Impressionism: Masters, Techniques, and Legacy
Impressionism
Impressionism is linked to a dispersed group of artists who initially had no name. Considered radical and brash, their work was a reaction against revered painters of the past. Their fundamental interest was to record impressions, capture light, and the fleeting sensations of the moment. While the common intention was clear, it was not until 1874, when at a Monet exhibition, the movement took its name from the painting Impression, soleil levant.
To paint in an impressionistic way means to represent reality as seen through the eyes of the artist. The focus of attention is daily life: leisure, the sky, the sea, and landscapes. The Impressionists had a special interest in the dynamic features of reality, observing rapid changes, transformations, movements, lights, and colors. Tones lean toward light, emphasizing how color and appearance change according to the environment or illumination.
The Impressionists found that there is a more intense and clear printing of a color when patches of other colors meet on the surface (like a box of cigars), which are then mixed in the eyes of the beholder. This legitimized their experience and helped them develop a new way of looking at their subjects, which, for them, had no real importance.
Three Great Painters of Impressionism
- Claude Monet
- Edgar Degas
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Monet was born in Paris in 1840 and studied at the Académie Suisse. In the 1860s, he devoted himself to painting en plein air (outdoors). There are two main reasons why Monet is considered the most Impressionistic of the Impressionists: his unwavering love for open spaces and the rigor with which he carried out his pictorial investigation in an attempt to reproduce the changing vibrations of light and color. His paintings dedicated to the Rouen Cathedral are the most eloquent testimony to his perseverance. This consistency gave him a prominent role within the Impressionist group.
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Degas’s privileged status allowed him to access the private painting collections of the Parisian upper class. His training was rooted in the classical tradition and enriched through multiple travels. Degas’s relationship with the Impressionist movement was quite complex. Although he participated in seven of the eight group exhibitions and had various contacts with all the painters, he consistently refused to engage in outdoor painting. His work has undeniable realistic and even classical portraiture resonances.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Renoir focused more on the human figure, which is his greatest contribution to Impressionism. Shortly after painting Madame Charpentier and Her Children, he was catapulted to success and received commissions from bourgeois society. He became one of the most popular Impressionists. This popularity was later challenged when he claimed he had lost his style, that he could no longer draw or paint. Following these deliberations, he retired to the Riviera and began painting female nudes, characterized by strong sensuality.