Story. Painting in impressionism: features, history

For me, the style of impressionism is, first of all, something airy, ephemeral, inexorably slipping away. This is that amazing moment that the eye barely manages to fix and which then remains in the memory for a long time as a moment of the highest harmony. The masters of impressionism were famous precisely for their ability to easily transfer this moment of beauty to the canvas, endowing it with tangible sensations and subtle vibrations that arise with all reality when interacting with the picture. When you look at the works of outstanding artists of this style, there is always a certain aftertaste of mood.

Impressionism(from impression - impression) is an art movement that originated in France in the late 1860s. Its representatives strove to capture the real world in its mobility and variability in the most natural and unbiased way, to convey their fleeting impressions. Particular attention was paid to the transfer of color and light.

The word "impressionism" comes from the name of Monet's painting Impression. Sunrise, presented at the 1874 exhibition. The little-known journalist Louis Leroy, in his magazine article, called the artists "Impressionists" to express his disdain. However, the name stuck and lost its original negative meaning.

The first important exhibition of the Impressionists took place from 15 April to 15 May 1874 in the studio of the photographer Nadar. There were presented 30 artists, in total - 165 works. Young artists were reproached for the "incompleteness" and "sloppiness of painting", the lack of taste and meaning in their work, "an attempt on true art", rebellious moods and even immorality.

The leading representatives of impressionism are Alfred Sisley and Frederic Basil. Together with them, Edouard Manet and exhibited their paintings. Joaquin Sorolla is also considered an Impressionist.

Landscapes and scenes from urban life - perhaps the most characteristic genres of impressionistic painting - were painted "en plein air", i.e. directly from life, and not on the basis of sketches and preparatory sketches. The Impressionists peered intently at nature, noticing colors and shades that are usually invisible, such as blue in the shadows.

Their artistic method was to decompose complex tones into their constituent pure colors of the spectrum. Colored shadows and pure light quivering painting were obtained. The Impressionists applied paint in separate strokes, sometimes using contrasting tones in one area of ​​the picture. The main feature of Impressionist paintings is the effect of lively flickering of colors.

To convey the changes in the color of the subject, the Impressionists began to prefer to use colors that mutually reinforce each other: red and green, yellow and purple, orange and blue. These same colors create the effect of consistent contrast. For example, if we look at red for a while, and then look at white, it will seem greenish to us.

Impressionism did not raise philosophical problems and did not even try to penetrate the colored surface of everyday life. Instead, artists focus on superficiality, fluidity of the moment, mood, lighting, or angle of view. Their paintings represented only the positive aspects of life, without touching on acute social problems.

Artists often painted people in motion, while having fun or relaxing. They took subjects of flirting, dancing, staying in cafes and theaters, boat trips, on beaches and in gardens. Judging by the paintings of the Impressionists, life is a continuous series of small holidays, parties, pleasant pastimes outside the city or in a friendly environment.

Impressionism left a rich legacy in painting. First of all, this is an interest in color problems and non-standard techniques. Impressionism expressed the desire to update the artistic language and break with tradition, as a protest against the painstaking technique of the masters of the classical school. Well, we can now admire these magnificent works of outstanding artists.

Impressionism (French impressionnisme, from impression - impression), a trend in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th century, whose masters, fixing their fleeting impressions, sought to most naturally and impartially capture the real world in its mobility and variability. Impressionism originated in French painting in the late 1860s. Edouard Manet (who was not formally a member of the Impressionist group), Degas, Renoir, Monet brought freshness and immediacy to the perception of life in fine art.

French artists turned to the depiction of instantaneous situations snatched from the stream of reality, the spiritual life of a person, the depiction of strong passions, the spiritualization of nature, interest in the national past, the desire for synthetic forms of art are combined with the motives of world sorrow, the desire to explore and recreate the "shadow", " night" side of the human soul, with the famous "romantic irony" that allowed the romantics to boldly compare and equalize the high and the low, the tragic and the comic, the real and the fantastic. Impressionist artists used the fragmentary realities of situations, used seemingly unbalanced compositional constructions, unexpected angles, points of view, cuts of figures.

