Impressionism Movement, Artists and Major Works | The Art Story "There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another." Édouard Manet "You would hardly believe how difficult it is to place a figure alone on a canvas, and to concentrate all the interest on this single and universal figure and still keep it living and real." Édouard Manet "If the painter works directly from nature, he ultimately looks for nothing but momentary effects; he does not try to compose, and soon he gets monotonous." Pierre-Auguste Renoir "If painting is no longer needed, it seems a pity that some of us are born into the world with such a passion for line and color." Mary Cassatt "It is all very well to copy what one sees, but it is far better to draw what one now only sees in one's memory. That is a transformation in which imagination collaborates with memory." Edgar Degas "Work at the same time on sky, water, branches, ground, keeping everything going on an equal basis... Don't be afraid of putting on colour...

Paint generously and unhesitatingly, for it is best not to lose the first impression." Camille Pissarro "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her; I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." Claude Monet "After 1918, as we know, enlightened public - as well as critical - esteem went decidedly to Cézanne, Renoir and Degas, and to Van Gogh, Gauguin and Seurat. The 'unorthodox' Impressionists - Monet, Pissarro, Sisley - fell under a shadow. It was then that the 'amorphousness' of Impressionism became an accepted idea; and it was forgotten that Cézanne himself had belonged to, and with, Impressionism as he had to nothing else." Clement Greenberg, from essay "The Later Monet" KEY ARTISTS Like The Art Story on Facebook Beginnings Gustave Courbet and The Challange to Official Art The Realist movement, championed by Gustave Courbet, first confronted the official Parisian art establishment in the middle of the nineteenth century. Courbet was an anarchist that thought the art of his time closed it eyes on realities of life.

The French were ruled by oppressive regime and much of the public was in in the throes of poverty. Instead of depicting such scenes, the artists of the time concentrated on idealized nudes and glorious depictions of nature. In his protest, Courbet financed an exhibition of his work right opposite the Universal Exposition in Paris of 1855, a bold act that led to the emergence of future artists that would challange the status quo. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Exhibitions in Paris and The Salon des Refusés In 1863, at the official yearly art salon, the all-important event of the French art world, a large number of artists were not allowed to participate, leading to public outcry. The same year, the Salon des Refusés ("Salon of the Refused") was formed in response to allow the exhibition of works by artists who had previously been refused entrance to the official salon.

Some of the exhibitors were Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, James Whistler, and the early iconoclast Édouard Manet. Although promoted by authorities and sanctioned by Emperor Napoleon III, the 1863 exhibition caused a scandal, due largely to the unconventional themes and styles of works such as Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (1863), which featured clothed men and naked women enjoying an afternoon picnic (the women were not classical depictions of a nude, but rather women that took off their clothes). Édouard Manet and the Painting Revolution Édouard Manet was among the first and most important innovators to emerge in the public exhibition scene in Paris. Although he grew up in admiration of the Old Masters, he began to incorporate an innovative, looser painting style and brighter palette in the early 1860s. He also started to focus on images of everyday life, such as scenes in cafes, boudoirs, and out in the street.

His anti-academic style and quintessentially modern subject matter soon attracted the attention of artists on the fringes and influenced a new type of painting that would diverge from the standards of the official salon. Similar to Le déjeuner sur l'herbe, his other works such as Olympia (1863) gave the emerging group ideas to depict that were not previously considered art-worthy. French Cafes and Diversity One of the popular venues for the individuals that were to become the Impressionist to meet and discuss painting and art were Parisian cafes. In particular, Cafe Guerbois in Montmartre was frequented by Manet starting 1866. Renoir, Bazille, Sisley, Monet, Degas, Cezanne and Pissarro would come, while Caillebotte and Bazille had studios nearby and would often join the gatherings. Other personalities joined the creative group including writers, critics, and the photographer Nadar, and most notably the writer Emile Zola that both added to the ethos of the group, and later championed their work in print. Part of the interesting dynamics of the group was the variety of personalities, economic circumstances, and political views.

Monet, Renoir, and Pissarro had lower and working class backgrounds while Morisot, Caillebotte, and Degas were from haute bourgeoisie roots. Mary Cassatt was American (and a woman) and Alfred Sisley was Anglo-French. This diversity of personalities may be the reason so much success arose from all these individual, and group, efforts. The Impressionist Exhibitions Though not yet united by any particular style, the fledgling group shared a general sense of antipathy toward overbearing academic standards of fine art, and decided to come together in the group themselves Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc.("Artists, Painters, Sculptors, Engravers, Inc."). In general, all the painters had very limitted success financially and had few works accepted in the salon exhibitions in Paris. So they held an alternative exhibition in 1874 in the studio of photographer Felix Nadar. It was not until the third exhibition in 1877 that they began to call themselves the Impressionists.

While their first exhibition received limited public attention and most of the eight exhibition they held actually cost money rather than earned money for the cooperative of artists, their later shows attracted vast audiences, with attendance records well in to the thousands. Despite some attention, most members of the group sold very few works in all the years the exhibitions took place, and some of the artists were incredibly poor through many of these years. The Term "Impressionism" The movement gained its name after the hostile French critic Louis Leroy, reviewing the first major Impressionist exhibition of 1874, seized on the title of Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise (1873), and accused the group of painting nothing but impressions. The Impressionists embraced the moniker, though they also referred to themselves as the "Independents," referring to the subversive principles of the Société des Artistes Indépendants and the group's efforts to detach itself from academic artistic conventions.

