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Impressionism started as a rebellion of a few young artists in Paris around 1863 against a rigid art establishment. It took the Impressionist artists about 20 years before ridicule was replaced by recognition. French Impressionism had paved the way for all subsequent 20th century art movements.
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The Essential of Impressionism
Impressionist art started with a rebellion by four art students and friends - Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille. They knew each other from common painting classes where they learned conventional painting. Conventional art in France was then done exclusively in studios with subjects centered around history and Greek mythology and with dominant dark colors.
The four young artists thought this was rather boring and one day they took their easels, went to the nearby forest of Fontainbleau and started painting in the open air. They painted with swift brush strokes trying to catch the impression of the moment. Showing the effects of light on a subject was paramount for the Impressionist art movement. Claude Monet later painted several series of the same subject at different times of the day.
Another very visible difference of Impressionism was the use of light and strong colors.
In the beginning the Impressionist painters were nothing but ridiculed by the public. Art critics called the paintings unfinished and declared the artists as madmen. In newspaper cartoons pregnant women were warned not to enter an Impressionist art exhibition because of the danger of a miscarriage. In other caricatures it was proposed to fend off the Prussian enemy, who was marching towards Paris in 1870, by showing them Impressionist paintings.
It took nearly 20 years until Impressionism was finally recognized and appreciated in France.
Post Impressionism and Neo Impressionism
The terms Post Impressionism and Neo Impressionism are used to categorize later artists like Paul Gauguin or Vincent van Gogh. Their art style was bolder and more expressive than early Impressionism.
Georges Seurat and his friend Paul Signac went their own way with Pointillism, a painting technique that uses many, many little dots to compose a painting.
Impressionist Artists
- Alfred Sisley 1839-1899
- Berthe Morisot 1841-1895
- Camille Pissarro 1855-1903
- Claude Monet 1840-1926
- Edgar Degas 1834-1917
- Edouard Manet 1856-1833
- Frederic Bazille 1841-1870
- Marry Cassatt 1844-1926
- Paul Cezanne 1839-1906
- Auguste Renoir 1841-1919
Neo Impressionists and Post Impressionists:
- Georges Seurat 1859-1891
- Toulouse Lautrec 1864-1901
- Paul Gauguin 1848-1903
- Paul Signac 1863-1935
- Vincent van Gogh
Art History and Impressionism on the Internet
Dieter Wanczura
(May 2002, updated March 2009)
Literature sources used for this article about Impressionism
- David Boyle, "Impressionist Art", Watson-Guptill Publications, ISBN 0-8230-0988-2
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