In the 1870s-1880s, the landscape of French impressionism was formed: C. Monet, C. Pissarro, A. Sisley developed a consistent plein air system, created in their paintings a feeling of sparkling sunlight, richness of colors of nature, dissolution of forms in the vibration of light and air. The name of the direction comes from the name of the painting by Claude Monet "Impression. Rising Sun" ("Impression. Soleil levant"; exhibited in 1874, now at the Musée Marmottan, Paris). The decomposition of complex colors into pure components, which were superimposed on the canvas in separate strokes, colored shadows, reflections and valery gave rise to an unparalleled light, quivering impressionist painting.

Certain aspects and techniques of this trend in painting were used by painters from Germany (M. Lieberman, L. Corinth), the USA (J. Whistler), Sweden (A.L. Zorn), Russia (K.A. Korovin, I.E. Grabar ) and many other national art schools. The concept of impressionism is also applied to the sculpture of the 1880s-1910s, which has some impressionistic features - the desire to convey instantaneous movement, fluidity and softness of form, plastic sketchiness (works by O. Rodin, bronze statuettes by Degas, etc.). Impressionism in the visual arts influenced the development of expressive means of contemporary literature, music, and theater. In interaction and in controversy with the pictorial system of this style, neo-impressionism and post-impressionism emerged in the artistic culture of France in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

neo-impressionism(French neo-impressionnisme) - a trend in painting that arose in France around 1885, when its main masters, J. Seurat and P. Signac, developed a new painting technique of divisionism. The French neo-impressionists and their followers (T. van Reiselberg in Belgium, G. Segantini in Italy and others), developing the tendencies of late impressionism, sought to apply modern discoveries in the field of optics to art, giving a methodical character to the methods of decomposing tones into pure colors; at the same time, they overcame the randomness, fragmentation of the impressionistic composition, resorted to flat-decorative solutions in their landscapes and multi-figured panel paintings.

post-impressionism(from lat. post - after and impressionism) - the collective name of the main trends in French painting of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. Since the mid-1880s, post-impressionist masters have been looking for new expressive means that can overcome the empiricism of artistic thinking and allow them to move from the impressionistic fixation of individual moments of life to the embodiment of its long-term states, material and spiritual constants. The period of post-impressionism is characterized by the active interaction of individual trends and individual creative systems. Post-impressionism usually ranks as the work of neo-impressionist masters, the Nabis group, as well as V. van Gogh, P. Cezanne, P. Gauguin.

Reference and biographical data of the Small Bay Planet Art Gallery are prepared on the basis of materials from the History of Foreign Art (edited by M.T. Kuzmina, N.L. Maltseva), the Artistic Encyclopedia of Foreign Classical Art, and the Great Russian Encyclopedia.

Impressionism first appeared in France towards the end of the 19th century. Before the advent of this trend, still lifes, portraits and even landscapes were mostly painted by artists in studios. Impressionist paintings, on the other hand, were often created outdoors, and their subjects were real fleeting scenes from modern life. And although impressionism was initially criticized, it soon gathered a large following and laid the foundation for similar movements in music and literature.

Famous French Impressionist painters

It is not surprising that impressionism in painting has become one of the most famous areas of fine art: the artists who worked in this style left behind canvases of amazing beauty, light as a breath of fresh air, full of light and colors. Many of these beautiful works were written by the following masters of impressionism, which every self-respecting connoisseur of world painting knows.

Edouard Manet

Despite the fact that the entire work of Edouard Manet cannot be placed only within the framework of impressionism, the painter largely influenced the emergence of this trend, and other French artists working in this style considered him the founder of impressionism and their ideological inspirer. Other well-known French impressionists were good friends of the master: Edgar Degas, Pierre Auguste Renoir, as well as an impressionist artist with a similar surname, which baffles beginners in the world of painting, Claude Monet.

After meeting these artists, impressionistic changes took place in Manet's work: he began to prefer working outdoors, light, bright colors, an abundance of light and fractional composition began to predominate in the paintings. Although he still does not refuse dark colors, and he prefers painting in the domestic genre to landscapes - this can be traced in the painter's works "Bar at the Folies Bergère", "Music at the Tuileries", "Breakfast on the Grass", "Papa's Lathuille", "Argenteuil" and others.

