CHAPTER 3
IMPRESSIONISM.
Carot's vision of a stable, secure world was suddenly shattered before the end of the
century by the work of the Impressionists, with their view of the world as in a state of
flux, when the paintings of the Impressionists were put on public display for the first time
in Paris. But once again, the rather carefree vision of the Impressionists was in turn
replaced by the disturbed world of the Expressionists before the end of the century.
When the works of the Impressionists first saw the light of day in the 1870s, they were
seen as something totally new as exhibition pictures. Compared to work previously
exhibited, they were small, informal in composition, spontaneously painted outdoors, and
depicting everyday scenes in bright pure colour. From the first exhibition in Paris in
1874, the work of the Impressionists was derided and mocked by critics and the public,
and not treated as art at all. Yet by the turn of the century, their art was universally
accepted, and the Impressionists had become rich and famous. Today, we look at nature
in terms of the Impressionist vision and accept their paintings as a 'natural' way of
representing the world.
THE IMPRESSIONISTS.
The Impressionists were a group of young artists who rejected the official state art of the
day as sterile, in its depiction of ancient heroes and myths. To them it was outdated and
no longer reflected the concerns of people in a time of rapid change. Neo-Classical art, in
its aims of order and permanency, reflected a world that had changed little for hundreds
of years. With new inventions and discoveries - the railway and photography, for
example - the world was now changing rapidly.
The first Impressionist exhibition of 1874 was organised in opposition to the official
State sanctioned exhibition of the Paris art academy known as the Salon. In order to
qualify for entry to this exhibition, artists had no option but to paint in the traditional
manner. The group of Impressionists refused to toe the official line and organised their
own show.
A pointer to the changing times in the 1870s was the emergence of a new wealthy
middle class in France with enough leisure time to enjoy their life as never before. These
people were no longer interested in looking back to an ideal world of the past, or the
portrayal of ancient heroes, whether religious or mythological. They were more interested
in having themselves and their leisure-time pursuits reflected in a new art for the new age
as they strolled through the streets of Paris or went boating on the Seine. It was the life of
the great outdoors, and the new artists came out to paint it. While previous artists like
Carot for example, painted real landscapes, these works were painted in the studio from
sketches made outdoors.
The Impressionists, on the other hand, came out and painted outdoors. Their motto was,
'paint what you see'. Their art was said to be realistic. If what you see is shimmering
light, or mist or fog, then that’s what you paint. You don’t paint an ideal scene or resort
to a perfect L shaped composition if that is not what you see before your eyes in the
landscape.
Because of the importance they attached to observation, the Impressionists were said to
be perceptual artists, as against the artists of the previous generation, who were
conceptual in their approach. The conceptualists had an idea in their heads of how the
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world looked, while scarcely bothering to check it against experience. For this idea of a
stable, unchanging reality, Impressionism substituted a transient reality. The world was in
a state of flux. To capture moments of this, immediacy of vision and spontaneity were
necessary.
NEW TECHNIQUES.
Because the Impressionists were essentially painters of light, and as light changes rapidly,
new techniques were developed, dictated by the haste demanded. Rapid execution
became the order of the day, giving the work a very casual but lively quality and leaving
it looking unfinished. Hence the term 'impression'. Consequently, art is no longer seen as
ideal or as an embodiment of permanent values. The world out there is no longer seen as
perfect. There is less clarity of line and form, indicating that the old certainties are gone,
and there is often no comforting centre of interest (for example, perspective lines leading
on to a house) as in classical art.
SUBJECT MATTER.
Because light and atmosphere were really the subjects of Impressionist art, and because
light can change rapidly, the subject can also change and can be painted under different
lighting conditions and in different seasons. Anything in the landscape could be a subject,
painting easels could be set up anywhere. The Impressionists rejected the historical
subjects of Neo-Classical painting which they saw as an art for the educated classes. Like
the previous realist painters they painted landscapes and ordinary people, with the
emphasis now on enjoyment and relaxation, the world as they saw it. It was an art for the
people. The upper classes found it difficult to come to terms with the new realities.
THEME OF IMPRESSIONISM.
