Impressionism
The Preamble to Modern Art

Impressionism was
a movement in
painting and music
that developed in
late 19th-century
France in reaction to
the formalism and
sentimentality that
characterized
academic art and
much 18th- and
early-19th-century
music.
Eugène Delacroix - Le Massacre de Scio
Impressionism

It was an attempt
to accurately and
objectively record
visual reality in
terms of transient
effects of light
and color.
Claude Monet - Twilight, Venice
ROUEN

The word
“impressionniste”
was printed for the
first time in April
1874 by Louis Leroy
to derisively describe
Claude Monet's
landscape entitled
Impressions:
Sunrise.
Louis Leroy

The Exposition des Impressionnistes was
an exhibit organized by the “Anonymous
Society of Painters, Sculptors and
Engravers”, composed of Pissarro, Monet,
Sisley, Degas, Renoir, Cézanne,
Guillaumin and Berthe Morisot.

The impressionist
movement is
often considered
to mark the
beginning of the
modern period in
art and, to a
lesser degree, in
music.
•Le “Salon des Refusés”

The Impressionists
were highly
impressed by the
works of Edouard
Manet, and became
outraged when they
learned that he was
refused for the 1863
Salon.
Edouard Manet
Olympia
Titian - The Venus of Urbino (1538)
Le Dejeuner sur L'Herbe

Impressionism in painting arose out of
dissatisfaction with the classical and
sentimental subjects and dry, precise
techniques of paintings that were
approved by the Académie des BeauxArts in Paris and done in the studio.

The Académie
traditionally set the
standards of
French art and
sponsored the
official Paris Salon
exhibitions, which
reflected and
popularized them.
En Plein Aire

Rejecting these standards, the
impressionists preferred to paint
outdoors, choosing landscapes
and street scenes, as well as
figures from everyday life.

Their primary object was to
achieve a spontaneous, undetailed rendering of the world
through careful representation of
the effect of natural light on
objects.

The foremost
impressionists
included Edgar
Degas, Claude
Monet, Berthe
Morisot, Camille
Pissarro, Pierre
Auguste Renoir,
and Alfred Sisley.
Edgar Degas
Claude Monet
Camille Pissarro
Berthe Morisot
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre Auguste Renoir
Luncheon of the Boating Party (1881)
by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Post – Impressionism

Postimpressionism is a
term designating
generally the pictorial art
movements that
succeeded
impressionism.

Initially the term was
applied to the styles
developed during the
last two decades of the
19th century by the
French painters Paul
Cézanne, Paul
Gauguin, Henri de
Toulouse-Lautrec, and
Georges Seurat, and by
the Dutch painter
Vincent van Gogh.
Paul Gauguin

It was first used in
reference to an
exhibition of
paintings by
Cézanne,
Gauguin, and van
Gogh held in
London in 1910.
Vincent van Gogh

In their work all
of the painters
named, except
Seurat, stressed
a subjective
view of the
visual world.
 Although the post-
impressionists
based their styles of
painting on the color
innovations of
impressionism, they
reacted against the
naturalistic accuracy
of impressionism
and its attempt to
depict light.
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne

Cézanne was
more interested
in rendering the
structural
qualities of his
subject than in
copying nature.

He painted still
lifes and
landscapes in a
manner
emphasizing
their cubic
volume.

His emphasis on
the geometric
forms and
prismatic light
inherent in
nature
anticipated
cubism.
Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin

Gauguin was
concerned with
developing flat,
decorative surface
patterns in an
attempt to capture
the pictorial
boldness of folk art.

His work
influenced the
style of the
French
painter Henri
Matisse, one
of the leaders
of Fauvism.
Gauguin
Matisse
Georges Seurat



Seurat had a scientific
approach to nature and color.
He devised the pointillist
technique of painting in tiny
dots of pure color.
His method, called divisionism,
was a systematic refinement of
the broken color of the
impressionists.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Van Gogh

Van Gogh used vivid, often
strident, colors to evoke
powerful spiritual and
emotional meanings from
his subjects.
Representative of his
subjective approach is
Starry Night
 His paintings presaged
expressionism.

Auguste Rodin
MODERN ART
Edvard Munch
Vasily
Kandinsky
Pablo
Picasso
Impressionism in Music

The impressionist
movement in music was led
by the French composer
Claude Debussy.

Influenced by the paintings of
the French impressionists and
by the poetry of Charles
Baudelaire, musical
impressionism emphasized
tonal color and mood rather
than formal structures such as
the sonata and the symphony