Impressionist painters did not paint from their imagination, from literature, history or mythology like most other painters of the 19th century. They painted what they saw in the world around them: the town where they lived, the landscape where they went on holiday, their family, their friends, their studios and the things that were around their home. Sometimes they were "commissioned" (given a job) to paint a portrait of someone.
Impressionist painters liked to paint "ordinary" things that were part of everyday life. They painted women doing the washing and ironing, ballet dancers doing exercises, horses getting ready for a race and a bored-looking waitress serving a customer. Nobody, before the Impressionists, had ever thought that these subjects were interesting enough to paint.
Even though many Impressionist artists painted people, they are thought of mainly for their landscape painting. Impressionist painters were not satisfied with doing some drawings or quick painted sketches outdoors and then making grand pictures in the studio. Impressionist painters were not satisfied with painting the shape of the land, the buildings and trees. They wanted to capture the light and the weather.
The Impressionist painters looked for a "technique" (a way of doing something) to paint landscapes that showed the light and the weather. The light and the weather change all the time. The light of the sun on the landscape changes every minute as the Earth turns. Impressionist painters looked at the works of earlier French artists such as Camille Corot and Gustave Courbet. Courbet often took his paints outdoors and made quick coloured sketches that he could then use to make large paintings in his studio. The Impressionist painters were more interested in the sketches than the finished paintings.
Another artist, Eugene Boudin, used to sit on the beach at Deauville with his oil paints, and make quick paintings of the people on holiday. They would sometimes buy his paintings as souvenirs.
Claude Monet met Boudin and learnt that the only way to "capture" the way that a landscape looked at a particular time was to paint small pictures, very quickly, and without bothering to mix the paints up to make nice smooth even colours. Impressionist painters would use big brushstrokes of different bright colours and let them get mixed up on the canvas, instead of carefully mixing them up on a palette first. By painting in this way, without bothering with the details, Impressionist painters capture a realistic "impression" of a the world that they saw around them.
Some of the things that they painted were: snow gently falling over a town, mist rising on a river in the pink morning light, people walking through a field of wheat with bright red poppies growing in it, sunlight dappling through leaves onto people dancing, a train sending up clouds of smoke in a big railway station, and water lillies floating on a pool under drooping willows.
Most Impressionist landscape paintings are small, so that the artist could carry them outdoors. Some artists, particularly Claude Monet, would take several canvases, and as the day went on and the light changed, he would put down one and take up another. He rented a room from which he could see Rouen Cathedral so that he could paint it from the window at different times of day. Monet also did a series of "Haystack" paintings, showing them standing in the field from different angles and in all sorts of weather, bright sunshine, morning frost and snow. Paintings that are done outdoors are called "plein air" paintings. The Impressionist painters often used to go out together on painting trips, so there are many pictures that can be compared.
The term "impressionism" has been used for other forms of art, such as writing and music. Octave Mirbeau is often described as an impressionist writer. In 1887, music critics said the works of Claude Debussy were impressionist. Later, other composers were also described as impressionist, including Maurice Ravel, Paul Dukas, Erik Satie and Albert Roussel.
Click on each image to enlarge it, to see the way each artist has used brush-strokes and colour.
New York Jets
The New York Jets are an American football team. They are a part of the National Football League (NFL). Even though they are called the New York Jets they play in New Jersey. They hail from the same stadium as the New York Giants. They have many fans in New York and New Jersey. The New York Jets started playing in 1960. They have only won one championship.
The Jets were originally called the New York Titans. They played their games in the Polo Grounds. When they moved to Shea Stadium in 1964, they were called the Jets. That was a more modern-sounding name, and it also rhymed with "New York Mets", the other team that played its games at Shea. The New York Jets have won only one super bowl in 1969 , this victory was guaranteed by their QB, Joe Namath, in the media in the weeks leading up to the game.
List of settlements in Ontario
This is a list of settlements in Ontario, Canada. Settlements are listed by the number of people living in them and by order of letters (A-Z).<br>
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"Please Note": All the populations shown on this page are city propers (where the city hall is), metropolitan area populations (if any) are higher than the populations shown on this page.
Ouida
Ouida was the pen name of the English writer Maria Louise Ramé (although she preferred to be known as Marie Louise de la Ramée). Ramé was born in Bury St. Edmunds, England, to a French father and an English mother. Her pen name came from the way she pronounced her name when she was a child.
Théodore Géricault
Théodore Géricault (September 26, 1791 – January 26, 1824) was an important French painter, known for "The Raft of the Medusa" and other paintings. He was one of the people who started the Romantic movement.
Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was schooled in English sporting art by Carle Vernet and in classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, who saw that he had talent.
His first big work, "The Charging Chasseur", shown at the Paris Salon in 1812, showed the influence of the style of Rubens and an interest in contemporary topics.
Giada De Laurentiis
Giada Pamela De Laurentiis is an Italian-American chef and host for Food Network TV shows. She was born on August 22, 1970. She is the granddaughter of movie director Dino De Laurentiis. She was born in Rome and grew up in Los Angeles.
De Laurentiis studied at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, France.
On May 25, 2003, she married Todd Thompson. The two had been dating since July 1989. The couple's only child is Jade Marie De Laurentiis-Thompson. She was born on March 29, 2008. On December 29, 2014, De Laurentiis announced on her website that she and Todd separated in July, and have decided to end their marriage.
In 2008, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lifestyle Host.
She is also the voice of "Paulette", a character on the animated children's show "Handy Manny".
Space Shuttle Challenger
Space Shuttle "Challenger" (OV-099) was the second space shuttle used by NASA to fly into outer space. The shuttle broke up 73 seconds after take-off from Cape Canaveral on 28 January 1986.
All seven astronauts who were on it at the time were killed. The crash happened because a rubber tube called an o-ring did not expand to fill a gap in one of the booster rockets, due to cold weather.