Claude Monet

The name of this French artist, perhaps, at least once in his life everyone heard. Claude Monet was one of the founders of Impressionism, and it was his painting Impression: Rising Sun that gave the movement its name.

In the 60s of the 19th century, the impressionist artist was one of the first to take a great interest in painting in the open air, and much later he created a new experimental approach to work. It consisted in observing and depicting the same object at different times of the day: this is how a whole series of canvases was created overlooking the facade of the Rouen Cathedral, opposite which the artist even settled in order not to lose sight of the building.

As you study Impressionism in painting, don't miss Monet's Field of Poppies at Argenteuil, Walk to the Cliff at Pourville, Women in the Garden, Lady with Umbrella, Boulevard des Capucines, and the Water lilies."

Pierre Auguste Renoir

This impressionist artist had a unique vision of beauty, which made Renoir one of the most famous representatives of this movement. First of all, he is famous for his paintings of the noisy Parisian life and leisure of the late 19th century. Renoir perfectly knew how to work with color and chiaroscuro, in particular, his exceptional ability to paint nudes, with a unique transmission of tones and textures, is noted.

Already from the 80s, the Impressionist artist began to lean more towards the classical style of painting and became interested in Renaissance painting, which forced him to include sharper lines and a clear composition in his mature works. It was during this period that Pierre-Auguste Renoir created some of the most imperishable works of his era.

Pay special attention to such paintings by Renoir as "Breakfast of the Rowers", "Ball at the Moulin de la Galette", "Dance in the Village", "Umbrellas", "Dance at Bougival", "Girls at the Piano".

Edgar Degas

In the history of art, Edgar Degas remained as an impressionist artist, although he himself denied this label, preferring to call himself rather an independent artist. Indeed, he had a certain interest in realism, which distinguished the artist from other impressionists, but at the same time he used many impressionist techniques in his work, in particular, he “played” with light in the same way and was fond of depicting scenes from urban life.

Degas was always attracted by the human figure, he often depicted singers, dancers, laundresses, trying to depict the human body in various positions, for example, on the canvases “Dance Class”, “Rehearsal”, “Concert at the Ambassador Cafe”, “Opera Orchestra”, “ Dancers in blue.

Camille Pissarro

Pissarro was the only artist who participated in all eight Impressionist exhibitions from 1874 to 1886. While Impressionist paintings are known for their urban and countryside scenes, Pissarro's paintings show the viewer the daily life of French peasants, depicting rural nature in various conditions and under different lighting conditions.

Getting acquainted with the paintings that this impressionist artist wrote, first of all it is worth seeing the works “Boulevard Montmartre at night”, “Harvest in Eragny”, “Reapers rest”, “Garden in Pontoise” and “Entrance to the village of Voisin”.

Impressionism(French impressionnisme, from impression - impression) - a trend in art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, which originated in France and then spread throughout the world, whose representatives sought to most naturally capture the real world in its mobility and variability, to convey their fleeting impressions .

1. Liberation from the traditions of realism (no mythological, biblical and historical paintings, only modern life).

2. Observation and study of the surrounding reality. Not what he sees, but how he sees from the position of the perceived "visual essence of things"

3. Daily life of a modern city. Psychology of the city dweller. The dynamics of life. The pace, the rhythm of life.

4. "Effect of a stretched moment"

5. Search for new forms. Small sizes of works (etudes, framing). Not typical, but random.

6. Serialization of paintings (Monet's "Hacks")

7. The novelty of the painting system. Open pure color. Relief, the richest collection of reflexes, quivering.

8. Mixing genres.

Edouard Manet - innovator. From deaf dense tones to light painting. Fragmentation of compositions.

"Olympia"- relies on Titian, Giorgione, Goya. Posed by Victoria Muran. Venus is depicted as a modern cocotte. At the feet of a black cat. A black woman presents a bouquet. The background is a dark, warm tone of the woman's body like a pearl on blue sheets. The volume is broken. There is no black and white modeling.

"Breakfast on the Grass"- model and two artists + landscape + still life. Black frock coats form a contrast with the naked body.