Although the styles practiced by the Impressionists varied considerably (and in fact not all of the artists would accept Leroy's title), they were bound together by a common interest in the representation of visual perception, based in fleeting optical impressions, and the focus on ephemeral moments of modern life. Concepts and Styles Claude Monet and Plein Air Painting Claude Monet is perhaps the most celebrated of the Impressionists. He was renowned for his mastery of natural light and painted at many different times of day in an attempt to capture changing conditions. He tended to paint simple impressions or subtle hints of his subjects, using very soft brushstrokes and unmixed colors to create a natural vibrating effect, as if nature itself were alive on the canvas. He did not wait for paint to dry before applying successive layers; this "wet on wet" technique produced softer edges and blurred boundaries that merely suggested a three-dimensional plane, rather than depicting it realistically. Monet's technique of painting outdoors, known as plein air painting, was practiced widely among the Impressionists. Inherited from the landscape painters of the Barbizon School, this approach led to innovations in the representation of sunlight and the passage of time, which were two central motifs of Impressionist painting.

While Monet is largely associated with the tradition of plein air, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley, among others, also painted outside in order to create their lucid portrayals of the transience of the natural world. Impressionist Figures by Degas and Renoir Other Impressionists, like Edgar Degas, were less interested in painting outdoors and rejected the idea that painting should be a spontaneous act. Considered a highly skilled draftsman and portraitist, Degas preferred indoor scenes of modern life: people sitting in cafes, musicians in an orchestra pit, ballet dancers performing mundane tasks at rehearsal. He also tended to delineate his forms with greater clarity than Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, using harder lines and thicker brushstrokes. Similarly, other artists such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, and Mary Cassatt focused on the figure and the internal psychology of the individual. Renoir, known for his use of vibrant, saturated colors, depicted the daily activities of individuals from his neighborhood of Montmartre, and, in particular, portrayed the social pastimes of Parisian society.

While Renoir, like Morisot and Cassatt, also painted outdoors, he emphasized the emotional attributes of his subjects, using light and loose brushwork to highlight the human form. The Women of Impressionism Whereas the male Impressionists painted figures mainly within the public context of the city, Morisot focused on the female figure and the private lives of women in late-nineteenth-century society. The first woman to exhibit with the Impressionists, she created rich compositions that highlighted the internal, highly personal sphere of feminine society, often emphasizing the maternal bond between mother and child in paintings such as The Cradle (1872). Together with Mary Cassatt, Eva Gonzales, and Marie Bracquemond, she was considered one of the three central female figures of the movement. Cassatt, an American painter who moved to Paris in 1866 and began exhibiting with the Impressionists in 1879, depicted the private sphere of the home, but also represented the woman in the public spaces of the newly modernized city, as in her painting At the Opera (1879).

Her work features a number of innovations, including the reduction of three-dimensional space and the application of bright, even garish colors in her paintings, both of which heralded later developments in modern art. Impressionist Cityscapes Since the movement was deeply embedded within Parisian society, Impressionism was also greatly influenced by Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann's renovation of the city in the 1860s. Haussmann's urban project, also referred to as "Haussmannization," sought to modernize the city and largely centered in the construction of wide boulevards, which became the literal hub of public social activity. This reconstruction of the city also led to the rise of the flaneur: an idler or lounger who roamed the public spaces of the city in order to be seen, while remaining detached from the crowd. In many Impressionist paintings, the detachment of the flaneur is closely associated with modernity and the estrangement of the individual within the metropolis. These themes of urbanity are depicted in the work of Gustave Caillebotte, a later proponent of the Impressionist movement, who focused on panoramic views of the city and the psychology of its citizens.

Although more realistic in style than other Impressionists, Caillebotte's images such as Paris, Rainy Day (1877) depict the artist's reaction to the changing nature of modern society, showing a flaneur in his characteristic black coat and top hat, strolling through the open space of the boulevard while gazing at passersby. Other Impressionists depicted the fleeting impressions and movements of the metropolis in cityscapes such as Monet's Boulevard des Capucines (1873) and Pissarro's The Boulevard Montmarte, Afternoon (1897). Similarly, these works emphasize the geometrical arrangement of public space through the careful delineation of buildings, trees, and streets. By applying crude brushstrokes and impressionistic streaks of color, they evoke the rapid tempo of modern life as a central facet of late-nineteenth-century urban society. Later Developments Although the Impressionists proved to be a diverse group, they came together regularly to discuss their work and exhibit. The group collaborated on eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886 while slowly beginning to unravel.

Many felt they had mastered the early, experimental styles that had won them attention and wanted to move on to explore other avenues. Others, anxious about the continued commercial failure of their work, changed course. The Triumph of Impressionism The ultimate acceptance and glory of the Impressionist movement is largely the achievement of Paul Durand-Ruel, a French art dealer that lived in London. Monet met Durand-Ruel in 1971 and the gallerist purchased Impressionist works and exhibited them in London for many years. Sales were meager, but starting in the late 1880s, he started showing Impressionsist works in the United States with growing success. In the next few years, having exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago Durand-Ruel was able to entice an audience of American buyers that bought more Impressionist works than were ever sold in France. Prices for Impressionst works skyrocketed (as much as 10 times), to the point that Monet became a millionaire. Moreover, Impressionism almost became academic to the point that a whole group of American painters descended on Monet's residence in Giverny to learn from the leader of the group.

