Understanding Impressionism: Artists, Techniques, and Legacy
Understanding Impressionism: A Movement of Light and Color
Impressionism is linked to a dispersed group of artists that initially had no formal name. Considered radical and brash, their work was a reaction against revered painters of the time. Of fundamental interest was capturing the fleeting sensations of the moment.
Their goal was to record impressions, capture light, and fleeting sensations. While the common intention was clear, it wasn’t until 1874 when a Monet exhibition displayed the painting Impression, soleil levant, that the name ‘Impressionism’ stuck.
To paint in an impressionistic style means to represent reality as seen through the eyes of the artist. The focus of attention is on daily life, leisure activities, the sky, the sea, and landscapes. The Impressionists were especially interested in the dynamic features of reality, observing rapid changes, transformations, movements, lights, and colors.
Tones lean toward light, emphasizing color and how the appearance of an object changes according to the environment or illumination. The Impressionists found that a color appears more intense and clear when placed next to patches of other colors, which are mixed in the eyes of the beholder. This legitimized their experience and allowed them to develop a new way of looking at the world. The subject chosen had no real importance; it was the act of seeing that mattered.
Key Impressionist Painters
Three great painters of Impressionism are:
- Claude Monet
- Edgar Degas
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Claude Monet: Capturing Light’s Vibrations
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).
Monet is often considered the most impressionistic of the Impressionists for two main reasons: his unwavering dedication to painting outdoors and the rigor with which he pursued his pictorial investigation, attempting to reproduce the vibrations of light and the changing colors of things. The 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: A Classical Impressionist
Degas, due to his privileged status, had access to the private collections of paintings of the Parisian upper class. He trained in the classical tradition and through multiple trips. Degas’s relationships with the Impressionist movement were complex. Although he participated in seven of the eight group exhibitions and had contact with all the painters, he consistently refused to engage in outdoor painting. His work has undeniable realistic resonance, even in his classical portraits.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir: The Human Touch
Renoir looked more for the human figure, which is his greatest contribution to Impressionism. He portrayed Monet several times and shortly after painted Madame Charpentier and her children, which catapulted him to success and opened doors to the enclosed environments of bourgeois society. Since then, he became the most popular of the Impressionists.
This popularity was challenged when some claimed that he had lost his style, that he could not even draw or paint. Following these criticisms, he retired to the Riviera and started painting nudes, characterized by a strong sensuality.