Impressionism (painting)

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Claude Monet : Impression - soleil levant , 1872, Musée Marmottan , Paris

The painting of Impressionism originated from a movement of French painters in the second half of the 19th century. Impressionism spread worldwide and was replaced by post-impressionism .

Impressionism created the essential prerequisites for the new character of the visual arts of the 20th century. It is classified differently in art history. Some art historians refer to it as the beginning of the modern age , others as the end of the old epoch - again others as both at the same time.

Most of the Impressionist works were painted " en plein air " and in a sketchy manner that made it possible to quickly capture the reflections of the light. The impressionists took a position opposite to the classicists , as they paid much more attention to the color scheme and not the line.

term

The word Impressionism, derived from the Latin impressio 'impression' or French impressionnisme , established itself as an art history term around 1874. As early as the early 1860s, Théophile Gautier described Daubigny's painting style , which he found too fleeting, as an 'impression'. Eventually, the term was picked up by some reviewers to describe the works of the young artists in the exhibition on 35 Boulevard des Capucines, which opened on April 15, 1874. The art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary discussed in his essay, among other things, the question of what the group of artists should be called. With reference to Monet's painting Impression - soleil levant (Impressions - Sunrise), he commented: “If you wanted to characterize them with an explanatory word, you would have to create the new term Impressionists . They are impressionists in the sense that they do not depict a landscape, but the impression it creates. "

The naming was favored because the works submitted by Monet annoyed Auguste Renoir's brother Edmond Renoir with their monotonous picture titles such as Entrance to the Village , Exit from the Village , Morning in the Village , Edmond Renoir . Since Monet was no longer allowed to name the picture he had sent in as a view of Le Havre , he replied to Edmond Renoir: "Write an impression ". The work appeared in the catalog as an impression - soleil levant .

In art historical literature, the art critic Louis Leroy is often cited as the creator of the term Impressionism. On April 25, 1874, he published an article in the satirical magazine Le Charivari and derived the derogatory term from Monet's painting. However, as Ian Dunlop notes, the term Impressionism was already in use in the 1860s and 1870s and was used in connection with other landscape painters before Monet. Subsequently, numerous artists used this term, which was officially used in the preparations for the third Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

characterization

Nude painting art students at the École des Beaux-Arts , late 19th century.

Impressionism broke with many rules of painting practice, which were taught by the art academies, such as the École des Beaux-Arts , in the 19th century. Contrary to academic doctrine, color was elevated to the primary design element. The graphic elements faded into the background. Impressionism became important in the history of painting for three reasons:

  • The statement of the picture is relative in terms of color as well as the graphic form of the detail of reality, as it depends on the viewer and the person painting. In Impressionism, the open image is emphasized, identifying itself as an excerpt from space and time, with figures even being cut, as in Edgar Degas .
  • The relativity of the image and the open form motivate the viewer to his own visual performance, sensations and to participate in the creation of the image and its message. The individual picture loses its mandatory, instructive character for every viewer.
  • Both the act of painting as a specific, pleasurable activity and the work of art as its permanent trace grew into an independent spiritual value. As a result, the concept of L'art pour l'art , which had been developing for some time, gained more and more space. The whole meaning and cultural value of a picture can consist in the fact that it is a picture and nothing else (see → Art-historical consideration ).

The Impressionists explicitly saw the world through their painter's eyes. They insisted on getting ahead of their contemporaries in the right way of seeing. They emphasized that the colored appearance of an object changes depending on the environment and lighting; also that shadows are determined by their surroundings and can take on different color values. Furthermore, they occasionally asserted that it was irrelevant which object was painted, the lighting conditions were more decisive. Often the effect of a certain time of the day or season is emphasized in her works.

The Impressionists often painted plein air (in the open air) and sur le motif (in front of the motif). In many works of art they emphasized the reflection of light and the spectral colors .

Furthermore, from the 1860s onwards, Impressionism was also characterized by a turn to classical Japanese art, which is described as the movement of Japonism . This coincides with Japan's general opening to the world ( Meiji Restoration ), when it became possible for the first time to establish political, social, economic and cultural ties to the country. The influences of Japan on the various currents of Impressionism can be seen both through the introduction of new objects and items of clothing, but also through a new way of depicting dimensions, light and shadow conditions and perspectives.

Art relations around 1860

Salon de Paris

Paris was the capital of the 19th century for art, exhibition, art trade and taste formation. The emergence and expansion of Impressionist painting required the way of life and the cultural climate of Paris.

After the urban redevelopment planned by Baron Haussmann in the 1850s and 1860s, which pushed the working-class population to the outskirts, and after the Paris Commune had been crushed in 1871, Paris became one of the bourgeoisie that had become wealthy through industrialization and trade culturally determined city.