The Inspiration for Future Modernists Meanwhile, the lessons of the style were taken up by a new generation. If Manet bridged the gap between Realism and Impressionism, then Paul Cézanne was the artist who bridged the gap between Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Cézanne learned much from Impressionist technique, but he evolved a more deliberate style of paint handling, and, toward the end of his life, a closer attention to the structure of the forms that his broad, repetitive brushstrokes depicted. As he once put it, he wished to "redo [Nicolas] Poussin after nature and make Impressionism something solid and durable like the Old Masters." Cézanne wished to break down objects into their basic geometric constituents and depict their essential building blocks. This experiment would ultimately prove highly influential for the development of Cubism by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Later still, many modern artists looked to Impressionism. For example, although the movement is not generally considered to have had a powerful impact on Abstract Expressionism, one can trace important similarities in its artists' works.

Philip Guston was once described as a latter-day "American Impressionist," and the surface qualities, suggestions of light, and "all-over" treatment of form in Jackson Pollock's work, all point to the work of Claude Monet. Content compiled and written by Justin Wolf Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors . [Internet]. . TheArtStory.org website. Available from: [Accessed ] Claude Monet Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works | The Art Story Web Services & Hosting by The Computer Studio | Designed by DesArtLab Impressionism Impressionism A movement in painting that first surfaced in France in the 1860s, it sought new ways to describe effects of light and movement, often using rich colors. The Impressionists were drawn to modern life and often painted the city, but they also captured landscapes and scenes of middle-class leisure-taking in the suburbs. Edouard Manet Edouard Manet Edouard Manet was a French painter and a prominent figure in the mid-nineteenth-century Realist movement of French art. Manet's paintings are considered among the first works of art in the modern era, due to his rough painting style and absence of idealism in his figures.

Manet was a close friend of and major influence on younger artists who founded Impressionism such as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the leading figures of French Impressionism during the late-nineteenth century. Renoir tended to favor outdoor scenes, gardens bathed in sunlight, and large gatherings of people. Known as a master of light, shadow and color, Renoir was also highly esteemed for his depiction of natural movement on the canvas. In terms of the French Impressionists' lasting popularity and fame, Renoir is perhaps second only to Monet. Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley Alfred Sisley was an English Impressionist landscape painter who spent much of his life working in France. As an enthusiast of plein air painting, Sisley was among the group of artists that included Monet, Renoir and Pissarro who dedicated themselves to capturing the transient effects of sunlight. He was a true Impressionist and committed landscape painter who never deviated from this style or subject into figurative work like many of his contemporaries.

Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro Camille Pissarro was a French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painter. Known as the "Father of Impressionism," he used his own painterly style to depict urban daily life, landscapes, and rural scenes. Jacques Louis David Jacques Louis David Jacques Louis David was a French neoclassical artist who is best known for his historical and mythological paintings. In 1774, he won the coveted Prix de Rome prize. His most famous paintings include 'The Oath of the Horatii,' 'The Death of Marat' and 'The Coronation of Napoleon.' He was Napoleon's official court painter until the regime dissolved and David exiled himself to Brussels. Eugéne Boudin Eugéne Boudin Eugéne Boudin was a French marine and landscape painter who worked primarily in the second half of the nineteenth century. His reputation steadily grew throughout his long career, eventually being awarded the Legion of Honor in 1892. His plein air method of working had a significant influence on the young Monet and consequently the Impressionist movement.

The French Salon The French Salon The Salon was a biannual Paris exhibition that, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, became the most important regular exhibition in Europe. Initially restricted to members of the French Academy, it was later opened up; however, it remained strongly associated with the Academy's conservatism, and this eventually encouraged artists to exhibit outside of its confines. Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix Eugène Delacroix was a mid-nineteenth-century French painter and pioneer of European Modernist painting. Known primarily as a Romantic, Delacroix's paintings were passionate in their depictions of love, war and human sensuality, earning the artist both praise and controversy in his time. His preoccupation with color-induced optical effects and use of expressive brushstrokes were crucial influences on Impressionism and Pointillism. Jean Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille Jean Frédéric Bazille was an Impressionist landscape painter. Coming from a wealthy background, he helped his fellow artists, including Monet, Sisley and Manet with money and materials. His career and life were cut short, dying in battle during the Franco-Prussian War at just 29 years old.

Romanticism Romanticism Romanticism was a nineteenth-century movement that celebrated the powers of emotion and intuition over rational analysis or classical ideals. Romantic artists emphasized awe, beauty, and the sublime in their works, which frequently charted the darker or chaotic sides of human life. John Constable John Constable John Constable was an English Romantic painter. He is chiefly known for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his English home. He was not elected to the Royal Academy until he was 52 years old. His work remained largely unnoticed in England until later into his career, a fact which was due in part to his seemingly old-fashion artistic style. J.M.W. Turner J.M.W. Turner J.M.W. Turner (Joseph Mallord William Turner) was a mid-nineteenth-century British painter and watercolorist. Considered a key forerunner to the French Impressionists and the American Hudson River School of painters, Turner is known in history as "the painter of light." His trademark land- and sea-scapes are categorized as Romantic and Naturalist, given the artist's expressive and poetic application of natural light. Turner was among the last great pre-modern painters.

