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Impressionistic art moved away from the realistic depictions of the heroic and the grand to “impressions” of scenes that are more everyday in nature.
Influence of the Camera
Impressionist art developed partially as a reaction to a major technological innovation – the camera! Prior to the creation of a practical and usable camera, artists were responsible for replicating reality. Wealthy individuals hired painters to make pictures of them and their families as this was the only way to create such an image.
With the invention of the camera a few things happened. Artists were able to focus on concepts other than accurately representing reality. The job of creating a family portrait could now go to the camera instead of the painter. On the other hand, photography could accurately capture the impact of motion and light in a way that had not been done before, allowing artists to study pictures of those impacts and try to capture them in their work.
Many Impressionist paintings can be thought of as an “out of focus” picture that “comes into focus” when the observer is a certain distance away. When close to the painting, it looks like a bunch of random brush strokes, but with some distance the subject of the painting emerges from the strokes. This technique captured the impact of light and idea of motion better than traditional painting techniques.
Some elements of impressionistic art are that:
- Artists focused on the impact of light or motion or texture
- Artists chose to capture a mood or impression rather than fully and realistically capture a subject
- Artists focused on everyday subjects (kitchen table, bedroom, bowl of apples) rather than the expansive and heroic subjects celebrated during the Romantic era.
Comparing Romantic and Impressionist Style Painting
The Soulacroix painting Courtship is an example of Romantic style art. Notice how detailed and real the people look – their clothing has soft folds in it, the curls in her hair are well-defined. In Monet’s Poppy Field, notice how there is enough detail to identify the people as people, but detail is limited. You cannot even see facial features at all. Yet Monet captures the idea of being in a poppy field in the middle of the day based on the lighting. The Soulacroix painting focuses on a realistic depiction of a couple walking through the woods while Monet’s painting appears to be blurry and lack detail but captures the idea of a walk through the high grasses in a field during a bright mid-day.
Camera as Life’s Pause Button
The camera provided the ability to capture a real visual moment in time, which allowed us to learn a lot about how things work and what actually occurs visually in the world.
Photographers quickly became fascinated by the fact that motion could be captured in a picture. For the first time people could see how a young girl’s hair defied gravity and the pattern of water droplets spraying in all directions when a girl jumped into water. It did not take long for artists to have the same interest in capturing motion.
Photographs also captured the intricacies of light that people observe but perhaps for only a fleeting moment. For example, a photograph can capture a ray of sunlight peeking through a space between a wooden fence, or a small rainbow that appears in a water fountain.
Artist Techniques
Impressionist art was spearheaded by a group of four young students – Claude Monet, Pierre-August Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille. Edoward Manet was often affiliated with Impressionists, though he did not consider himself to be one and Paul Cezanne worked from realism through impressionism to cubism.
These artists used a variety of non-standard artistic techniques to create their works. Large, clunky brush strokes replaced the blended and detailed strokes of the Romantics. The Impressionist painting was created to be viewed at a distance where the mind and eye “filled in the gaps” to create the complete picture, as opposed to the previous standard of a realistic look when a painting was viewed closely. Paintings often focused on the impact of light, motion and/or color as much as the actual subject of the painting.
Application to Music
We will discover that Impressionist musicians similarly discarded some of the previous standards of their craft, especially regarding harmony and form. Tonal impact was favored over structure and melody.