Art History: from The Classics to The Impressionists

In modern art, a lot of paintings can be used to describe events, especially historical or cultural events. However, this essay will be focusing on specific events, and how three different pieces of art, by three different artists represent what is going on. We will look at the following artists, and specific artwork from their portfolio. This essay will focus on the impressionist movement, and why the split between the artists in the movement and the Salon or the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris was so important.

Monet, Renoir, and a few other artists wanting independence from the Official annual Salon, and its rigid rules, started their own movement, called impressionism. And while there were people that were rejected from the Salon, this is one of the first times that a group of painters reject the structure and rules of the Salon, and started their own movement. Unified only by their independence from the official Salon, they worked together. The ideas and painting styles they had was considered radical in the time, as they violated the rules of academic paintings. The techniques used by impressionists at the time were developed, specific to the style, and encompassed a style or way of seeing immediacy, movement, and of candid poses, with bright and varied color usage common in impressionist painting.

Impressionism as a style, broke many of the academic rules during the 1870’s and 1880’s, because the academic rules favored the Neoclassical and Romantic styles. Academic art was the art influenced by the standards of the French Academy, which created a new style based on the fusion of Neoclassical and romantic styles at the time. According to the glossary of our textbook, the Neoclassical style is defined as, “Art-historical term referring to styles from the eighteenth century onwards – and particularly those in architecture – that looked back to the styles of the classical period of ancient Greece and Rome.”, and the Romantic/Romanticism style is defined as, “Beginning in the late eighteenth century and continuing throughout much of the nineteenth century, this was a movement in music, literature, and the visual arts that exalted in humanity’s capacity for emotion.” (Arnason, and Mansfield 762). The reason that early impressionists were considered breaking the rules of academic painting, was that what they created was freely brushed colors that took over the standard of having great lines and contours, and they painted realistic scenes of modern life, often painted outdoors, and not in a studio somewhere. They want to and did portray the visual effects that painting outdoors gave them, from sunlight, and other sources, compared to the details, and brushstrokes that were both mixed and pure unmixed colors, which was the opposite of what was customary.

This is shown very well in the artwork chosen for this essay, especially in what is the namesake of this movement, Monet’s Impression: Sunrise, painted in 1872. Van Gogh’s Wheatfield with Crows, painted in 1890, and Renoir’s Girls at the Piano, painted in 1892, will also be looked at in less detail, in regards to what they meant to the impressionist movement. Monet’s Impression: Sunrise, which this essay will now refer to as Monet’s painting, depicts rowboats at sunrise with a rowboat and the sun as focal points, and more rowboats in the background. There is something else in the background of Monet’s painting, which, according to Janis Tomlinson, “are not trees but smoke stacks of packboats and steamships, while on the right in the distance are other masts and chimneys silhouetted against the sky”. Which makes sense, since the painting is depicting Port Le Havre at sunrise, according to Paul Smith. The style and color choices show a hazy scene, straying from the traditions at the time, at least for landscape paintings, and what was considered classic beauty. Stylistically, Smith claims, “Impression, Sunrise was about Monet’s search for spontaneous expression, but was guided by definite and historically specific ideas about what spontaneous expression was.” Color wise, the canvas has a layered effect, with the base layer being different shades or tones of gray, and as more details, like the sun hitting the water or other pieces of the painting lining up, were added with different colors. Gordon adds, regarding the accents of blue-gray, and glimmers of orange, “are like last-minute revelations that had to wait, not only for the particular glimmer of orange to burn its way through the fog and find its reflective path onto the water and Monet’s eye but for the canvas itself, pregnant with the foggy space outside, to be ready to receive it”. Van Gogh’s painting, Wheatfield with Crows, believed to be one of his last works, although unconfirmed by art historians, is one Van Gogh re-created from memories of the north. Several Critics cite this painting as one of his best works. The short paint strokes, sections of unblended paint, difference in the levels of light in the evening sky, and a simple subject matter, diverging roads at a wheat field, and crows. This painting is the definition of an impressionist painting, however, what this painting conveys, is “sadness, extreme loneliness.” (Van Gogh). The color contrasts between the blue skies, yellow orange wheat, the red of the path and the green bands of the grass, cause this very vibrant effect in the painting.