Felix Nadar Felix Nadar Félix Nadar was the popular moniker of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, nineteenth-century French artist, photographer, balloonist and journalist. Nadar was a champion of the Impressionists, best known for his portrait photographs of the significant personalities of Parisian avant-garde. Abstract Expressionism Abstract Expressionism A tendency among New York painters of the late 1940s and '50s, all of whom were committed to an expressive art of profound emotion and universal themes. The movement embraced the gestural abstraction of Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, and the color field painting of Mark Rothko and others. It blended elements of Surrealism and abstract art in an effort to create a new style fitted to the postwar mood of anxiety and trauma. Mark Rothko Mark Rothko Mark Rothko was an Abstract Expressionist painter whose early interest in mythic landscapes gave way to mature works featuring large, hovering blocks of color on colored grounds. Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock Jackson Pollock was the most well-known Abstract Expressionist and the key example of Action Painting.

His work ranges from Jungian scenes of primitive rites to the purely abstract "drip paintings" of his later career. Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg was one the leading American art critics during the twentieth century. Best known as the ideological counterpart to Harold Rosenberg, Greenberg was a formalist who coined the terms "American-type painting" and 'Post-painterly abstraction.' He was a staunch champion of pure abstraction, including the work of Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Hans Hofmann. Pop Art Pop Art British artists of the 1950s were the first to make popular culture the dominant subject of their art, and this idea became an international phenomenon in the 1960s. But the Pop art movement is most associated with New York, and artists such as Andy Warhol, who broke with the private concerns of the Abstract Expressionists, and turned to themes which touched on public life and mass society. Andy Warhol Andy Warhol Andy Warhol was an American Pop artist best known for his prints and paintings of consumer goods, celebrities, and photographed disasters.

One of the most famous and influential artists of the 1960s, he pioneered compositions and techniques that emphasized repetition and the mechanization of art. Minimalism Minimalism Minimalism emerged as a movement in New York in the 1960s, its leading figures creating objects which blurred the boundaries between painting and sculpture, and were characterized by unitary, geometric forms and industrial materials. Emphasizing cool anonymity over the passionate expression of the previous generation of painters, the Minimalists attempted to avoid metaphorical associations, symbolism, and suggestions of spiritual transcendence. Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet Gustave Courbet was a French painter and chief figure in the Realist movement of the mid-nineteenth century. His paintings often contained an emotional bleakness, and were praised for their precision and use of light. Along with Delacroix, Courbet was a key influence on the Impressionists. Jean-Francois Millet Jean-Francois Millet Jean-Francois Millet was a Realist painter in nineteenth-century France, and a founder of the Barbizon School. He is especially known for his depictions rural life and peasant labor.

Charles Baudelaire Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a French poet and art critic during the mid-nineteenth century. His poetry depicted the harsh realities of urban poverty in nineteenth-century Paris, and often focused on the flanuer (one who wanders the city to experience it). The Baudelarian idea of the flaneur is a lasting legacy of the modern era. Emile Zola Emile Zola Emile Zola was a nineteenth-century French novelist, playwright, essayist and political activist. He was also the self-proclaimed leader of literary French Naturalism. As one of the leading cultural figures in France, Zola was close with the likes of Manet and Cézanne, and was the favorite writer of Vincent van Gogh. Realism Realism Realism is an approach to art that stresses the naturalistic representation of things, the look of objects and figures in ordinary life. It emerged as a distinct movement in the mid-nineteenth century, in opposition to the idealistic, sometimes mythical subjects that were then popular, but it can be traced back to sixteenth-century Dutch art and forward into twentieth-century styles such as Social Realism.

Neo-Classicism Neo-Classicism Neo-Classicism encompasses several distinct movements in the arts and architecture during the mid-1700s to the late 1800s that drew specifically on ancient Western cultures for inspiration. Looking back to the arts of Greece and Rome for ideal models and forms, both human and structural, Neo-Classicism was a category for literature and music as well as the visual arts. Jacques-Louis David and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres were the most iconic French Neo-Classic painters. Japonisme Japonisme Japonisme describes the influence of Japanese art, especially woodblock prints, on French artists in the second half of the nineteenth century. Many Post-Impressionists were influenced by the flat blocks of color, the emphasis on design, and the simple, everyday subject matter. Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch painter, commonly associated with the Post-Impressionist period. As one of the most prolific and experimental artists of his time, van Gogh was a spontaneous painter and a master of color and perspective. Troubled by personal demons all his life, many historians speculate that van Gogh suffered from a Bipolar disorder.

Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne Paul Cézanne was an influential French Post-Impressionist painter whose depictions of the natural world, based on internal geometric planes, paved the way for Cubism and later modern art movements. Edgar Degas Edgar Degas Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist painter, printmaker and sculptor with an extraordinarily long career from the mid-nineteenth century until after WWI. As one of the original group of Impressionists, although he preferred to be called a Realist, he traveled widely and employed the use of photography in his creative process. He is most renowned for his painting and drawings of ballet dancers in rehearsal and performances in the theatre. Georges Seurat Georges Seurat Georges-Pierre Seurat was a French painter who gave rise to the Post- and Neo-Impressionist artistic styles of the late nineteenth century. Seurat's greatest contribution to modern art was his development of Pointillism, a style of painting in which small dots of paint were applied to create a cohesive image. Combining the science of optics with painterly emotion, Pointillism evoked a visual harmony never before seen in modern art.

Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel Paul Durand-Ruel was a French art dealer who became the first champion of the Impressionists. His gallery in Bond St showed Monet, Renoir and others to the art world of London, and then further afield in the United States. He was known to support his artists through solo exhibitions and stipends. Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé Stéphane Mallarmé was a French Symbolist poet and critic in the late 1800s. Densely written, his poetry played with both the meaning and sound of words, making it difficult to translate. His work was greatly influential on the Dada and Surrealist movements. James Whistler James Whistler James Whistler was a nineteenth-century American expatriate artist. Educated in France and later based in London, Whistler was a famous proponent of art-for-art's-sake, and an esteemed practictioner of tonal harmony in his canvases, often characterized by his masterful use of blacks and greys, as seen in his most famous work, Whistler's Mother (1871).

Whistler was also known as an American Impressionist, and in 1874 he famously turned down an invitation from Degas to exhibit his work with the French Impressionists. Georges Clemenceau Georges Clemenceau Georges Clemenceau was a French statesman and journalist who served as Prime Minister both before and after WWI. Known as 'le Tigre', he was instrumental in negotiating the Treaty of Versailles. As a journalist, he was a major supporter of Emile Zola, publishing 'J'Accuse', during the Dreyfus Affair in 1898. Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism Post-Impressionism refers to a number of styles that emerged in reaction to Impressionism in the 1880s. The movement encompassed Symbolism and Neo-Impressionism before ceding to Fauvism around 1905. Its artists turned away from effects of light and atmosphere to explore new avenues such as color theory and personal feeling, often using colors and forms in intense and expressive ways. Symbolism Symbolism Symbolism is an artistic and literary movement that first emerged in France in the 1880s.

In the visual arts it is often considered part of Post-Impressionism. It is characterized by an emphasis on the mystical, romantic and expressive, and often by the use of symbolic figures. Pointillism Pointillism Pointillism is a mode of art-making, first developed in 1880s France, in which all of the paint is applied to the surface as tiny points or daubs of color. Based on the laws of color theory, pointillism relies on the viewer's eye to mix the disparate dots into the lines, shapes, shadings, and color ranges of the full scene. Fauvism Fauvism Fauvism was an early twentieth-century art movement founded by Henri Matisse and André Derain. Labeled as "wild beasts", Fauve artists favored vibrant colors and winding gestural strokes across the canvas. Claude Monet (1840–1926) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (19) Essay Claude Monet was a key figure in the Impressionist movement that transformed French painting in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Throughout his long career, Monet consistently depicted the landscape and leisure activities of Paris and its environs as well as the Normandy coast. He led the way to twentieth-century modernism by developing a unique style that strove to capture on canvas the very act of perceiving nature. Raised in Normandy, Monet was introduced to plein-air painting by Eugène Boudin ( 2003.20.2 ), known for paintings of the resorts that dotted the region’s Channel coast, and subsequently studied informally with the Dutch landscapist Johan Jongkind (1819–1891). When he was twenty-two, Monet joined the Paris studio of the academic history painter Charles Gleyre. His classmates included Auguste Renoir , Frédéric Bazille, and other future Impressionists. Monet enjoyed limited success in these early years, with a handful of landscapes, seascapes, and portraits accepted for exhibition at the annual Salons of the 1860s.

Yet many of the rejection of his more ambitious works, notably the large-scale Women in the Garden (1866; Musée d’Orsay, Paris ), inspired Monet to join with Edgar Degas , Édouard Manet , Camille Pissarro, Renoir, and others in establishing an independent exhibition in 1874. Impression: Sunrise (1873; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris), one of Monet’s contributions to this exhibition, drew particular scorn for the unfinished appearance of its loose handling and indistinct forms. Yet the artists saw the criticism as a badge of honor, and subsequently called themselves “Impressionists” after the painting’s title, even though the name was first used derisively. Monet found subjects in his immediate surroundings, as he painted the people and places he knew best. His first wife, Camille ( 2002.62.1 ), and his second wife, Alice, frequently served as models. His landscapes chart journeys around the north of France ( 31.67.11 ) and to London, where he escaped the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.

Returning to France, Monet moved first to Argenteuil, just fifteen minutes from Paris by train, then west to Vétheuil, Poissy, and finally to the more rural Giverny in 1883. His homes and gardens became gathering places for friends, including Manet and Renoir , who often painted alongside their host ( 1976.201.14 ). Yet Monet’s paintings cast a surprisingly objective eye on these scenes, which include few signs of domestic relations. Following in the path of the Barbizon painters , who had set up their easels in the Fontainebleau Forest ( 64.210 ) earlier in the century, Monet adopted and extended their commitment to close observation and naturalistic representation. Whereas the Barbizon artists painted only preliminary sketches en plein air, Monet often worked directly on large-scale canvases out of doors, then reworked and completed them in his studio. His quest to capture nature more accurately also prompted him to reject European conventions governing composition, color, and perspective. Influenced by Japanese woodblock prints , Monet’s asymmetrical arrangements of forms emphasized their two-dimensional surfaces by eliminating linear perspective and abandoning three-dimensional modeling.

