the art critics and establishment.

By re-creating the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than recreating the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism became seminal to various movements in painting which would follow, including Neo-Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism.

Beginnings

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Le Bal au Moulin de la Galette), 1876,

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Girl with a Hoop, 1885

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, On the Terrace, oil on canvas, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago

Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol, (Camille and Jean Monet), 1875, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Artists' petitions requesting a new Salon des Refusés in 1867, and again in 1872, were denied. In the latter part of 1873, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley organized the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") for the purpose of exhibiting their artworks independently. Members of the association, which soon included Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas, were expected to forswear participation in the Salon. The organizers invited a number of other progressive artists to join them in their inaugural exhibition, including the slightly older Eugène Boudin, whose example had first persuaded Monet to take up plein air painting years before.^[4] Another painter who greatly influenced Monet and his friends, Johan Jongkind, declined to participate, as did Manet. In total, thirty artists participated in their first exhibition, held in April of 1874 at the studio of the photographer Nadar.

Claude Monet, The Cliffs at Etretat, 1885, Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

He wrote, in the form of a dialog between viewers,

Impression ? I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it ? and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.^[5]

Claude Monet, Haystacks, (sunset), 1890-1891, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Monet, Sisley, Morisot, and Pissarro may be considered the "purest" Impressionists, in their consistent pursuit of an art of spontaneity, sunlight, and colour. Degas rejected much of this, as he believed in the primacy of drawing over colour and belittled the practice of painting outdoors.^[6] Renoir turned against Impressionism for a time in the 1880s, and never entirely regained his commitment to its ideas. Édouard Manet, despite his role as a leader to the group, never abandoned his liberal use of black as a colour, and never participated in the Impressionist exhibitions. He continued to submit his works to the Salon, where his Spanish Singer had won a 2nd class medal in 1861, and he urged the others to do likewise, arguing that "the Salon is the real field of battle" where a reputation could be made.^[7]

Camille Pissarro, Boulevard Montmartre, 1897, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg

The individual artists saw few financial rewards from the Impressionist exhibitions, but their art gradually won a degree of public acceptance. Their dealer, Durand-Ruel, played a major role in this as he kept their work before the public and arranged shows for them in London and New York. Although Sisley would die in poverty in 1899, Renoir had a great Salon success in 1879. Financial security came to Monet in the early 1880s and to Pissarro by the early 1890s. By this time the methods of Impressionist painting, in a diluted form, had become commonplace in Salon art.^[10]

Impressionist techniques

Berthe Morisot, The Cradle, 1872, Musée d'Orsay

• Short, thick strokes of paint are used to quickly capture the essence of the subject, rather than its details. The paint is often applied impasto.
• Colours are applied side-by-side with as little mixing as possible, creating a vibrant surface. The optical mixing of colours occurs in the eye of the viewer.
• Grays and dark tones are produced by mixing complementary colours. In pure Impressionism the use of black paint is avoided.
• Wet paint is placed into wet paint without waiting for successive applications to dry, producing softer edges and an intermingling of colour.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-on-wet
• Impressionist paintings do not exploit the transparency of thin paint films (glazes) which earlier artists built up carefully to produce effects. The surface of an Impressionist painting is typically opaque.
• The play of natural light is emphasized. Close attention is paid to the reflection of colours from object to object.
• In paintings made en plein air (outdoors), shadows are boldly painted with the blue of the sky as it is reflected onto surfaces, giving a sense of freshness and openness that was not captured in painting previously. (Blue shadows on snow inspired the technique.)

Mary Cassatt, Lydia Leaning on Her Arms (in a theatre box), 1879

French painters who prepared the way for Impressionism include the Romantic colourist Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the realists Gustave Courbet, and painters of the Barbizon school such as Théodore Rousseau. The Impressionists learned much from the work of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Eugène Boudin, who painted from nature in a style that was close to Impressionism, and who befriended and advised the younger artists.

Impressionists took advantage of the mid-century introduction of premixed paints in lead tubes (resembling modern toothpaste tubes) which allowed artists to work more spontaneously, both outdoors and indoors. Previously, painters made their own paints individually, by grinding and mixing dry pigment powders with linseed oil, which were then stored in animal bladders.^[11]

Content and composition

Camille Pissarro, Hay Harvest at Éragny, 1901, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario

Berthe Morisot, Reading, 1873, Cleveland Museum of Art

Alfred Sisley, View of the Saint-Martin Canal, Paris, 1870, Musée d'Orsay

Another major influence was Japanese art prints (Japonism), which had originally come into France as wrapping paper for imported goods. The art of these prints contributed significantly to the "snapshot" angles and unconventional compositions which would become characteristic of the movement.