Impressionist art is characterized by liveliness, excitement and pleasure, The idea was
that we are here for a while. There is no permanence. We cannot capture the whole of
reality in the deep perspective of the Classicists. We must be satisfied with fleeting
glances that can rapidly change. But the world is wonderful, let's enjoy it. Impressionism
is a celebration of the harmony in nature and between man and nature. This art is like a
mirror reflecting life as lived by the artists and their contemporaries. The theme of
Impressionism is the world as a reflection of the grandeur of God.
MONET INFLUENCED BY BOUDIN.
Claude Monet was the leader of the Impressionists. He was born in Paris in 1840. At the
age of five his family moved to La Havre at the mouth of the Seine. Most of his paintings
were done around the Seine valley. In his youth he did comic drawings of people and
later met the painter Eugene Boudin (1824-1898) who introduced him to painting
outdoors.
EUGENE BOUDIN
Boudin had a greater influence on Monet than any other pre-Impressionist artist. He was
little known in 1857 when he took the young Monet with him one day as he went to paint
in the countryside. Monet later said, 'it was as if a veil was torn from my eyes; I
understood what painting could be.' He discovered there and then that landscape painting
from nature was his true vocation. He said all he ever wanted to do was 'depict the
impressions made on me by the most fleeting effects'.
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Fashionable Figures on the Beach, 1865. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. See next
page.
This painting is an advance in a number of ways from the work of Courbet and Carot.
Although Courbet painted real people in outdoor settings - Burial at Ornans, for
example- he differs from Boudin in his dark tones and in his depiction of peasants.
Figures in Carot's paintings were only included for the purpose of creating a focal point
or to give scale to the landscape. His pictures were painted in the studio from sketches
made outdoors. Woman Reading on a Wooded Bank is an example.
This picture was painted outdoors on a Brittany beach. At this time there was a
growing taste for tourism among Parisian middle and upper classes.
Fashionable Figures on the Beach. Eugene Boudin. Fine Arts Museum, Boston. 1974.565.
Boudin displays his acute sense of a bright day and keen eye for costume to depict this
group of fashionable tourists on the beach at Trouville. He painted many pictures of this
type, finding a ready market among the wealthier classes depicted in them.
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Figures on the Beach. Eugene Boudin. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 1993.32.
Figures on the Beach, 1893. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Fashionable Figures has much in common with later Impressionist work in its bright
tonality and pure colours, especially in the costumes, and in the fact that it was painted
outdoors. It differs from an Impressionist work in its overall smooth textures, high finish
and in its lack of broken colour. Boudin, in his later work, concentrated on less detailed,
more atmospheric scenes where the figures were reduced in scale, and atmosphere and
the panoramic landscape were to assume much greater importance.
His Figures on the Beach, 1893, is such an example. Here, the figures – tourists, boys
fishing and gathering shellfish, and the distant horse and cart - are reduced in significance
compared to his earlier Fashionable Figures on the Beach. The emphasis is more on the
landscape, the movement of the clouds and the motion of the water. The palette of dark
blue and green captures the atmospheric effects of the rainstorm threatening on the
horizon. It could be said that Boudin beautifully created an impression of an impending
storm in his broad sweeps of the brush. The painting has the unfinished look of an
Impressionist work, but the artist clearly considered this loose, sketchy painting finished
because he signed and dated it. However, the painting differs from an Impressionist work
in its lack of broken dabs of pure colour and its emphasis on tones. Boudin is content to
paint the sky in varied tones of the same blue where the Impressionists might have
observed subtle variations of related colours. See Monet’s The Red Boats.
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CLAUDE MONET AND THE IMPRESSIONISTS.
Claude Monet's earliest paintings were done in the studio from sketches made outdoors.
The Pointe de la Heve at Low Tide 1865, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
was accepted by the jury at the Salon exhibition of 1865. This picture is very much in the
tradition of Carot in its almost perfect finish, its emphasis on tones, and in its muted
colours. It is one of his pre-Impressionist works and can be contrasted with his paintings
of the 1870s. However it is worth noting the subtle colour variations in the sky.
La Pointe de la Heve at Low Tide, Claude Monet. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas, USA.
ARGENTEUIL.