He brought a vibrant brightness to his works by using unmediated colors, adding a range of tones to his shadows, and preparing canvases with light-colored primers instead of the dark grounds used in traditional landscape paintings. Monet’s interest in recording perceptual processes reached its apogee in his series paintings (e.g., Haystacks [1891], Poplars [1892], Rouen Cathedral [1894]) that dominate his output in the 1890s. In each series, Monet painted the same site again and again, recording how its appearance changed with the time of day. Light and shadow seem as substantial as stone in his Rouen Cathedral ( 30.95.250 ) series. Monet reports that he rented a room across from the cathedral’s western facade in 1892 and 1893, where he kept multiple canvases in process and moved from one to the next as the light shifted. In 1894, he reworked the canvases to their finished states.

In the 1910s and ’20s, Monet focused almost exclusively on the picturesque water-lily pond ( 1983.532 ) that he created on his property at Giverny. His final series depicts the pond in a set of mural-sized canvases where abstract renderings of plant and water emerge from broad strokes of color and intricately built-up textures. Shortly after Monet died (a wealthy and well-respected man at the age of eighty-six), the French government installed his last water-lily series in specially constructed galleries at the Orangerie in Paris, where they remain today. Laura Auricchio Department of Art & Design Studies, Parsons The New School for Design October 2004 Citation Auricchio, Laura. “Claude Monet (1840–1926).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) Further Reading House, John. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Tucker, Paul Hayes. Claude Monet: Life and Art.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. Additional Essays by Laura Auricchio Claude Monet, Wall Art and Home Décor at Art.com Claude Monet Get notified about special offers and save on your next order. Please enter a valid email address (4,649 Items) SWITCH TO VISUAL MODE What's this?You are browsing art in Classic Mode. To try our new experience where you can expore categories visually and discover art using advanced color searching, switch to Visual Mode. $75 - $150 More than $150 Claude Monet (1840 - 1925), the founder of Impressionism, was one of the most influential landscape painters in the history of art. Born in Paris, Monet met fellow Impressionists Renoir, Sisley and Bazille while enrolled in the studio of Glenyre. Monet painted outdoors to convey the fleeting effects of atmosphere, time of day, and season upon color and light. He represented natural color like a prism, breaking it down into its individual components. He often painted a series of the exact same view under different light and weather conditions.

Shop By Product Types Monet Claude - Impression, sunrise 1872. Dated 1872, its subject is the harbour of Le Havre in France, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. - art-Monet.com « previous picture | 1870s Monet's paintings | next picture » Dated 1872, its subject is the harbour of Le Havre in France, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. Monet explained the title later: Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me. I had sent a thing done in Le Havre, from my window, sun in the mist and a few masts of boats sticking up in the foreground. ... They asked me for a title for the catalogue, it couldn't really be taken for a view of Le Havre, and I said: 'Put Impression.' It was first displayed in 1874 during the first independent art show of the Impressionists (who were not yet known by that name).

Critic Louis Leroy, inspired by the painting's name, titled his hostile review of the show in Le Charivari newspaper, "The Exhibition of the Impressionists", thus inadvertently naming the new art movement. He wrote: 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. The painting was stolen from the Musée Marmottan Monet in 1985 by Philippe Jamin and Youssef Khimoun but recovered in 1990.Since 1991 it has been back on display in the museum. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: Impression, Sunrise depicts the port of Le Havre at sunrise, the two small rowboats in the foreground and the red sun being the focal elements. In the middle ground, more fishing boats are included, while in the background on the left side of the painting are clipper ships with tall masts.

Behind them are other misty shapes that "are not trees but smoke stacks of packboats and steamships, while on the right in the distance are other masts and chimneys silhouetted against the sky." In order to show these features of industry, Monet eliminated existing houses on the left side of the jetty, leaving the background unobscured. Following the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the regeneration of France was exemplified in the thriving port of Le Havre. Art historian Paul Tucker suggests that the contrast of elements like the steamboats and cranes in the background to the fishermen in the foreground represent these political implications: "Monet may have seen this painting of a highly commercial site as an answer to the postwar calls for patriotic action and an art that could lead. For while it is a poem of light and atmosphere, the painting can also be seen as an ode to the power and beauty of a revitalized France." The representation of Le Havre, hometown of Monet and a center of industry and commerce, celebrates the "renewed strength and beauty of the country...

Monet’s ultimate utopian statement." Art demonstrating France’s revitalization, Monet’s depiction of Le Havre’s sunrise mirrors the renewal of France. a r t - M o n e t . c o m Impressionism Impressionism 1 2 ► A French 19th century art movement which marked a momentous break from tradition in European painting. The Impressionists incorporated new scientific research into the physics of colour to achieve a more exact representation of colour and tone. The sudden change in the look of these paintings was brought about by a change in methodology: applying paint in small touches of pure colour rather than broader strokes, and painting out of doors to catch a particular fleeting impression of colour and light. The result was to emphasise the artist’s perception of the subject matter as much as the subject itself. Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to capture their images without detail but with bold colors.