Eugène Louis Lami : The Boulevard des Italiens at night, on the corner with rue Laffitte , 1842. The picture already has impressionistic features. Bernheim's gallery, founded in 1863, was 50 m away in rue Laffitte No. 8

This social development meant that works of art were no longer created on behalf of a thin upper class, but that an art market emerged. Art dealers like Alexandere Jeune , who presented works of art in their galleries to establish the necessary contacts , became increasingly involved between the independent artists and the buyers of works . The artists were thus drawn into the competitive struggles of their dealers. Impressionism occupies a key position in the history of exhibition. It would not be understandable without the disputes over the acceptance or rejection of Impressionist images.

In France, one exhibition was more important than any other: the Salon de Paris . The salon was in the Louvre . In the politically and culturally particularly centralist country for a long time, valid standards of value could only be set in the capital. Since 1673 there have been regular exhibitions by members of the Royal Academy of Arts. After the revolution of 1789, non-academics were also admitted in 1791. A jury, which until 1863 consisted of members of the Académie des Beaux-Arts , a department of the Institut de France , the most prestigious instrument of state cultural policy , decided on admission .

The art critic dealt quite extensively with the salon. The majority of the audience largely relied on the expert decisions of the jury in their dependent judgment. A picture marked as refused or rejected on the stretcher rarely sold.

painting

Eugène Delacroix : Women of Algiers , 1834

In classical painting , the study of exemplary old works of art and the observance of design rules took precedence over the study of nature. A strict classicist could in principle do without color. The main exponent of classicism was Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780–1867), who was still effective as a patriarchal authority when the budding impressionists began to profile their artistic conception.

As a counterpoint to Ingres, Eugène Delacroix (1789–1863) appeared. Since color and not line was the decisive design element for him, the classicists of the Académie Française refused him seven times, until 1857, the election to this highest body of French artists. Delacroix became the model for many impressionists who decidedly differentiated themselves from the romantic school and classicism.

John Constable , Weymouth Bay , about 1816

Some characteristics of Impressionist landscape painting, such as pleinair (in the open air), sur-le-motif (in front of the motif), can already be found in the Barbizon school , the works of William Turner (1775–1851), John Constable (1776– 1837), Richard Bonington (1801–1828) and Johan Barthold Jongkind (1819–1891). Landscape painting, which only had a low rank ( petit genre ) in the prevailing classical art theory , was already becoming more socially acceptable.

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot , The Bridge of Narni , 1826

For the development of realism in painting, the landscape painters of the Barbizon School were of the utmost importance. The observation of nature drew the painters' attention to the changing phenomena of light and its importance for the colored appearance of things. Such artistic interests appeared in almost all European countries at that time. This attitude became a decisive engine for Impressionism.

The attitude of realistic painters, with their main champion Gustave Courbet , also became fundamental to Impressionism. So they trusted their sense of sight and turned their pictures into windows, as it were (see → Leon Battista Alberti , finestra aperta ). This loyalty to nature, as they said instead of reality, which in their eyes only gave a true picture, had to be learned and worked hard every time. Seeing itself also had to be practiced and refined. So the painters learned that they only learned a different way of seeing in the process of what they were doing.

Frédéric Bazille: Portrait by Renoir , 1867

Courbet fascinated many younger artists and no other view could do without a definition of their relationship to his art. “To paint naturally in the great outdoors among natural people” , as the German painter Wilhelm Leibl put it a quarter of a century later , has become one of the fundamental maxims of realistic artists everywhere.

One of the founders of Impressionist figure painting is Frédéric Bazille in particular .

Beginning of the movement after 1860

Salon des Refusés

Main article: Salon des Refusés

In the conservative Salon de Paris in 1863, 3000 of 5000 works submitted were rejected by the jury. In view of the numerous outraged artists, Napoleon III. the opening of the new Salon des Refusés (Salon of the Rejected).

Group exhibitions

The first group exhibition of the Impressionists took place on April 15, 1874 in the studio of the Parisian photographer Nadar . He had made his rooms available because he himself was a supporter of the Impressionists. The group had been founded a year earlier under the name Société anonyme des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs .

Atelier of the photographer Nadar around 1860, 35 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris 2nd arr.

