Art History Articles

Movements in Art History - Impressionism

by Eric Tilden

Published: 2009-06-30, Tue 09:56:48

Impressionism began as a rebellion against the establishment in France during the 1860’s. The Académie des Beaux-Arts controlled what was exhibited and who was allowed to exhibit. The only items that they would allow in their exhibitions were historical themes, portraits, and religious themes. They did not allow landscapes or still lives. All pieces had to look photo-realistic and could not have bright colors. The brushstrokes had to be invisible, along with any revelation of identity or mood from the artist. Impressionists believed in painting subjects from everyday life, painting out doors, and using contrasting colors, like an orange highlight next to a blue shadow, to depict intense scenes. They discovered that, by using colors that were opposite to each other on the color wheel, that they could create vibrant, intense-looking images. Some examples of contrasting colors include: blue and orange, yellow and violet, and red and green.

In 1863, the movement was born, due to the huge number of rejections that year by the Académie. Napoleon III decreed that the public had a right to judge the work for themselves, and so the Salon of the Refused started the ball rolling. More people came to this exhibition than the traditional salon, due to the variety of new subject matter, including landscapes.

The group petitioned to organize another Salon of the Refused in 1867 and 1872, but was denied. A year later a new organization was created to exhibit independently, called the Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers. Those who joined this organization were required to swear off exhibiting for the Académie. Thirty artists were persuaded to join, and the organization had their first exhibition in 1874. It opened to mixed reviews. One of the harshest critics, Louis Leroy, mocked the group by calling them Impressionists, picking on Claude Monet’s Impression Sunrise. He stated that the image looked like an unfinished sketch and was not worthy of being called a finished work.

The purest of the Impressionists, who pursued spontaneous subjects, bright and vibrant colors, and how the sunlight falls on various things in nature, were Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro. Other artists, who exhibited with the group, and have been associated with the Impressionists throughout history, broke way from the group. Two of these artists were Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas. Renoir moved away from Impressionist techniques and gravitated toward photo-realistic techniques.

An example of his Impressionistic work is Le Moulin de la Galette:



An example of his more photo-realistic work is The Bathers:



Edgar Degas, who is famous for depicting hundreds of scenes from the ballet, was loyal to the group, but did not like being called an Impressionist. He linked up with the group in 1874, after his brother died and his debts wiped out all that he had. Although he painted contemporary scenes, like the other Impressionists, he differed from them in that he never adopted their use of bright, contrasting colors, nor their affinity for painting in the outdoors, called plein air.

An example of Degas’ work is From an Opera Box:



The Impressionist movement grew into different directions, beginning in the 1880’s with the Post-Impressionists. The Post-Impressionists made a greater use of the contrasting colors used in Impressionist works, and one of their leading members, Georges Seurat, gave the world the technique called pointillism. The Post-Impressionists grew and matured into the Fauvists, who really explored the use of vibrant colors, and later the Expressionists, who took the use of color to the extreme in the early 1900’s.

Sources:
Wikipedia – Claude Monet
Wikipedia – Edgar Degas
Wikipedia – Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Art Fundamentals: Theory and Practice 8th Edition, 1998
Wikipedia – Impressionism