Some of the greatest impressionist artists were Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Pierre Auguste Renoir. Manet influenced the development of impressionism. He painted everyday objects. Pissaro and Sisley painted the French countryside and river scenes. Degas enjoyed painting ballet dancers and horse races. Morisot painted women doing everyday things. Renoir loved to show the effect of sunlight on flowers and figures. Monet was interested in subtle changes in the atmosphere. While the term Impressionist covers much of the art of this time, there were smaller movements within it, such as Pointillism, Art Nouveau and Fauvism. Pointilism was developed from Impressionism and involved the use of many small dots of colour to give a painting a greater sense of vibrancy when seen from a distance. The equal size dots never quite merge in the viewer’s perception resulting in a shimmering effect like one experiences on a hot and sunny day. One of the leading exponents was Seurat to whom the term was first applied in regard to his painting ‘La Grand Jette’ (1886).

Seurat was part of the Neo-Impressionist movement which included Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Signac. The word Divisionism describes the theory they followed while the actual process was known as pointillism.The effects of this technique, if used well, were often far more striking than the conventional approach of mixing colours together. The Neo-Impressionist movement was brief yet influential. The term Divisionism was also the name of an Italian version of Neo-Impressionism in the 1890s and early 1900s, and one can trace a line to Futurism which was founded in 1909. Representative Artists: Impressionism: Art and Modernity | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (19) Essay In 1874, a group of artists called the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc. organized an exhibition in Paris that launched the movement called Impressionism.

Its founding members included Claude Monet , Edgar Degas , and Camille Pissarro, among others. The group was unified only by its independence from the official annual Salon , for which a jury of artists from the Académie des Beaux-Arts selected artworks and awarded medals. The independent artists, despite their diverse approaches to painting, appeared to contemporaries as a group. While conservative critics panned their work for its unfinished, sketchlike appearance, more progressive writers praised it for its depiction of modern life. Edmond Duranty, for example, in his 1876 essay La Nouvelle Peinture (The New Painting), wrote of their depiction of contemporary subject matter in a suitably innovative style as a revolution in painting. The exhibiting collective avoided choosing a title that would imply a unified movement or school, although some of them subsequently adopted the name by which they would eventually be known, the Impressionists. Their work is recognized today for its modernity, embodied in its rejection of established styles, its incorporation of new technology and ideas, and its depiction of modern life.

Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris) exhibited in 1874, gave the Impressionist movement its name when the critic Louis Leroy accused it of being a sketch or “impression,” not a finished painting. It demonstrates the techniques many of the independent artists adopted: short, broken brushstrokes that barely convey forms, pure unblended colors, and an emphasis on the effects of light. Rather than neutral white, grays, and blacks, Impressionists often rendered shadows and highlights in color. The artists’ loose brushwork gives an effect of spontaneity and effortlessness that masks their often carefully constructed compositions, such as in Alfred Sisley’s 1878 Allée of Chestnut Trees ( 1975.1.211 ). This seemingly casual style became widely accepted, even in the official Salon, as the new language with which to depict modern life. In addition to their radical technique, the bright colors of Impressionist canvases were shocking for eyes accustomed to the more sober colors of Academic painting. Many of the independent artists chose not to apply the thick golden varnish that painters customarily used to tone down their works.

The paints themselves were more vivid as well. The nineteenth century saw the development of synthetic pigments for artists’ paints, providing vibrant shades of blue, green, and yellow that painters had never used before. Édouard Manet’s 1874 Boating ( 29.100.115 ), for example, features an expanse of the new Cerulean blue and synthetic ultramarine. Depicted in a radically cropped, Japanese-inspired composition , the fashionable boater and his companion embody modernity in their form, their subject matter, and the very materials used to paint them. Such images of suburban and rural leisure outside of Paris were a popular subject for the Impressionists, notably Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir . Several of them lived in the country for part or all of the year. New railway lines radiating out from the city made travel so convenient that Parisians virtually flooded into the countryside every weekend. While some of the Impressionists, such as Pissarro, focused on the daily life of local villagers in Pontoise, most preferred to depict the vacationers’ rural pastimes. The boating and bathing establishments that flourished in these regions became favorite motifs.

In his 1869 La Grenouillère ( 29.100.112 ), for example, Monet’s characteristically loose painting style complements the leisure activities he portrays. Landscapes , which figure prominently in Impressionist art, were also brought up to date with innovative compositions, light effects, and use of color. Monet in particular emphasized the modernization of the landscape by including railways and factories, signs of encroaching industrialization that would have seemed inappropriate to the Barbizon artists of the previous generation. Perhaps the prime site of modernity in the late nineteenth century was the city of Paris itself, renovated between 1853 and 1870 under Emperor Napoleon III. His prefect, Baron Haussmann, laid the plans, tearing down old buildings to create more open space for a cleaner, safer city. Also contributing to its new look was the Siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), which required reconstructing the parts of the city that had been destroyed.

Impressionists such as Pissarro and Gustave Caillebotte enthusiastically painted the renovated city, employing their new style to depict its wide boulevards, public gardens, and grand buildings. While some focused on the cityscapes, others turned their sights to the city’s inhabitants. The Paris population explosion after the Franco-Prussian War gave them a tremendous amount of material for their scenes of urban life. Characteristic of these scenes was the mixing of social classes that took place in public settings. Degas and Caillebotte focused on working people, including singers and dancers , as well as workmen. Others, including Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt , depicted the privileged classes. The Impressionists also painted new forms of leisure, including theatrical entertainment (such as Cassatt’s 1878 In the Loge [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]), cafés, popular concerts, and dances. Taking an approach similar to Naturalist writers such as Émile Zola, the painters of urban scenes depicted fleeting yet typical moments in the lives of characters they observed.

