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IMPRESSIONISM
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IMPRESSIONISM . The word " Impressionist " has come to have a more See also:general application in See also:England than in See also:France, where it took currency as the See also:nickname of a definite See also:group of painters exhibiting together, and was adopted by themselves during the conflict of See also:opinion which the novelty of their See also:art excited. The word therefore belongs to the class of nicknames or See also:battle-names, like " Romanticist," " Naturalist," " Realist," which preceded it, words into which the acuteness of controversy infuses more of theoretical purport than the See also:work of the artists denoted suggests to later times. The painters included in such a " school " differ so much among themselves, and so little from their predecessors compared with the points of likeness, that we may well see in these recurring effervescences of See also:official and popular distaste rather the See also:shock of individual force in the artist measured against contemporary mediocrity than the disturbance of a new See also:doctrine. The " See also:Olympia " of See also:Manet, hooted at the See also:Salon of 1865 as subversive of all tradition, decency and beauty, strikes the visitor to the Luxembourg rather as the reversion to a theme of See also:Titian by an artist of ruder See also:vision than as the demonstration of a revolutionary in See also:painting. Later developments of the school do appear to us revolutionary. With this warning in a See also:matter still too near us for final See also:judgment, we may give some See also:account of the Impressionists proper, and then turn to the wider significance sometimes given to the name. The words Impressioniste, Impressionisme, are said to have arisen from a phrase in the See also:preface to Manet's See also:catalogue of his pictures exhibited in 1867 during the Exposition Universelle, from which he was excluded. " It is the effect," he wrote, "of sincerity to give to a painter's See also:works a See also:character that makes them resemble a protest, whereas the painter has only thought of rendering his impression." An alternative origin is a catalogue in which See also:Claude See also:Monet entitled a picture of sunrise at See also:sea " Une Impression." The word was probably much used in the discussions of the group, and was caught up by the critics as characteristic.' At the earlier date the only meaning of the word was a claim for individual See also:liberty of subject and treatment. So far as subject went, most, though not all of Manet's pictures were See also:modern and actual of his See also:Paris, for his See also:power See also:lay in the See also:representation of the thing before his See also:eye, and not in fanciful invention. His simplicity in this respect brought him into collision with popular See also:prejudice when, in the " Dejeuner sur l'herbe" (x863), he painted a modern fete champeetre. The actual characters of his painting at this See also:period, so fancifully reproached and praised, may be grouped under two heads. (1) The expression of the See also:object by a few carefully chosen values in flattish patches. Those patches are placed See also:side by side with little attenuation of their See also:sharp collision. This simplification of See also:colour and See also:tone recalls by its broad effects of See also:light and See also:silhouette on the one See also:hand Velasquez, on the other the extreme simplification made by the See also:Japanese for the purposes of colour-See also:printing. Manet, like the other painters of his group, was influenced by these newly-discovered works of art. The See also:image, thus treated, has remarkable hardiness and vigour, and also See also:great decorative breadth. Its vivacity and intensity of aspect is gained by the See also:sacrifice of many See also:minor gradations, and by the judgment with which the leading values have been determined.' This matching of values produces, technically, a "solid painting, without See also:glazing or elaborate transparency in shadows.
(2) During this period Manet makes See also:constant progress towards a See also:fair, clear colour. In his See also:early work the patches of blond colour are relieved against See also:black shadows; later these shadows clear up, and in See also:place of an indeterminate See also: 1834), a severe and learned draughtsman, is associated with this landscape group by his curiosity in the expression of momentary See also:action and the effects of artificial See also:illumination, and by his experiments in broken colour, more particularly in See also:pastel. The novelty of his matter, taken from unexplored corners of modern See also:life, still more the daring and See also:irony of his observation and points of view, and the strangeness of his composition, strongly influenced by Japanese art, enriched the associations now gathering about the word " impressionist." Another name, that of Auguste See also:Renoir (b. 1841), completes the leading figures of the group. Any " school " See also:programme would be strained to breaking-point to admit this painter, unless on the very general grounds of love of See also:bright colour, sunlit places and See also:independence of vision. He has no See also:science of See also:drawing or of tone, but wins a See also:precarious See also:charm of colour and expression. the " I%Iusique aux Tuileries," refused by the Salon of 1863. In this we have an actual out-of-doors See also:scene rendered with a frankness and sharp See also:taste of contemporary life surprising to contemporaries, with an elision of detail in