Monet went back to Paris to pursue his studies in art in 1859. There he met Renoir,
Pissarro, Sisley and other young artists with whom he discussed the new approaches to
painting. He rented a house at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine a few miles from Paris
and married Camile who was to feature in some of his work (see Lady with a Parasol).
His best Impressionist work was done in the 1870s at Argenteuil.
A comparison between an early and a later painting by Monet will illustrate how his
style developed towards full Impressionism.
Riverside Walk at Argenteuil 1872. Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.
The earlier painting is quite traditional in its L shape composition, its emphasis on linear
perspective, clarity of line, sharp tonal contrasts and smooth brushwork - especially in the
sky. Only in the modernity of its subject and in its pure colours does it stand out from the
landscapes of Carot and Courbet, or from his earlier work, The Pointe de la Heve at Low
Tide for example.
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In The Red Boats, Argenteuil, Paris, Orsay Museum. Monet conveyed the shimmering
light of a summer’s day by the use of broken colour and short flecks of paint, making the
texture less smooth throughout than in the earlier painting. The colour, too, is variegated,
especially in the sky, in place of the simpler and broader areas of colour of Riverside
Walk, which contains mostly blue, but with a subtle brushing of pale purple in the lower
sky.
This distribution of colours gives The Red Boats great colour harmony, while at the
same time allowing for lively contrasts of orange and blue in the middle distance. In the
true Impressionist style, the picture relies on colour rather than tonal contrasts. In the
trees, the transition from light to shade is expressed by gradations from yellows and
yellow-greens to soft blues, the same blues picked up in the water reflections. The
shadow side of the boats is a reddish purple, the next darkest colour to red. These are
examples of modelling in colours rather than tones. Textures throughout are mostly
rough.
This painting also demonstrates Monet's increasing concern with painting bright,
shimmering light. The objects in the painting, especially the figures on the river bank, the
trees and buildings in the distance, all are dissolved in the light, a demonstration of aerial
perspective as against the linear perspective of classical art.
Impression Sunrise, 1872. Paris, Marmottan Museum.
More than any other work this picture sums up the aims of the Impressionists. It was
exhibited in 1874 at the first Impressionist exhibition. Because of its unfinished look, one
of the critics of the day christened the whole group 'Impressionists'.
The picture shows the port of La Havre in the mist. It was painted very rapidly with
broad sweeps of colour without any details. Because Monet's motto was 'paint what you
see' rather than what you know to be there, and because light and atmosphere can often
throw a veil over objects, he was more concerned with light and atmosphere than
depicting objects in the real world. In order to achieve this he made use of soft brush
strokes to suggest the pier, chimney stacks and the masts of ships. The eye-catching
details of the men in boats in the foreground are sketched in a darker tone and with a
clearer line. The rippling effect of the water is achieved by dark strokes placed over
lighter colour. Brushing cold blues over warmer oranges produces the desired effect of
transparency in both sea and sky. The dominant blue of the painting contrasts beautifully
with the areas of orange, the sun and its reflection emerging as the strongest colours,
other colours more muted. Good for a response in creative writing.
In the 1870s, Monet's work was mostly small pictures, roughly thirty inches wide.
These were not considered important enough for the Salon. By including paintings like
these in their own exhibitions, the Impressionists were creating a new norm for exhibition
painting, that an outdoor sketch, less elaborate and spontaneously done, could be
exhibited and recognized as a finished painting.
Snow at Argenteuil, 1874. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (See next page)
This painting is another fine example of Monet's early Impressionist work. Here, the
effects of light and atmosphere can be compared with Impression Sunrise. The colours
are more muted, and there is an overall grey-green colour harmony. In Snow at
Argenteuil, while maintaining an overall even tonality, the contrasts are more of tone than
of colour. The darker tone of the nearer deciduous tree on the left, for example, contrasts
with the lighter tone of the tree in the distance. The light-grey canvas, which establishes
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the finished tone of the painting, can be seen through some of the thinly applied
brushstrokes. Quick strokes and dabs of paint define the objects and the people. The
typical impressionist dabs of colour are very much in evidence in the snow-speckled
meadow. With the artist himself, as he painted, we can feel the cold, damp air and the
falling snow.
The so-called unfinished look of the picture would have been unacceptable to the
previous generation of artists, and still had little appeal to the public on whom Monet
depended for support.
