What was it?
Impressionism was the derisive name given to the most important artistic
phenomenon of the 19th century and the first of the Modern Movements. The
name was derived from a picture by Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1872: Paris,
Musee Marmottan), which represents the play of light on water, with the
spectator looking straight into the rising sun. The occasion of the derision was
the first Impressionist Exhibition, held in 1874, when Monet, Renoir, Sisley,
Pissarro, Cezanne, Degas, Guillaumin, Boudin, Berthe Morisot and
others held an independent exhibition. In fact, the true aim of Impressionism
was to achieve ever greater naturalism, by exact analysis of tone and colour and
by trying to render the play of light on the surface of objects. This is a form of
sensualism in which traditional ideas of composition and drawing - that is,
putting a line round a concept — were bound to suffer. Impressionist interest
in colour and light was at least partly due to the researches into the physics of
colour carried out by scientists like Chevreul; and the idea that an object of
any given colour casts a shadow tinged with its complementary (though known
already to Delacroix) suggested one ofthe principal ways in which they animated
the surface of their canvases. The flickering touch, with the paint applied in
small, brightly-coloured dabs, and the lack of firm outline, combined with the
brightness of the colour, even in the shadows, and the generally high key,
undoubtedly alienated the public. In the course of time these technical devices
became petrified into a quasi-scientific method of applying paint (Neo-Impressionism) which was supposed to give the maximum of truth — optical
truth - to nature: it also led naturally to Post-Impressionism; that is, to a purely
artistic and anti-naturalistic movement.
The great decade of Impressionism was
1870-80, but most of the major figures, such as Monet, Pissarro and Sisley,
continued to produce masterpieces in a more or less
Impressionist style
for
many more years. Degas, and Cezanne were only dubiously Impressionists even in the l870s (many of
the original group felt that
Cezanne was
more
than they could swallow) and they very soon moved away from it. Cezanne
said that he wanted 'to make of Impressionism something solid and durable,
like the art of the Museums', thus clearly defining the main weakness ofthe
movement, its lack of intellectual rigour. Nevertheless, most painting of the
last 100 years has been profoundly affected by it, and even the RA and the
Salon would nowadays be lost without it.
There is a large collection in the Musee
d'Orsay in Paris and there is now also an important collection in the Mus.
Marmottan, Passy, Paris; but the very nature of the movement, with its emphasis
on painting landscapes out of doors and catching the fleeting impression, meant
an enormous output of pictures so that they are not difficult to find. The eight
Impressionist Exhibitions were held in 1874, 1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881,
1882 and 1886.
Source: The Penguin Dictionary of Art and Artists (Penguin Reference Books)
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