the treatment of a See also:crowd and a seizing on the See also:chief colour See also:note and patch that characterize each figure equally surprising, an effort finally to render the See also:total high-pitched gaiety of the spectacle as a banquet of sunlight and colour rather than a collection of See also:separate dramatic See also:groups. For life of Edouard Manet (1832–1883) see Edmond See also:Bazire, Manet (Paris, 1884). An See also:idea of the See also:state of popular feeling may be gained by See also:reading See also:Zola's eloquent See also:defence in Mon Salon, which appeared in L'Evenement (1866) and Edouard Manet (1867), both reprinted in See also:Mes Haines (Paris, 188o). The same author has embodied many of the impressionist ideals in Claude Lantier, the fictitious See also:hero of L'fEuvre. Other writers belonging to Manet's group are See also:Theodore Duret, author of See also:Les Peintres franfais en 1867 and Critique d'avantgarde, articles and catalogue-prefaces reprinted 1885. See also, for Manet and others, J. K. Huysman's L'Art moderne (1883) and Certains. Summaries of the literature of the whole period will be found in R. See also:Mather, The See also:History of Modern Painting (tr. See also:London, 1896), not always trustworthy in detail, and See also:Miss R. G. See also:Kingsley, A History of See also:French Art (1899). For an interesting See also:critical account see W. C. Brownell, French Art (1892). The second period, to which the name is sometimes limited,. is complicated by the emergence of new figures, and it is difficult as yet, and perhaps will always remain difficult, to say how much of originality belongs to each artist in the group. The See also:main features are an intenser study of illumination, a greater variety of illuminations, and a revolution in facture with a view to pressing closer to a high See also:pitch of light. Manet plays his See also:part in this development, but we shall not be wrong probably in giving to Claude Monet (b. 184o) the chief role as the instinctive artist of the period, and to Camille. Pissarro (b. 1830) a very large part as a painter, curious in theory and experiment. Monet at the early date of 1866 had painted a picture as daring in its naive brutality of out-of-See also:door illumination as the " Dejeuner sur t'herbe." But this picture has the breadth of patch, solidity and suavity of See also:paste of Manet's practice. During the See also:siege of Paris (1870–71) Monet and Pissarro were in London, and there the study of Turner's pictures enlarged their ideas of the pitch in See also:lighting and range of effect possible in painting, and also suggested a new handling of colour, by small broken touches in place of the large flowing touches characteristic of Manet. This method of painting occupied much of the discussion of the group that centred See also:round Manet at the Cafe Guerbois, in the Batignolles See also:quarter (hence called L'Ecole de Batignolles). The ideas were: (I) Abolition of conventional brown tonality. But all browns, in the fervour of this revolt, went the way of conventional brown, and all ready-made mixtures like the umbers, See also:ochres, siennas were banished from the See also:palette. Black itself was condemned. (2) The idea of the spectrum, as exhibiting the See also:series of " See also:primary " or " pure " colours, directed the reformed palette. Six colours, besides See also: (3) These colours were laid on the See also:canvas with as little previous mixture on the palette as possible to maintain a maximum of luminosity, and were fused by See also:touch on the canvas as little as possible, for the same See also:reason. Hence the " broken " character of the touch in this painting, and the subordination of delicacies of See also:form and suave continuity of texture to the one aim of glittering light-and-colour notation. See also:Justification of these procedures was sought in occasional features of the practice of E. See also:Delacroix, of See also:Watteau, of J. B. See also:Chardin, in the hatchings of pastel, the stipple of See also:water-colour. With the ferment of theory went a parti pris for translating all effects into the upper registers of tone (cf. Ruskin's chapter on Turner's practice in Modern Painters), and for emphasizing the colour of shadows at the expense of their tone. The characteristic work of this period is landscape, as the subject of illumination strictly observed and followed through the round of the See also:day and of the seasons. Other pictorial motives were subordinated to this See also:research of effect, and Monet, with a haystack, group of poplars, or See also: See also:Corot, J. B. Jongkind, See also:Boudin, Monet. Monet's real teacher was See also:Eugene Boudin (1824–1898). (See Gustave Cahen's Eugene Boudin, Paris, 1900). They, and others of the group, worked together in a painters' See also:colony at See also:Saint See also:Simeon, near See also:Honfleur. It is usual to date the origin of plein-See also:air painting, i.e. painting out-of-doors, in an out-of-doors See also: He still, however, referred the sensations of colour to the three impossible " primaries" of See also:Brewster—red, See also:blue and yellow. The See also:Young-See also:Helmholtz theory affected the palette of the Impressionists, and See also:die work of See also:Ogden See also:Rood, Colour (Internat. Scientific Series, 1879–1881), published in See also:English, French and See also:German, furnished the theorists with formulae measuring the degradation of pitch suffered by See also:pigments in mixture. The Impressionist group (with the exception of Manet, who still fought for his place in the Salon) exhibited together for the first See also:time as