Snow at Argenteuil, Claude Monet. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 21.1329.
VETHEUIL
Monet moved to Vetheuil a rural village further down the Seine in 1878 where he did a
number of paintings. He painted Lavacourt across the river from Vetheuil in all weathers
and seasons. One of his Lavacourt scenes, Lavacourt in Winter, can be seen in the Hugh
Lane Gallery, Dublin.
Concerned as he was with the effects of light, Monet painted pictures in all weathers.
These included a number of snow scenes. In this depiction of winter in Vetheuil, the
frozen rut-filled road leads past his rented house on the left. With the typically broad jabs
of muted browns, greyish greens, violets and blues, he suggests the barren slope of the
hill on the left, as well as the chunks of ice on the river on the right. The hills beyond,
brushed in blue, grey and white, rise into the leaden sky of a late afternoon of mid-winter.
The muted colours and dark tones seem to reflect the artist’s mood of desolation. Monet
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entered a period of deep sadness. At this time he was poor and his wife Camille had just
died at the age of thirty-two.
INFLUENCE ON MODERN ART.
Developments in modern art can be traced to works of the Impressionists. Among their
innovations was their use of strong pure colours, contrasts of colour rather than of tone,
their use of broken colour, their employment of different textures to describe a variety of
objects, the ‘unfinished’ character of their work due to rapid painting outdoors, and their
general aim of depicting the effects of light and celebrating the beauties of the natural
world. Where the previous generation of artists tended to employ a uniform smooth
finish, the work of the Impressionists was recognized for its visible brushwork, lack of
detail and finish. The development of modern abstract art can be traced to paintings like
Impression Sunrise where the artist placed more emphasis on colour and texture, and the
art elements in general, than in the clear depiction of objects in the real world.
Woman with a Parasol, Claude Monet 1876. Washington, D.C., National Gallery of
Art.
This painting is an illustration of all that is essential in Impressionism. We get a fleeting
glance of a woman and her child, probably Monet’s wife, Camille and their son, as they
stroll through the fields on a summer’s day. In a sense it is almost like a snapshot, as if
she had just turned around to get her picture taken. Compare this with the static, ordered
composition of Granacci’s The Holy Family. Here is real everyday life compared with the
Woman with a Parasol, Claude Monet. National Gallery of Art, Washington.
idealized world of Granacci. In Monet's picture the moving figure is almost dissolved in
the blue of the sky, her white dress reflecting the same blue. The yellow of the clouds and
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the flowers are also reflected in her dress. The tonality is even and bright. Notice the
variety of textures Monet employs to denote sky, clouds, dress and grass. The artist is not
concerned with any emotions or feelings. His aim is to convey an impression of a figure
in the landscape and to describe a beautiful scene. We can share in his sense of wonder at
the great outdoors.
Grainstack (Sunset) 1891, Claude Monet. Fine Arts Museum, Boston.
Grainstack was exhibited in the National Gallery special exhibition for the opening of the
new wing in 2,000. It belongs to a series of at least twenty-five canvases that Monet
painted of this subject in 1890-1891. It belongs to his middle period when he had come
more and more to the view that a subject for a painting mattered little. What was of
greater significance to him was the depiction of light and atmosphere. He found that the
same objects could be painted again and again under different light, atmospheric colour
and seasons.
In colour harmony, the warm colours dominate the picture. These are contrasted with
the cooler blues, purples and greens.
Grainstack (Sunset), Claude Monet. Fine Arts Museum, Boston. 25.112.
Viewed from a distance in the art gallery, the effect is as if some hidden magical light
glowing through the canvas. Part of the secret must lie in the broken colour style of the
Impressionists. The lower part of the grainstack, on close-up examination of the painting,
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will reveal the effect of broken colour. Here, Monet has superimposed a mass of rapidly
applied twisted dabs of red-orange paint on the still-visible brownish-purple
underpainting, and as a contrast to the underpainting. This gives an effect of light, which
could not have been established by mixing those two colours on the palette and then
applying them to the canvas. The result would look flat and dull. With broken colour, the
viewer optically mixes the colours from a distance, and the effect is almost miraculous.
Compare the above picture with Haystack in the Snow, 1890. Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston.
