12/15/2012

The Evolution Of Modern Impressionist Artists

By Tameka Ware


Fashion, art, music, literature, cuisine none of them are ever static. What is right today will be outdated tomorrow. Somewhere around the late 1800s a major shift took place in the world of art with the coming-of-age of Impressionism. Though largely associated with painting, its effects were felt in the worlds of music and literature too. The works of the modern impressionist artists can be viewed on the internet which will help the art student and the art aficionado alike to understand this phenomenon.

There were many restless young artists in Paris at that time who wanted to make their own kind of pictures but found it difficult to go against the establishment of the day. One of the leaders was Claude Monet and it was one of his early paintings that inadvertently gave the movement its name. It was called 'Impression, Sunrise' and was not well received by the critics of the day who focused unkindly no doubt on the title, little knowing that they were creating a sort of history.

The French establishment of the day had decided that painters should constrain themselves to painting historical and religious subjects and portraiture. Paintings were somber and serious. The portraits in fact took the place of photographs which had yet to arrive.

Monet and his friends thought otherwise and persevered with a freer, more expressive type of art where color and brush strikes predominated and light and movement were the very essence of the picture. People like Edouard Manet were very influential at this time. Others included Alfred Sisley and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, with Camille Pissarro and Paul Cezanne among later adherents.

Their brushwork was important and they used short thick strokes. Colors were often applied without mixing, laying each one side by side without any drying time. Black was generally avoided. Light and shadow were vividly captured and indeed the time of day became important to catch certain effects like twilight.

Although Paris may have been the hub, the new art form soon spread all over the world. Some foreign artists came to Paris to study and were influenced by people like Degas and Cezanne. Others evolved in their own countries. Tom Roberts and John Peter Russell were well known Australian artists. Mary Cassatt, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson and Childe Hassam were among the plethora of impressionists in the New World.

Soon their paintings were all the rage. And then, of course, new styles were developed. Brush strokes became dots for instance and painting gradually became more abstract.

As in art, so in music and literature you will find the same type of revolution or perhaps evolution. Modern impressionist artists can be classed alongside authors like Joseph Conrad and Baudelaire. While in music, Debussy and Ravel are composers who fall into this category.




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