In the middle of 19th century, the group of talented artists with a common attitude decided to rebel against hostile art critics and reach out to the diverse public for the sake of forming a new art style on their own: Impressionism. These artists were able to capture the spirit, the subtle essence, and the unnoticed scenes of daily life. They wanted to catch an instant in time: the here and now. Impressionism became a precursor of modern day art which includes the various painting styles, such as Cubism, Fauvism, Postimpressionism. In the contemporaneousness, the abundance of “ism” in the art world is another demonstration of the phenomenon began by the group of independent artists, the phenomenon of individual interpretation. The Impressionists’ antipathy towards absolute academic standards helped the artists to create a new artistic concept: a unique fusion of revolution and freedom that radically changed the art history forever.
The mood in the country's leadership mirrored the temper of French art. While Emperor Napoleon III dynamically ruled France, the Academie des Beaux-Art harshly dominated the captivating pallets of all French painters. The Academie pursued the strict traditional style of painting and the only conventional subject matter. The Academie preferred precisely finished images that demonstrated the excellence in development of realistic portrayals; no revolutionary techniques, like Impressionism, were favored. The artwork accurately concealed the artist’s personality obscuring expression and applied methods to the polished surface of the canvas. Historical subjects, authentic portraits, and religious themes were considered to be significant, but mere landscapes or still life was not valued and noticed among the traditional works. One of the singularities the Academians cared of was color. According to one of the academic articles from Encyclopædia Britannica, “the Academie des Beaux-Art,” artists applied golden varnish to subdue their pallets – they had to be conventionally somber; brushstrokes were carefully suppressed.
The Academie had an annual, juried state-sponsored exhibition – called the Salon de Paris. Artists whose work was demonstrated in the art show significantly enhanced their status, and won the different kinds of prizes, including commissions. The standards of the juries represented values of the Academic art. The paintings conveyed the morally instructive message in a classical or historical image. The works were honored if they showed ideals of modern society in precedents in ancient Greece and Rome, either appeared for the Renaissance, historical incidents, or spiritual attainment that are worth emulating. The juries had two different perspectives which formed the division between the displayed artists. The painters who peered themselves as academians depicted classical allusions – monumental, idealized academic paintings, such as Birth of Venus (Naissance de Vénus, 1879) by Adolphe-William Bouguereau, this image includes carefully polished the surface with the simultaneous array of controlled brushstrokes, this painting represents indeed the fascination with the glorify nude. The painters, who depicted their images under the favored Academic conditions, represented the rustic population with vulgar directness, such as The Sleeping Spinner (1853) by Gustave Courbet, a sincere, candid piece of work which represents the psychological beauty of a dramatic creature.
The new, untitled art movement, in the beginning, started to take shape in the 1860s. In fact, the name of the movement came five years later, when the hostile critic, Louis Leroy, assaulted Monet’s early painting: Impression – Sunrise (1872). Three painters, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commenced the great journey for the sake of breaking the rules to free the narrow, dependent artists. In summer 1869, Monet and Renoir resided on the Seine and painted landscapes of a swimming resort La Grenouillère. That summer, they studied how to capture ethereal moods of nature applying thick, visible broken-brushstrokes. Monet and Renoir attempted this new style by adapting techniques that Manet had developed a few years earlier.
Eduard Manet was a classically trained artist who appeared to support Realism and Impressionism; he connected a bridge between entirely different techniques showing his innovations with palette and brushwork. In the 1860s, the group of Anonymous Artists began their meetings near Manet’s studio, at Café Guerbois. Eduard Manet was an unofficial leader of the weekly assemblies where were gathered Renoir, Degas, Monet, Émile Zola, Alfred Sisley and rare attendants, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne among the others. This group pioneered the strange, untitled art movement which rejected classical research and stood by “at one moment and under given condition” principle developed by Manet. During the meetings, they shared their ideas and experience; they all had diverse styles but possessed a common attitude which made them assured in their technique and independence.