L'Exposition des Impressionistes at Nadar's, See also:Boulevard des Capucines, in 1874. They were then taken up by the dealer See also:Durand-See also:Rue], and the succeeding exhibitions in 1876, 1877, 1879, 188o, 1881, 1882 and 1886 were held by him in various galleries. The full history of these exhibitions, with the names of the painters, will be found in two works: See also:Felix-Feneon, Les Impressionistes en 1886 (Paris, 1886), and G. See also:Geffroy, La See also:Vie artistique (" Histoire de 1'impressionisme," in vol. for 1894). See also G. Lecomte, L'Art impressioniste d'apres la collection privee de M. Durand-Ruel (Paris, 1892) ; Duranty, La Peinture nouvelle (1876). Besides the names already cited, some others may be added: Madame Berthe Morisot, See also:sister-in-See also:law of Manet; See also:Paul Cezanne, belonging to the Manet-Pissarro group; and, later, Gauguin. J. F. Raffaelli applied a " characteristic " drawing, to use his word, to scenes in the See also:dismal suburbs of Paris; See also:Forain, the satiric draughtsman, was a See also:disciple of Degas, as also Zandomeneghi. Miss See also:Mary Cassatt was his See also:pupil. Caillebotte, who bequeathed the collection of Impressionist paintings now in the Luxembourg, was also an exhibitor; and Boudin, who linked the See also:movement to the earlier See also:schools. The first exhibitions of the Impressionists in London were in 1882 and 1883, but their fortunes there cannot be pursued in the See also:present See also:article, nor the history of the movement beyond its originators. This excludes notable figures, of which M. See also:Besnard may be chosen as a type. In Manet's painting, even in the final steps he took towards " la peinture claire," there is nothing of the " decomposition of tones " that logically followed from the theories of his followers. He recognized the existence in certain illuminations of the See also:violet See also:shadow, and he adopted in open-air work a looser and more broken touch. The nature of his subjects encouraged such a handling, for the painter who attempts to note from nature the colour values of an elusive effect must treat form in a See also:summary See also:fashion, still more so when the material is in constant movement like water. Moreover, in the See also:river-side subjects near Paris there was a great See also:deal that was only pictorially tolerable when its tone was subtracted from the details of its form. Monet's painting carries' the shorthand of form and broken colour to extremity; the flowing touch of Manet is chopped up into harsher, smaller notes of tone, and the pitch pushed up till all values approach the iridescent end of the See also:register. It was in 1886 that the doctrinaire ferment came to a See also:head, and what was supposed to be a scientific method of colour was formulated. This was pointillisme, the See also:resolution of the colours of nature back into six bands of the See also:rainbow or spectrum, and their representation on the canvas by dots of unmixed pigment. These dots, at a sufficient distance, combine their hues in the eye with the effect of a mixture of coloured See also:lights, not of pigments, so that the result is an increase instead of a loss of luminosity. There are several fallacies, however, theoretical and See also:practical, in this " spectral palette " and pointillist method. If we depart from the three primaries of the Helmholtz See also:hypothesis, there is no reason why we should stop at six hues instead of six See also:hundred. But pigments follow the spectrum series so imperfectly that the three primaries, even if we could exactly locate them, limit the palette considerably in its upper range. The sacrifice of black is quite illogical, and the See also:lower ranges suffer accordingly. Moreover, it is doubtful whether many painters have followed the laws of mixture of lights in their dotting, e.g. dotting See also:green and red together to produce yellow. It may be added that dotting with oil pigment is in practice too coarse and inaccurate a method. This innovation of pointillisme is generally ascribed to See also:George Seurat (d. 1890), whose picture, " La Grande Jatte," was exhibited at the Rue See also:Laffitte in 1886. Pissarro experimented in the new method, but abandoned it, and other names among the Pointillistes are Paul Signac, See also:Vincent See also:van Gogh, and van Rysselberghe. The theory opened the way for endless casuistries, and its extravagances died out in the later See also:exhibition of the Independants or were domesticated in the Salon by painters like M. See also:Henri See also: F. See also:Watts, but less isolated and narrowed, because the art of none of these limited itself to the pursuit of light. Pointiltisme, after a fashion, existed in British water-colour practice. But the Pre-Raphaelite school had accustomed the English eye to extreme See also:definition in painting and to elaboration of detail, and it happened that the painting of See also: (With each difference of tone, " value " implies a difference of See also:hue also, so that when we speak of a different tone of the same colour we are using the word " same " in a loose or approximate sense.) These planes or facets define themselves one against another with greater or less sharpness. Modern technique follows this modern analysis of vision, and in one See also:act instead of three renders by a " touch " of paint the shape and value of these facets, and instead of imposing a uniform ideal outline at all their junctions, allows these patches to define themselves against one another with variable sharpness. Blurred definition, then, as it exists in our natural view of things, is admitted into painting; a