Impressionism and post impressionism
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism
Introduction
Impressionism and Post-impressionism are two of the most influential periods in art history. Originating in France in the late 19th century, both movements encompass some of the world’s most well-known, and beloved, artists and paintings, including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Gustav Klimt, respectively.
Impressionism
Impressionists revolutionized art; some consider it be the start of the modern art genre. It emphasized the fleeting moments of daily life over those of commissioned epic renderings. Impressionism is about moving light as opposed to stationary light and how it falls on surfaces. It expressed the temporary or fleeting quality of life. Nothing was forever. The artists rejected the classical, dry subjects and precise and defined techniques of earlier styles. Paintings were often of street scenes, and of ordinary people in every day pursuits. “Impressionists rejected the system of state-controlled academies and salons in favor of independent exhibitions, the first of which was held in 1874. They painted contemporary landscapes and scenes of modern life, especially of bourgeois leisure and recreation, instead of drawing on past art or historical and mythological narrative for their inspiration” (oxfordartonline.com) Perhaps most famously, Impressionists painted en plein air, and were most active between 1860 and 1900. This was the first truly modernized movement in art history. These artists used bright color in a unique way in an effort to capture light and movement within their paintings. “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
Introduction
Impressionism and Post-impressionism are two of the most influential periods in art history. Originating in France in the late 19th century, both movements encompass some of the world’s most well-known, and beloved, artists and paintings, including Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, and Gustav Klimt, respectively.
Impressionism
Impressionists revolutionized art; some consider it be the start of the modern art genre. It emphasized the fleeting moments of daily life over those of commissioned epic renderings. Impressionism is about moving light as opposed to stationary light and how it falls on surfaces. It expressed the temporary or fleeting quality of life. Nothing was forever. The artists rejected the classical, dry subjects and precise and defined techniques of earlier styles. Paintings were often of street scenes, and of ordinary people in every day pursuits. “Impressionists rejected the system of state-controlled academies and salons in favor of independent exhibitions, the first of which was held in 1874. They painted contemporary landscapes and scenes of modern life, especially of bourgeois leisure and recreation, instead of drawing on past art or historical and mythological narrative for their inspiration” (oxfordartonline.com) Perhaps most famously, Impressionists painted en plein air, and were most active between 1860 and 1900. This was the first truly modernized movement in art history. These artists used bright color in a unique way in an effort to capture light and movement within their paintings. “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