Edgar Degas was both an avid photographer and a collector of Japanese prints.^[15] His The Dance Class (La classe de danse) of 1874 shows both influences in its asymmetrical composition. The dancers are seemingly caught off guard in various awkward poses, leaving an expanse of empty floor space in the lower right quadrant.

Main Impressionists

Camille Pissarro, Hoarfrost, 1873, Musee d'Orsay, Paris

Berthe Morisot, The Harbor at Lorient, 1869, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

• Frédéric Bazille, (1841-1870)
• Gustave Caillebotte (who, younger than the others, joined forces with them in the mid 1870s), (1848-1894)
• Mary Cassatt (American-born, she lived in Paris and participated in four Impressionist exhibitions), (1844-1926)
• Paul Cézanne (although he later broke away from the Impressionists), (1839-1906)
• Edgar Degas (a realist who despised the term Impressionist, but is considered one, due to his loyalty to the group), (1834-1917)
• Armand Guillaumin, (1841-1927)
• Édouard Manet (who did not regard himself as an Impressionist, but is generally considered one), (1832-1883)
• Claude Monet (the most prolific of the Impressionists and the one who most clearly embodies their aesthetic), ^[16] (1840-1926)
• Berthe Morisot, (1841-1895)
• Camille Pissarro, (1830-1903)
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir, (1841-1919)
• Alfred Sisley, (1839-1899)

Gallery

<gallery caption="Gallery" widths="200px" heights="200px" perrow="3"> Image:Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 069.jpg|Edgar Degas, (1834-1917), Dancer with a Bouquet of Flowers (Star of the Ballet), 1878 Image:Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 009.jpg|Edgar Degas, Stage Rehearsal, 1878-1879, The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York City Image:Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 072.jpg|Edgar Degas, Dancers at The Bar, 1888, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC Image:Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 032.jpg|Edgar Degas, Woman in the Bath, 1886, Hill-Stead Museum, Farmington, Connecticut Image:Edgar Germain Hilaire Degas 012.jpg|Edgar Degas, L'Absinthe, 1876, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Image:Edouard Manet 039.jpg|Édouard Manet, (1832-1883), Plum, 1878, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. Image:Guillaumin SoleilCouchantAIvry.jpg|Armand Guillaumin, (1841-1927), Sunset at Ivry (Soleil couchant à Ivry) 1873, Musee d'Orsay Image:Gustave Caillebotte - La Place de l'Europe, temps de pluie.jpg|Gustave Caillebotte, (1848-1894), Paris Street, Rainy Day, 1877. Art Institute of Chicago Image:Bazille Paysage au bord du Lez.jpg|Frédéric Bazille, (1841-1870), Paysage au bord du Lez, 1870, Minneapolis Institute of Art </gallery>

Timeline

Associates and influenced artists

Among the close associates of the Impressionists were several painters who adopted their methods to some degree. These include Giuseppe De Nittis, an Italian artist living in Paris who participated in the first Impressionist exhibit at the invitation of Degas, although the other Impressionists disparaged his work.^[17] Federico Zandomeneghi was another Italian friend of Degas who showed with the Impressionists. Eva Gonzalès was a follower of Manet who did not exhibit with the group. James Abbott McNeill Whistler was an American-born painter who played a part in Impressionism although he did not join the group and preferred grayed colours. Walter Sickert, an English artist, was initially a follower of Whistler, and later an important disciple of Degas; he did not exhibit with the Impressionists. In 1904 the artist and writer Wynford Dewhurst wrote the first important study of the French painters to be published in English, Impressionist Painting: its genesis and development, which did much to popularize Impressionism in Great Britain.

By the early 1880s, Impressionist methods were affecting, at least superficially, the art of the Salon. Fashionable painters such as Jean Beraud and Henri Gervex found critical and financial success by brightening their palettes while retaining the smooth finish expected of Salon art.^[18] Works by these artists are sometimes casually referred to as Impressionism, despite their remoteness from Impressionist practice.

Beyond France

As the influence of Impressionism spread beyond France, artists, too numerous to list, became identified as practitioners of the new style. Some of the more important examples are:

• The American Impressionists, including Frederick Carl Frieseke, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Lilla Cabot Perry, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir
• Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann, and Max Slevogt in Germany
• Konstantin Korovin and Valentin Serov in Russia
• Francisco Oller y Cestero, a native of Puerto Rico and a friend of Pissarro and Cézanne
• William McTaggart in Scotland.
• Laura Muntz Lyall, a Canadian artist
• W?adys?aw Podkowi?ski, a Polish Impressionist and symbolist
• Nazmi Ziya Güran, who brought Impressionism to Turkey
• Chafik Charobim in Egypt

Sculpture, photography and film

The sculptor Auguste Rodin is sometimes called an Impressionist for the way he used roughly modeled surfaces to suggest transient light effects.