Caillebotte’s 1877 Paris Street, Rainy Day (Art Institute, Chicago) exemplifies how these artists abandoned sentimental depictions and explicit narratives, adopting instead a detached, objective view that merely suggests what is going on. The independent collective had a fluid membership over the course of the eight exhibitions it organized between 1874 and 1886, with the number of participating artists ranging from nine to thirty. Pissarro, the eldest, was the only artist who exhibited in all eight shows, while Morisot participated in seven. Ideas for an independent exhibition had been discussed as early as 1867, but the Franco-Prussian War intervened. The painter Frédéric Bazille, who had been leading the efforts, was killed in the war. Subsequent exhibitions were headed by different artists. Philosophical and political differences among the artists led to heated disputes and fractures, causing fluctuations in the contributors. The exhibitions even included the works of more conservative artists who simply refused to submit their work to the Salon jury. Also participating in the independent exhibitions were Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin , whose later styles grew out of their early work with the Impressionists.

The last of the independent exhibitions in 1886 also saw the beginning of a new phase in avant-garde painting. By this time, few of the participants were working in a recognizably Impressionist manner. Most of the core members were developing new, individual styles that caused ruptures in the group’s tenuous unity. Pissarro promoted the participation of Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, in addition to adopting their new technique based on points of pure color, known as Neo-Impressionism . The young Gauguin was making forays into Primitivism. The nascent Symbolist Odilon Redon also contributed, though his style was unlike that of any other participant. Because of the group’s stylistic and philosophical fragmentation, and because of the need for assured income, some of the core members such as Monet and Renoir exhibited in venues where their works were more likely to sell. Its many facets and varied participants make the Impressionist movement difficult to define. Indeed, its life seems as fleeting as the light effects it sought to capture. Even so, Impressionism was a movement of enduring consequence, as its embrace of modernity made it the springboard for later avant-garde art in Europe.

Margaret Samu Institute of Fine Arts, New York University October 2004 Citation Samu, Margaret. “Impressionism: Art and Modernity.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) Further Reading Bomford, David, et al. Art in the Making: Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue.. New Haven and London: National Gallery, 1990. Herbert, Robert L. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. House, John. Monet: Nature into Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Moffett, Charles S., et al. The New Painting: Impressionism 1874–1886. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1986. Nochlin, Linda, ed. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874–1904: Sources and Documents.

Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. Rev. and enl. ed. . New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1961. Tinterow, Gary, and Henri Loyrette. Origins of Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue.. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994. See on MetPublications Related Claude Monet Movement, Posters and Prints at Art.com > shop > Artists > Claude Monet > Fine Art > Movement Claude Monet Movement (4,631 Items) SWITCH TO VISUAL MODE What's this?You are browsing art in Classic Mode. To try our new experience where you can expore categories visually and discover art using advanced color searching, switch to Visual Mode. $75 - $150 More than $150 Claude Monet (1840 - 1925), the founder of Impressionism, was one of the most influential landscape painters in the history of art. Born in Paris, Monet met fellow Impressionists Renoir, Sisley and Bazille while enrolled in the studio of Glenyre.

Monet painted outdoors to convey the fleeting effects of atmosphere, time of day, and season upon color and light. He represented natural color like a prism, breaking it down into its individual components. He often painted a series of the exact same view under different light and weather conditions. Shop By Product Types A Closer Look at Claude Monet’s Water Lilies - Art.com blog A Closer Look at Claude Monet’s Water Lilies Artist Spotlights January 14, 2014 As one of the founders of the Impressionist movement, Claude Monet ’s work is characterized by small brush strokes and everyday subject matter. Monet’s passion for horticulture heavily influenced his work, and he painted many of his works outdoors, or “en plein air”. This passion is evident in his later works, including his most famous series of paintings, Water Lilies. Inspiration for the Water Lilies series came from his home in Giverny, France, which Monet purchased in 1893. He lovingly transformed his land into a lavish garden, paying particular attention to the natural pond, growing water lilies and installing a wooden footbridge.

Monet began the series of around 250 oil paintings in 1903 and they became his biggest artistic focus in the last 30 years of his life: he featured his garden at various times during the day and through the changing seasons. The earlier works in the series centered on the wooden footbridge, but Monet later shifted his focus to the water lilies. Interestingly, Monet painted many pieces after cataracts affected his eyesight. Many believe that his altered vision resulted in the soft red tone found in his early Water Lilies paintings. Following surgery to remove the cataracts in 1923, Monet used blue hues, and even color corrected some of his earlier works. Value Sales of Monet’s Water Lilies have appeared in headlines in recent years: in 2007, Nympheas sold for £18.5 million—around $30 million—at Sotheby’s Auction House in London.

In 2008, the largest of Monet’s Water Lilies, Le Bassin Aux Nymphéas, sold for just over £40 million (around $66 million) at Christie’s, making it the most expensive Impressionist painting sold to date. See them for yourself Paintings from Monet’s Water Lilies series are currently on display in museums globally, including the Musée d’Orsay and Musée Marmottan Monet, both in Paris; the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Art Institute of Chicago .

Question: What art movement was exemplified by Claude Monet?
Answer: Impressionism