The first exhibition of the company, in April 1874, launched the name to the modern art movement – Impressionism. The first Impressionist exhibition was well attended, in particular, the show attracted critics who were trained to judge only polished allusions and traditional subjects of matter of the Salon artists. Undoubtedly, the critiques were severely shocked by the unbalanced compositions followed by the raw, side-by-side colors on the vibrant surface. According to the article from Encyclopædia Britannica written by William C. Seitz,"Claude Monet." Britannica School, the ironic magazine, Le Charivari, published an account of a visit with Louse Leroy, satirical critique who made fun of Monet’s early painting, Impression: Sunrise (1873) (Seitz). After Leroy’s visit, he coined the term in intends to insult the group of painters:
“Impression: I was sure of it. I was telling myself since I'm so impressed, there must be an impression in it. And what freedom, what ease of handling! A sketch for wallpaper is more finished than that their seascape!” (Leroy, 1874.)
In 1877, the name was officially accepted by the group and courageously resided on the poster designed for the third Impressionist exhibition.
According to the article written by Justin Wolf, “Art History: Impressionism,” impressionists were bounded by a common interest in the representation of visual perception which is based on brief optical impressions and fleeting moments of modern life (Wolf). They painted the general impression of the scene paying attention to the light effects. The artists wanted to paint the observed scenes the way they saw them regarding color, light effects, gingerly depicting every tiny detail, like on the Renoir’s painting, Le Moulin de la Galette (1876). Many impressionist paintings are portrayed en plein art. This technique was shared among the impressionists and launched by Claude Monet.
En Plein art is a technique of painting outdoors and a rapid way to record the impression of a fleeting essence of light working fast enough so that the lighting conditions remain without significant changes. Sometimes one’s painting would take more than one session to be properly painted, and the artist would return at the same time of a day to reproduce the same conditions. For example, Monet painted 25 versions of the haystack at different periods of a day to explore his painting, Meules, Milieu du Jour (1891), in depth. The colors in the impressionist paintings are put arbitrarily which means that the paintings contain the areas of broken color. This technique shows that red can have strokes of orange and green in it, but still appears red from a distance, or that one can mix colors right on the canvas instead of one’s palate, like on Seurat's painting “La Parade” (1889). Before Impressionism began to take shape, the composition was very traditional, a classical painting style leading the eye straight to the focal point. Impressionists experimented with composition, placing focal points in many extraordinary positions, as in the Degas’s painting “Rennpferde” (18XX.)
Other impressionists, like Edgar Degas, were less enthralled by painting outdoors and contradicted the idea that painting should be a spontaneous act. Degas considered himself a keenly skilled portraitist; he preferred indoor, scenes of modern life: musicians in an orchestra pit, a couple sitting in a cafe, lively performing ballet dancers at rehearsal. He also tended to portray his form with greater quality that Monet and Pissarro, applying harder lines and thicker brushstrokes.
Talking about other artists, such as Mary Cassatt, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot focused on the internal psychology of the individual. Renoir, known for his use of saturated colors, depicted in the everyday life activities of the social pastimes of the Parisian environment. Renoir, like Cassatt and Morisot, also painter outdoors, he intimates psychological attributes of his subjects, using light and lose brushstrokes to emphasize the human essence.
The Impressionist artists were performing constant attempts to capture the fleeting effects of light on the landscape by using a more careful examination of tone and color. Their ideas were inspired by Eugene Chevreul's scientific research on the color theory. The Impressionist artists relinquished the old idea that the shadows consisted of the color of the object with a bit of brown and black mixed in. The impressionists spiced their canvases with the fresh idea: the shadow of any color could be mixed from pure hues with the addition of its opposite color. For instance, the shadow of a green could have some strokes of red into it to enhance its vividness. Impressionist color theory centers on their work of brighter, but more saturated color. The theory took an important part in Impressionist overall strategy; nonetheless, their theory worked in an essential part because of the way impressionists controlled the values of colors. More specifically, they were aware that the relative value of a color affects its chromatic identity.