Pictorialist photographers whose work is characterized by soft focus and atmospheric effects have also been called Impressionists. Examples are Kirk Clendinning, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Robert Farber, Eduard Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, and Clarence H. White.

French Impressionist Cinema is a term applied to a loosely defined group of films and filmmakers in France from 1919-1929, although these years are debatable. French Impressionist filmmakers include Abel Gance, Jean Epstein, Germaine Dulac, Marcel L?Herbier, Louis Delluc, and Dmitry Kirsanoff.

Music and literature

Claude Monet, Water Lilies, 1916, The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

The influence of visual Impressionism on its musical counterpart is debatable. Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel are generally considered the greatest Impressionist composers, but Debussy disavowed the term, calling it the invention of critics. Erik Satie was also considered to be in this category although his approach was considered to be less serious, more of musical novelty in nature. Paul Dukas is another French composer sometimes considered to be an Impressionist but his style is perhaps more closely aligned to the late Romanticists. Musical Impressionism beyond France includes the work of such composers as Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ottorino Respighi.

The term Impressionism has also been used to describe works of literature in which a few select details suffice to convey the sensory impressions of an incident or scene. Impressionist literature is closely related to Symbolism, with its major exemplars being Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. Authors such as Virginia Woolf and Joseph Conrad have written works which are Impressionistic in the way that they describe, rather than interpret, the impressions, sensations and emotions that constitute a character's mental life.

Post-Impressionism

Camille Pissarro, Children on a Farm, 1887

See also

• American Impressionism
• Art periods
• French Impressionist Cinema
• Heidelberg School
• Impasto
• Pictorialism

Notes

References

• Baumann, Felix; Karabelnik, Marianne, et al. (1994). Degas Portraits. London: Merrell Holberton. ISBN 1-85894-014-1
• Denvir, Bernard (1990). The Thames and Hudson Encyclopaedia of Impressionism. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 0-500-20239-7
• Gordon, Robert; Forge, Andrew (1988). Degas. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-1142-6
• Gowing, Lawrence, with Adriani, Götz; Krumrine, Mary Louise; Lewis, Mary Tompkins; Patin, Sylvie; Rewald, John (1988). Cézanne: The Early Years 1859-1872. New York: Harry N. Abrams.
• Moskowitz, Ira; Sérullaz, Maurice (1962). French Impressionists: A Selection of Drawings of the French 19th Century. Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-58560-2
• Rewald, John (1973). The History of Impressionism (4th, Revised Ed.). New York: The Museum of Modern Art. ISBN 0-87070-360-9
• Richardson, John (1976). Manet (3rd Ed.). Oxford: Phaidon Press Ltd. ISBN 0-7148-1743-0
• Rosenblum, Robert (1989). Paintings in the Musée d'Orsay. New York: Stewart, Tabori & Chang. ISBN 1-55670-099-7

External links

• Hecht Museum
• Mauclair, Camille (1903):
• Kapos, Martha (ed.): The Impressionists. A Retrospective, a detailed timeline
• Impressionism: Paintings collected by European Museums (1999) was an art exhibition co-organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Denver Art Museum, touring from May through December 1999. Online guided tour
• Museumsportal Schleswig-Holstein
• Suburban Pastoral The Guardian, 24 Feb 2007
• ''Weir Farm: Home of an American Impressionist,'' a National Park Service Teaching with Historic Places (TwHP) lesson plan

af:Impressionisme ar:???????? bn:????????????? bs:Impresionizam bg:????????????? ca:Impressionisme cs:Impresionismus da:Impressionisme de:Impressionismus et:Impressionism el:?????????????? es:Impresionismo eo:Impresionismo fa:????????? fr:Impressionnisme fy:Ympresjonisme gl:Impresionismo ko:???? hr:Impresionizam id:Impresionisme it:Impressionismo he:???????????? ka:????????????? kk:????????????? lv:Impresionisms lt:Impresionizmas hu:Impresszionizmus mk:????????????? ml:???????????? mn:????????????? nl:Impressionisme ja:??? no:Impresjonisme nn:Impresjonisme pl:Impresjonizm pt:Impressionismo ro:Impresionism ru:????????????? stq:Impressionismus scn:Mprissiunismu simple:Impressionism sk:Impresionizmus sl:Impresionizem sr:????????????? sh:Impresionizam fi:Impressionismi sv:Impressionism (måleri) ta:?????????????????? tt:Impressionism th:???????????????????? vi:Tr??ng phái ?n t??ng tr:?zlenimcilik tk:IMPOTENSIYAONIZM uk:???????????? ur:?????? zh:???