blurring that may arise from distance, from vapour or See also:smoke, from brilliant light. from obscurity, or simply from the nearness in value of adjacent objects. Similarly, much detail that in See also:primitive art is elaborated is absorbed by rendering the aspect instead of the facts known to make up that aspect. Thus See also:hair and See also:fur, the texture of stuffs, the See also:blades of grass at a little distance, become patches of tone showing only their larger constructive markings. But the blurring of See also:definitions and the elimination of detail that we find in modern pictorial art are not all of this ready-made character. We have so far only the scientific analysis of a field of view. If the painter were a scientific reporter he would have to pursue the systems of planes, with their shapes and values, to infinity. Impressionism is the art that surveys the field and determines which of the shapes and tones are of chief importance to the interested eye, enforces these, and sacrifices the See also:rest. Construction, the See also:logic of the object rendered, determines partly this action of the eye, and also decoration, the effects of See also:rhythm in line and See also:harmony in See also:fields of colour. These motives belong to all art, but the specially impressionist See also:motive is the act of See also:attention as it affects the aspect of the field. We are See also:familiar, in the See also:ordinary use of the eye, with two features of its structure that limit clearness of vision. There is, -first, the spot of clear vision on the retina, outside of which all falls away into blur; there is, secondly, the action of See also:focus. As the former limits clear definition to one spot in the field extended vertically and laterally, so focus limits clear definition to one See also:plane in the third See also:dimension, viz. See also:depth. If three objects, A, B and C, stand at different depths before the eye, we can at will See also:fix A, whereupon B and C must fall out of focus, or B, whereupon A and C must be blurred, or C, sacrificing the clearness of A and B. All this apparatus makes it impossible to see everything at once with equal clearness, enables us, and forces us for the uses of real life, to See also:frame and limit our picture, according to the immediate See also:interest of the eye, whatever it may be. The painter instinctively uses these means to arrive at the emphasis and neglect that -his choice requires. If he is engaged on a face he will now See also:screw his attention to a part and now relax it, distributing the attention over the whole so as to restore the bigger relations of aspect. See also:Sir See also:Joshua See also:Reynolds describes this See also:process as seeing the whole " with the dilated eye "; the commoner See also:precept of the studios is " to look with the eyes See also:half closed "; a third way is to throw the whole voluntarily out of focus. In any See also:case the result is that minor planes are swamped in bigger, that smaller patches of colour are swept up into broader, that markings are blurred. The final result of these tentative reviews records, in what is blurred and what is clear, the attention that has been distributed to different parts, and to, parts measured against. the whole. The Impressionist painter does not allot so. much detail to a face in a full-length portrait as to a head alone, nor to twenty figures on a canvas as to one. Again, he indicates by his treatment of planes and definitions whether the main subject of his picture is in the foreground or the distance. He persuades the eye to slip over hosts of near objects so that, as in life, it may See also:hit a distant See also:target, or concentrate its attack on what is near, while the distance falls away into a dim See also:curtain. All those devices by which attention is directed and distributed, and the importance in space of an object established, affect impressionistic composition. It is an inevitable misunderstanding of painting which plays the See also:game of art so closely up to the real aspects of nature that its aim is that of See also:mere exact copying. Painting like See also:Mallet's, accused of being realistic in this sense, sufficiently disproves the See also:accusation when examined. Never did painting show a parti pris more pronounced, even more violent. The elisions and assertions by which Mallet selects what he finds significant and beautiful in the complete natural image are startling to the stupid realist, and the Impressionist may best be described as the painter who out of the completed contents of vision constructs an image moulded upon his own interest in the thing seen and not on that of any imaginary schoolmaster. Accepting the most complex terms of nature with their See also:special emotions, he uses the same freedom of sacrifice as the See also:man who at the other end of the See also:scale expresses his interest in things by a few scratches of outline. The perpetual enemy of both is the eclectic, who works for possible interests not his own. Some of the points touched on above will be found amplified in articles by the writer in The See also:Albemarle (See also:September 1892), the Fortnightly Review (See also:June 1894), and The Artist (March-See also:July 1896). An admirable exposition of Impressionism in this sense is R. A. M. See also:Stevenson's The Art of Velasquez (1895). Mr Stevenson was trained in the school of Carolus See also:Duran, where impressionist painting was reduced to a system. Mr See also:Sargent's painting is a brilliant example of the system. (D. S. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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