These paintings show what impressionistic paintings were, stylistically, but not the importance of impressionism or the impact it had on the world of art in the 19th and 20th century. Before the impressionism movement started, artists who wanted to make a living had to follow the academic art styles described above. However, the impressionist movement changed that. As society was changing at the end of the 19th century, and the industrial revolution was taking place, artists started deciding that they wanted to change the style accepted by many, especially the salon. Their focus shifted from the classical themes of the time, to scenes of daily life, and the world around them. This sort of challenge to the art world in France was important. An important example of a direct influence, is some of the work of Van Gogh, and other major painters. Van Gogh writes in one of his letters, “instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my eyes, I use color more arbitrarily, in order to express myself forcibly.” Before the impressionists, people could only use colors in specific ways, but the impressionist movement allowed use of colors in all sorts of manors, that promoted Artistic Freedom, at a level never seen before. Francesco Salvi, an Italian actor, and architect said, “Impressionism is at the root of all modern art, because it was the first movement that managed to free itself from preconceived ideas, and because it changed not only the way life was depicted but the way life was seen.” Impressionism is what made art today what it is. It freed art from the shackles of traditions and norms.

However, as liberating as the impressionist movement was, traditions are important. Traditions the impressionist movement didn’t follow. Miguel Caranti, a reporter for the Daily Princetonian said, “This is not to say that innovation and quality are mutually exclusive, but rather that uniqueness is not the end goal. Art must be continuous and informed by past works”. Miguel Caranti’s quote about tradition really explains why tradition is important. The artists of the impressionist almost completely turned their backs on the traditions of the time. While in the Neoclassical movement, colors were mixed smoothly, and flowed on the canvas well, the impressionist were nearly the opposite, being different colors on a canvas, with relatively small, thin, and visible brush strokes. Stylistically, they were near complete opposites. Subject matter wise, they were similar, yet very different. Subjects were often just ordinary subjects with movement and time included, instead of a stationary subject, without the illusion of the changing qualities of time, or movement. The complete disregard to traditions, what says people won’t just disregard all the rules about even art at its most basic level. The disregard of the rules, and the traditions of the impressionist movement, could discount it as a movement. The rules and the traditions were there for a reason, so the disregard of it by the impressionist movement, should be why we disregard of the impressionist movement, and its importance.

In summary, this essay explored what the impressionist movement was, a few famous pieces in the impressionist movement, as an example of elements in the impressionist movement, and looked at both sides of the argument, about whether the impressionist movement was important.

And you might be thinking, “Okay, sure, the impressionist movement sounds important, but why should I care?” And there is a reason you should care about the impressionist movement. The impressionist movement, is one of the biggest, if not the biggest historical movement, where artists went against the grain of what was accepted, to push for more creative freedom for people, and could arguably explain why the artistic culture, including films and music is what it is today. 

Works Cited

1. Arnason, H. Harvard, and Elizabeth Mansfield. History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. Seventh Edition, Pearson, 2013.
2. Bachus, Nancy, and Daniel Glover. The Romantic Piano: The Influence of Society, Style, and Musical Trends on the Great Piano Composers. Alfred Pub., 2006.
3. Caranti, Miguel. “Tradition in Art: Why It Matters.” The Princetonian, http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2017/10/tradition-in-art-why-it-matters. Accessed 11 Oct. 2019.
4. Gordon, Robert, et al. Monet. Abrams, 1983.
5. Rabinow, Rebecca A., et al., editors. Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde. Metropolitan Museum of Art ; Yale University Press, 2006.
6. Smith, Paul. Impressionism: Beneath the Surface. Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1995.
7. Tomlinson, Janis A., editor. Readings in Nineteenth-Century Art. Prentice Hall, 1996.
8. Van Gogh, Vincent. Theo considers leaving the firm of Boussod, Valadon & Cie. 10 July 1890, http://www.vangoghletters.org/vg/letters/let898/letter.html.
9. Van Gogh, Vincent. Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, 11 August 1888. 11 Aug. 1888, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/18/520.htm.