In addition to Claude Monet , Auguste Renoir , Camille Pissarro , Alfred Sisley , Edgar Degas , Paul Cézanne and Berthe Morisot, it also included Eugène Boudin , Felix Bracquemond , Armand Guillaumin , Zacharie Astruc , Stanislas Lépine , Giuseppe de Nittis , Edouard Bélioléonovic , Ludovic Lepic (1839–1889), Léopold Levert (1828–1912), Henri Rouart , Louis Latouche (1829–1884), Auguste de Moulins (1821–1890), Mulot-Durivage (1838–1920), Pierre Bureau (1827–1880 ), Gustave Colin , Auguste Ottin , Léon Ottin (1836–?), Antoine Attendu , Félix Cals (1810–1880), Léopold Robert , Edouard Brandon (1831–1897), Louis Debras (1820–1899) and the enamel painter Alfred Meyer (1832-1904). Previously, the works of these painters had come under strong public criticism. The critic Louis Leroy insulted Claude Monet as an "impressionist" and accused him of superficiality. The artists had previously been referred to as intransigeants ("stubborn") because of their painting technique . After the first exhibition, the term "Impressionism" prevailed, which was initially meant derogatory. At this exhibition, too, the public opinion was largely negative, although the positive reviews also increased.

In 1876 there was a second Impressionist exhibition in the gallery of the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel , who also supported the group. The third group exhibition followed in 1877, the fourth in 1879 and the fifth in 1880. In 1886, after long debates, the 8th Impressionist Exhibition did not take place at Durand-Ruel, but in five rooms rented by the artists above the elegant Maison Dorée restaurant in Rue Laffite 1. However, Monet, Renoir, Sisley and Caillebotte refused because Degas had again enforced his people like Bracquemond, Casatt, Forain and Zandomeneghi and Pissarro also brought in favorites that they did not like. In addition to Guillaumin and Gauguin, Pissarro also introduced his banking friends and hobby painter, Émile Schuffenecker , as well as Seurat and Signac to the ranks of the exhibitors . Most of these exhibitions took place out of sheer financial difficulties, as the fleeting painting of Impressionism was still despised at the time.

Impressionism in Germany

The new painting practice of the Impressionists, which was related to a new worldview and view of life and was promoted by scientific findings (proof of the wave character of light , experimental measurement of the speed of light) and Ernst Mach's sensualistic-anti-positivistic philosophy , spread between 1880 and 1900 in Whole europe. In Germany, August von Brandis , Max Liebermann , Lovis Corinth , Ernst Oppler and Max Slevogt were among the most important representatives of this direction. An important local variety of German Impressionism that was still neglected was the so-called "Swabian Impressionism". Albert Kappis is considered to be the pioneer of this school . Their main representatives were Otto Reiniger , Hermann Pleuer , Christian Landenberger and Erwin Starker .

Painting techniques

The painting techniques of the Impressionists, such as pastos and alla prima painting , differ significantly from the craftsmanship of classic oil painting . From the middle of the 19th century, this was favored by the first availability of industrially manufactured paints ( tar paints such as mauvein and fuchsine , in particular azo dye such as aniline yellow ) and other artists' supplies. For example, there were oil paints in tubes, which made open-air painting possible in the first place.

The Impressionists preferred bright, bright colors and placed complementary color values spotty or comma-like ( virgulisme ) next to each other, which should only mix in the eye of the beholder from a distance . As a result, they achieved a more intense, sometimes vibrant color. The brushwork was clearly visible. Sometimes the colors were mixed not on the palette, but on the canvas. Almost all Impressionists practiced an alla-prima-style of painting, in which the paint was applied directly to the primed canvas without underpainting and, if possible, not corrected. A disadvantage of this method was that more cracking could occur. However, this was accepted.

The pictures were painted in a sketchy manner that made it possible to quickly capture the reflections of the light. The depth of the picture was created by staggering the size, overlapping and using the linear perspective .

reception

Era of Secessions - Société des Artistes Indépendants (1884)

In 1884 about 400 rejected and dissatisfied with the whole system founded a second annual salon, organized by the Société des Artistes Indépendants , the society of independent artists. Without judging, it should be open to all artists. The idea came from Albert Dubois-Pillet (1845–1890), who then also became secretary and vice-president of the association, a hobby painter, freemason and a gendarmerie officer by profession. The meeting to discuss the statutes was chaired by Odilon Redon (1840–1916), who had been a draftsman and graphic artist since 1879. At the end of 1884 the first independent salon, free of jury, took place.

With the founding of the Indépendants , the era of the later so-called secessions began. At the turn of the 20th century throughout Europe and America, even in Japan, secessions that were constantly forming were to become the main driving force behind the innovations.

A second salon of the independents did not come about until 1886, and in 1890/91 the independents themselves experienced the now permanent fate of the departure of dissatisfied people. Under the leadership of the old Meissonier, they founded the somewhat elitist, re-judging Société nationale des beaux-arts , or the Nationale for short .

Salon and public commissions became increasingly unimportant for the progress of art and for the ideal and financial fate of the artists. Rather, the artists now had to try to determine their position vis-à-vis a new cultural power, the art trade .

