Six artists and their contributions to an art period

¶ … Arists

Six Major Artists of an Artistic Period: Impressionism

Introduction to the Impressionist Period

Today, Monet's famous painting entitled "Impression: Sunrise" hangs in the Musee Marmottan in France. This museum is one of the most famous major art museums in the world. "Impression: Sunrise" is considered one of the classic images of world art. It is hard to believe that when this painting was first created by Monet's brush, not only did the critics dislike this work. The critics even questioned whether the art of the Impressionist movement was 'art' at all. Monet, along with his fellow Impressionists Manet, Renoir, Degas, Cassatt, and Pissarro, were all dismissed as artists because they attempted to use the images in their art to show shadings of color and light, rather than an accurate picture of reality.

Photography was invented in the 19th century. The Impressionist artists wished to bring a new element to art. They wished to show the artist's inner life. They believed that simply showing what existed 'in life' was not enough to justify the further existence of art. The Impressionist movement began in France, the heart of the art world of a late 19th and early 20th century Europe. "Impressionist painting comprises the work produced between about 1867 and 1886 by a group of artists who shared a set of related approaches and techniques. Characteristics of Impressionism were an attempt to accurately and objectively record visual reality in terms of transient effects of light and color." (Cox, Hyder, Gibson, Douglas, Bishop, 2003)

Claude Monet -- the movement's pioneer

Claude Monet was the leader of Impressionism. "Impression: Sunrise" of 1872 became so famous it gave the Imprssionist group its name. ("Monet," Picoch, 2002) Impressions of reality rather than reality itself were what was important to Monet as an artist, in all of his works. In his art, Monet frequently picked one image, such as the Rouen Cathedral or the famous Waterlillies of the Metropolitan Musem, and painted many patinings of the same subject, only in different ways. The cathedral looks different at different times of day -- and so does the artist's feelings about the cathedral, so different looking images are produced of the same subject. ("Monet," Pioch, 2002)

Manet -- the movement's inspiration

When paying tribute to Monet, however, it is important not to forget one of Monet's inspirations. Manet's early paintings inspired Monet's ideas about the nature of art. Manet chose his subjects from real-life events. His "Luncheon on the Grass" shows young men and women at a picnic. Manet learned from the later artists who he inspred, and became an Impressionist himself. He used the Impressionist style to paint such works as "Olympia" (1863) and "A Bar at the Folies-Bergere" (1882). Manet is also unique in "stressing the definition of painting as the arrangement of paint areas on a canvas over and above its function as representation." The posiitoning of the subject sof the painting is what makes Manets (as opposed to the gauzy Monets) unique. (Enclyclopedia Britannica, 1994)

Renior -- using the movement to move to his own style

Of the major impressionists, Renior followed the opposite trajectory in his style than Manet. He began with very fuzzy looking works of light and sun, then began to paint more sharply drawn works, especially of women. His earliest works have urban subjects. They are typical "Impressionist snapshots of real life, full of sparkling colour and light," but by "the mid-1880s," Renior "had broken with the movement to apply a more disciplined, formal technique to portraits and figure paintings, particularly of women" such as his "Bathers," painted slowly over the course of the years of 1884-87. (Picoch, 2002)

Edgar Degas -- representing movement and the working class

Of all the Impressionists, Edgar Degas is acknowledged as the master of drawing the human figure in motion. Degas worked in many mediums, preferring pastels to oils. He is perhaps best known for his paintings, drawings, and bronzes of ballerinas and of race horses. Movement's ability to engage in the expressive aims of impressionism is what is important. "These characteristics set Degas apart from the other painters," (Picoh, 2003) He also preferred pastels, even sketches, than oils, and his subjects were not landscapes or even beautiful human forms but "milliners, laundresses, and groups of dancers against backgrounds now only sketchily indicated." The bronze "Little Dancer" is a sculpture of a simle, ordinary member of the Paris Opera ballet chorus. (Harden, 2002)