By the beginning of the 1870s, a small number of professional painters were beginning to discover one another through the series of conceptual exhibitions. The artists were not united by any particular style, but shared a common negative impression towards strict academic standards of fine art, establish at the time my imperative Parisian Salon. In fact, the 1863 Salon exhibition caused a scandal occurred after the misconduct to the unconventional themes and techniques of works, such as Manet’s Le déjeuner sure l'herbe (1863) where the clothed men enjoyed an afternoon picnic with the nude woman. There were eight Impressionist exhibitions held from 1874 to 1886.
The first of these alternative exhibitions took place in the studios of the prominent photographer, Felix Nadar, under the defined title Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc. From the inception, the exhibition was poorly treated by a public that was eager poke fun at it. The art critiques came without intends to take anything solemnly, without realization what the unique style of painting was trying to achieve understanding from the public. After attending the exhibition, the sarcastic critic Louis Leroy hacked Impressionism to pieces bestowing the newborn art movement with the name. Degas for his part never agreed with the gained title, preferring Independents. After the social rejection, Impressionists desperately sought to trade their painting at the public auction in 1875, where the average sum paid for a painting barely reached 100 francs. The next exhibition was less numerous than at the first show, undoubtedly, the reviews were no better. The art critic, Albert Wolf, wrote in a newspaper, Figaro, an exclusive ignorant article which, unfortunately for him, saved his name from being consigned from oblivion. The third exhibition, in 1877, they began to call themselves Impressionists; Georges Riviere issued five numbers of “The Impressionist, Journal of Art.” Despite all of these deliberate efforts the public came in more numerous flow, remained unconcerned. Final sales at the end of the show brought mediocre results.
By 1878, the company of Impressionists was not able to continue their exhibitions due to the significant lack of money. The artist's group sought the breakup, although a new collector, Murer came on the scene and made careful purchases. The idea of Impressionist art gradually continues to spread beyond the French borders and slowly asserts itself. Eventually, the exhibitions revived from 1879.
Diverse events surrounded the next exhibitions from 1879 to 1886. The fourth exhibition marked the financial success, but brought an unchanged critical disdain; the Impressionists achieved the sure success among the public. At the Salon, which is concurrently presented its show, became a place to the new modest artists. Only Renoir, who exhibited his artwork, Madame Charpentier and Her Children (1878,) had any real success. His luck persuades Monet to enter a painting in the following Salon, as well. The following shows revealed the brand new impressionists. Also, they lend the movement the prosperous factor and success. After the death of Eduard Manet, an eighth and final Impressionist exhibition occurred in 1886. In the review of the show, the French art critic, Felix Feneon, invents the name “Neo-Impressionism” to portray the pointillist pictures of George Seurat among the others.
The lessons of the modern art style were taken up by a new generation. Since Manet built a bridge between Realism and Impressionism, then George Seurat bridged a gap between Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, as it did Paul Cezanne who connected Impressionism with Post-Impressionism. They involved a more deliberate style of painting, paying an accurate attention to the structure of the forms that were depicted by the broad brushwork. They believed to break down objects into their primary parts, basic geometric shapes, which put a beginning to Cubism by Pablo Picasso. Many modern artists looked to Impressionism as a father to modern art. For instance, although the movement is not considered to have an influential impact on Abstractionism, now one can determine significant similarities in its artists’ works like Philip Guston referred to the suggestion of light and the surface qualities in the work of Claude Monet.
Impressionism is a style of representational art that does not rely on realistic depictions. Many people felt that the spirit of independence among the group’s members mastered the early, experimental styles that won the public attention and wanted to move on to discover new paths. Other people were anxious about the continued commercial defeat of their work due to the spontaneous rebel against the traditional Academie. Nonetheless, the Impressionists sought the optical effect of light and kinetic essence of a faster pace; they wanted to convey the passage of time, moods of weather, and the diverse shifts in the former atmosphere on their canvases. Even so, Impressionism was a movement of the lasting consequence; it inspired people to embrace modernity and philosophical fragmentation of everyday subjects.
