IMPRESSIONISM and REALISM

Example of Impressionism

The Impressionist art movement began in France in the late 1800s.  It focuses on capturing the impression of a scene as it appears to the artist.  It was the artist's intent to paint their "impression" rather than what they saw in real life.

The style is called en plein air, French for in the open air.  The impressionist's favorite subject:  the landscape.  The Impressionist painters were especially fond of the play of light on water.  You will notice how water holds a number of symbolic meanings in art, ranging from tranquility to forbidding and impossible to control.  

What are the characteristics of Impressionism?   

• Painting outdoors to capture the changing light and atmosphere as it flickered and faded while the artist worked.
• Short, quick and often messy brushstrokes.  Impressionists believed it was acceptable to see visible brush strokes in a final piece, like the artist's hand itself.
• Bright, vibrant colors to capture light and shadow.
• Impressionist paintings often had an unfinished look.

We have already studied Vincent Van Gogh, and his paintings are referred to as Post-Impressionism.   

Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French painter and leader of the Impressionist movement, known as the King of Impressionism.

IMPRESSIONISM in a nutshell:  "Taken as a whole, Impressionism argues that we don't really see the natural or real world objectively because everything that we perceive is filtered through our minds, and our minds are filled with unique and personal memories and emotions.....SO, each of our minds perceives the world differently."  All we really have is our IMPRESSION of what we see.

There are different genres of art, and there's no way we're going to study all of them.  Together, we'll learn to identify those from the 19th century to today.  

The Stone Breakers - Gustave Courbet - 1849
Example of Realism

Before Impressionism was the style of Realism.  It was an artistic movement that depicted the world as accurately and authentically as possible.  It's characterized by observing closely outward appearances....with no imaginative idealization.  Simply said, Realism depicted real life.  Realism started in Europe in the mid-1800s and is considered the beginning of modern art.  Realism art represents our world as if we're looking through a window at its harsh realities. 

The Stone Breakers (pictured above) depicts the hard-working class of people at the time.  It's been called "a masterpiece in its genre."  Controversy in art started when painters began addressing social issues in their work, by painting the rural peasants and the working conditions of the poor.  The painting clearly depicts men who are toiling in exhaustion.  It emphasizes the backbreaking monotony of this sector of society and allows us to see for ourselves what life was like for them.  It was reality...Realism.