IMPRESSIONISMMarkku Leino, dap01s

Manet: Music in Tuillerien park

Topics

• Brief History

• What is Impressionism

• Impressionism in today’s media

BRIEF HISTORY

In 1860’s

• The Academy of France dictates what is to be considered as “fine art”: who will get his/her works displayed in the Salon and how the work is then received. If one wanted to be a successful artist, one had to get positive feedback from Salon’s jury.

• The paintings were supposed to be about historical, mythological or biblical events or at least contain some moral story.

• A good painting was to have very fine details and continuous colors; one shouldn’t be able to detect the difference between two brush strokes for example where the color changes gradually.

In 1860’s and 70’s

• An group of artists challenge the Academy with their painting subjects and techniques.

• In 1863 there is a separate exhibition for the vast amount of art rejected by the jury. The Academy’s domination starts to crumble.

• The paintings in the new style could be just about anything. No real rules were set for the subject.

– Mostly about landscapes and people doing common, everyday things.– A nice looking play between light and shadow could easily be a reason for a

painting.– A characteristic of many of these paintings is the aim to capture the moment.

• The colors were painted as rays of light – even shadows.– The colors were considered as single rays of light that hit the eye.

Manet: Olympia

In 1870’s and 80’s

• The first Impressionist exhibition in 1871.

• The movement started to fade away in the 1880’s: some of the impressionists thought they had got what they wanted from the style and started to look for new ideas.

• One of the art movements that followed Impressionism is Neo-Impressionism. It was developed by a few former Impressionists.

• The other name for Neo-Impressionism is Pointillism.

WHAT IS IMPRESSIONISM?

“…a mere impression of a sunrise...!”-Louis Leroy

Painting themes

• Much like Realism: Commoners, landscapes, people doing normal everyday things.– No classical posturing in uncomfortable positions: “Be normal!”

• Capturing the moment.– Camera was instrumental in developing this theme. People half out of

the picture in the Impressionist paintings were so because they were seen thus before in photographs.

• No strict rules. Paint what you see and like.

• Painting at the scene (no airy landscape paintings done inside buildings in artificial light).

Painting techniques

• Capture the moment – paint fast!

• What you see is not reality, which is nice. Paint it.– What is not important is not shown.– People are sometimes deformed – especially in later works.– Sometimes the colors in Impressionist paintings look very weird.

• Bending of the rules– Using the camera– Not painting outside even when painting landscapes.– Coming back to the same spot at the same time the next day.

• Painting style evolved into Pointillism…

Pointillism

• The Impressionists painted the colors as rays of light. The style requires more from a spectator: the painting is to be watched from a distance where the brain does the work of mixing the colors.

• The technique was inspired by Eugenè Chevreul’s scientific studies of colours and their use.

• Depending on the source, either Camille Pisarro or Georges Seurat and Paul Signac refined this technique from brush strokes to even sized dots of pure color.

Monet: Parliament

Painting fast to capture the moment

The use of different color strokes

Degas: A dancer on the stage

Ordinary people. Show only what is important

Degas: Absinth

Monet: Pond

Colors are not necessary lifelike

Pointillism

Seurat: La Maria

IMPRESSIONISMIN

TODAY’S MEDIA

Techniques

• Pointillism– raster image: TV, Computer screen, Led screens (for example the huge

screens in rock festivals and sport events), Printing…

• What you see is important.– Blurred background / foreground for example in movies and

photographs.

• Impressionism became extremely popular, although during the movement’s lifetime it wasn’t appreciated.– Some of the cool effects you make into your pictures, for example in

Adobe Photoshop (Filter/Pixelate/Pointillize…) are Impressionistic.

Themes• Did Impressionism affect the content in media?

– What if there hadn’t been Impressionism?

– Would Realism have done the trick?

– Impressionists did break the Academy’s domination over what was considered as fine art.

• The ordinary things are the themes.– In photographs and movies are often about “ordinary” things.

– Example: NYPD Blue’s camera sweeps are impressions of the scene.

– Were there theatre plays or novels where the hero was the underdog (just about any Bruce Willis’s character) instead of some religious figure or a noble (like in Hamlet)?

• Did the politics of 20’th century get affected by some art movements’ ideals?

Questions…

…wait until the opponent has said his piece!

THANK YOU!