It must be said that the effect just described can scarcely be detected in reproductions
of this, or indeed of many other paintings, and can only be appreciated on a viewing of
the original work.
Monet never went out of his way seeking grandiose subjects for his art. A few stacks
of hay or grain, a grassy field with a hedge in the background - anything could be a
subject for his art. Claude Monet's vision was realised in the transfiguration of the
commonplace. This was his unique contribution to the history of art and to our
understanding of the world.
AUGUSTE RENOIR
The Swing. Auguste Renoir. Orsay Museum, Paris.
Because they painted outdoors, the Impressionists suddenly noticed a whole new range of
bright colours. They saw that shadows were reflected light and contained a lot of blue and
purple. Renoir’s, The Swing is an illustration of this. Short broken dabs of yellow and
blue suggest light and shadow. Although people dominate the picture, and are obviously
enjoying themselves, Renoir is mainly interested in the effect of light filtering through
leaves and colours reflecting on faces, clothing and ground, rather than exploring depth
of feeling. Dappled, rosy daubs alternate with blue, lavender and brown brush strokes to
create the effect of sunlight and shadow. The Swing, representing the pleasure principal
of Impressionism, is also typical Renoir. ‘For me a painting should be an agreeable thing,
joyful and pretty, yes pretty’, wrote Renoir.
As in other Impressionist paintings, figures and trees are partly dissolved by light,
leaving outlines softened and blurred, which is why a soft line is much in evidence in
Impressionist painting. This gives the picture a gentle pastoral quality. Compare the soft
line of this painting with the clarity of line of Classical painting and the hard line of the
Expressionists.
For discussion purposes, ask the children if they think this is a happy painting, and if
so, why? Do you think Renoir was a happy person?
The Swing can also be compared to Moulin de la Galette, again as an illustration of
Renoir’s belief that ‘a painting should be something you love to look at; something happy
and beautiful’.
Moulin de la Galette, 1876. Pierre Auguste Renoir. Orsay Museum, Paris.
Renoir used the local shop girls and seamstresses who came to dance at this café as
models for the painting. Here again we see a departure from the classical ideal and the
belief that only heroic figures from history could make fit subjects for art. The
Impressionists on the other hand showed how ordinary people in their everyday life could
be celebrated. Perhaps this was the main reason why they were so slowly accepted and
appreciated.
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LIMITS OF IMPRESSIONISM.
The art of the Impressionists is essentially descriptive – they painted what they saw, as
they saw it. This left little scope for a personal approach based on the expression of
feelings. At the same time, each artist developed his/her own individual style, and the
work of different Impressionists can be compared. But these artists were not interested in
exploring human feelings. For them, the human figure was just one more fleeting object
partly dissolved by light. Some Impressionists, however, were interested in humanity.
Renoir did a lot of figure painting but his people are not shown in a reflective mood.
See The Umbrellas, by Renoir, one of the paintings of the Hugh Lane collection in The
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin. They are not the isolated individuals you find in
Expressionist art. Monet, Renoir and their friends saw themselves as members of society.
Their subjects are depicted enjoying themselves in a social context and apart from that
the viewer is not presented with any great depth of feeling.
For a personal approach and the portrayal of strong feelings, we must look to the
Expressionists who followed them. The later artists felt that Impressionism was too
ephemeral, lacking in structure and failing to take account of objective reality - the world
as it is, rather than as we see it.
See also the following works by Claude Monet: Argenteuil Basin, 1874, National
Gallery of Ireland; The Boulevard des Capucines 1873, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, USA; Red Poppies at Argenteuil (The Field of Poppies) 1873, Orsay
Museum, Paris; Haystack in the Snow 1890, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Regatta at
Argenteuil 1872, Orsay Museum, Paris, Waterloo Bridge, 1900, The Hugh Lane Gallery
Dublin; Renoir, The Seine at Asniers 1879, National Gallery London; Renoir, On the
Terrace 1881, The Art Institute of Chigago; Renoir, Country Footpath 1875, Orsay
Museum, Paris; Berthe Morisot, Summer Day 1879, National Gallery, London; Alfred
Sisley: Misty Morning,1874, Orsay Museum, Paris.
Impressionist Artists: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot,
Edouard Manet.
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