Aftermath and Influences

The aftermath and influences of Impressionist painting can be found in the articles on Neo-Impressionism :

In contrast to what the terminology implies , German Impressionism has no direct reference to French Impressionism.

gallery

List of Impressionist painters

literature

  • Author collective Iris Schaefer, Caroline von Saint-George, Katja Lewerentz, Heinz Widauer, Gisela Fischer - Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud, Cologne - Albertina, Vienna: Impressionism - How light came onto the canvas. SKIRA editore, Milano 2009. 311 pp. ISBN 978-3-9502734-0-3
  • Wolf Arnold: On the trail of impressionism. A trip through France . Fischer, Frankfurt / M. 2008, ISBN 978-3-8301-1168-9 .
  • Nathalia Brodskaya: Impressionism . Parkstone Books, New York 2007, ISBN 978-1-85995-652-6 .
  • Norma Broude (Ed.): Impressionism. An international art movement, 1860–1920 (“World impressionism”). Dumont, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-8321-7454-0 .
  • Jean Cassou : Les impressionnistes et leur époque , essay, Paris 1953, German The impressionists and their time , Berlin 1953, Stuttgart 1957
  • Richard Hamann : Impressionism in Life and Art. DuMont, Cologne 1907.
  • Richard Hamann, Jost Hermand : Impressionism. (= Epochs of German culture from 1870 to the present. Volume 3.) Munich, 2nd edition 1974.
  • John Rewald : The History of Impressionism. The fate and work of the painters of a great epoch of art . Dumont, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8321-7689-6 .
  • Sue Roe: The private lives of the Impressionists ( "The private lives of the impressionists"). Edition Parthas, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86601-664-4 .
  • Maurice Sérullaz (Ed.): Lexicon of Impressionism. With a list of exhibitions and important retrospectives, glossary, list of figures, name register and photo credits (“Encyclopédie de impressionisme”). Edition by Nottbeck, Cologne 1977, ISBN 3-8046-0011-5 .
  • Ingo F. Walther : Painting of Impressionism. 1860-1920 . Taschen-Verlag, Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-8228-5051-9 .
  • Claire A. Willsdon: In the gardens of impressionism ("In the gardens of impressionism"). Belser, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-7630-2432-8 .

Movie

Audio books

Web links

Commons : Impressionism  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Impressionism  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter H. Feist: French Impressionism , pages 10-11.
  2. ^ A b Ian Dunlop: The Shock of the New. Seven Historic Exhibitions of Modern Art . New York 1972, p. 83-84 .
  3. ^ Théophile Gautier: Abécédaire du Salon de 1861 . Paris 1861, p. 57-61 .
  4. ^ Jules-Antoine Castagnary: Exposition du boulevard des Capucines: Les Impressionistes . In: Le Siècle . April 29, 1874, p. 3. (emphasis in the original) .
  5. ↑ a b John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , page 193.
  6. ↑ Felix Krämer: Monet and the Birth of Impressionism . In: Felix Krämer (ed.): Monet and the birth of impressionism . Munich / London / New York 2015, p. 13 .
  7. ^ A b Peter H. Feist: French Impressionism , pages 97-99.
  8. ↑ Japanese Parisians. Retrieved May 29, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b c Peter H. Feist: French Impressionism , pages 15-17.
  10. ^ Courbet Dossier - Artistic Context , www.musee-orsay.fr, accessed on January 13, 2011
  11. ↑ Première Exposition 1974 ( Memento of the original from September 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , www.nadar1874, accessed December 21, 2011  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nadar1874.net
  12. ↑ John Rewald: The History of Impressionism , page 350.
  13. ↑ 1874: Le Baptême (French) , Jean-Jacques Breton: Les 100 mots de l'impressionnisme: “Que sais-je?” , PUF, Paris, 2015. ISBN 978-2-13-065212-0
  14. ^ Impressionist Exhibitions in Paris , visual-arts-cork.com, accessed on May 25, 2015
  15. ↑ [1] kunstwissen.de
  16. ^ R. Hamann, J. Hermand: Impressionism. Cologne, 2nd edition 1974, p. 70 ff.
  17. ↑ Duden editorial office: Duden general education: Germany - Everything you need to know, p. 293 2015
  18. ↑ See Bühler, Andreas; Zimmermann, Gabriele; Grüner, Isabel: Albert Kappis: Pioneer of Impressionism in Swabia . Catalog for the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bühler, January 30–20. March 1999 and Hohenkarpfen Art Foundation, March 28–4. July 1999. Stuttgart: Kunsthaus Bühler; Hausen-Hohenkarpfen: Ed. Hohenkarpfen Art Foundation , 1999. ISBN 3-930569-19-1 ; Bühler, Andreas: Albert Kappis, from the Munich School to Swabian Impressionism . In: Weltkunst 70/6, Munich 2000, pages 1079-1081.