"Flutist"- the impression of the music.

"Bar Folies-Bergere" - the girl is a bartender. The thrill of a peeped moment. The loneliness of a bustling city. The illusion of happiness. I put it in the whole canvas (inaccessible in my thoughts, but accessible to bar customers). A full hall of visitors is an image of the world.

Claude Monet - abandoned the traditional sequence (undercoating, glazing, etc.) - ala prima

"Impression. Rising Sun" - Fieria yellow, orange, green. The boat is a visual accent. Elusive, unfinished landscape, no contours. Variability of the light-air environment. Rays of light change vision.

"Breakfast on the Grass" - edge of the forest, picnic experience , dark green gamma interspersed with brown and black. The leaves are wet. The woman's clothes and the tablecloth are illuminated, filled with air, light through the foliage.

Boulevard des Capucines in Paris fragmentary. Cuts off two people who are looking at the boulevard from the balcony. The crowd of people is the life of the city. Half in light from the setting sun and half in shadow from the building. No visual center, instant impression.

"Rocks in Belle-Ile"- the moving mass of water dominates (thick strokes). Iridescent shades vigorously applied. Rocks are reflected in the water, and water is reflected in the rocks. Feeling the power of the elements, boiling green-blue water. High horizon composition.

"Gare Saint-Lazare" - the interior of the station is shown, but the steam locomotive and the steam that is everywhere are more interesting (fascination with fog, lilac haze).

Pierre Auguste Renoir- an artist of joy, known primarily as a master of a secular portrait, not devoid of sentimentality.

"Swing"- imbued with warm colors, youth is shown, the girl is impressed.

"Ball at the Moulin de la Gallette" - genre scene. Day. Young people, students, shop assistants, etc. At tables under acacia trees, a dance floor. Light overflows (solar bunnies on the backs).

"Portrait of Jeanne Samary" - flower women. Charming, feminine, graceful, touching, direct actress. Deep eyes, a slight sunny smile.

"Portrait of Madame Charpentier with children"- an elegant secular woman in a black dress with a train and two girls in blue. Tapestry table, dog, parquet - everything speaks of the wealth of the family.

Edgar Degas- did not write in the open air, the cult of line and drawing. Compositions diagonally (from bottom to top)); S-shaped, spiral shapes + a window from which lighting + lighting from spotlights. Oil, then bed.

"Ballet Girls", "Dancers"- invades the lives of ballerinas. Strokes connect drawing and painting. Constant rhythm of training.

"Blue Dancers"- no individuality - a single wreath of bodies. In one corner there is still light from the ramps, and in the other the shadow of the wings. The moment is still actresses and ordinary people. Expressive silhouettes, cornflower blue dresses. Fragmentation - the characters do not look at the viewer.

"Apsent" - man and woman are sitting in a cafe. Ash gamma. A man with a pipe looks in one direction, and a drunken woman with a detached look - aching loneliness.

Camille Pissarro - fond of landscapes, including people, carts in them. The motive of the road with walking. Loved spring and autumn.

"Entrance to the village of Voisin» - a dim, soft landscape, trees along the road - frame the entrance, their branches mix, dissolving in the sky. Slowly, calmly, the horse walks. Houses are not just architectural objects, but dwellings for people (warm nests).

"Opera Passage in Paris"(series) - a gray cloudy day. The roofs are lightly powdered with snow, the pavement is wet, the buildings are drowning in a veil of snow, passers-by with umbrellas turn into shadows. The color of humid air envelops. Lilac-blue, olive tones. Small strokes.

Alfred Sisley- sought to notice the beauty of nature, the epic tranquility inherent in the rural landscape.

"Frost in Louveciennes" - morning, fresh state, objects are bathed in light (fusion). No shadows (fine nuances), yellow-orange colors. Quiet corner, not a hurried city. The feeling of purity, fragility, love for this place

Impressionism in Russia. develops at a later time and at an accelerated pace than in France

V.A.Serov - indifferent to academic drawing wants to show the beauty of nature in color.

"Girl with peaches"- a portrait of Verochka Mamontova. Everything is natural and unconstrained, every detail is connected with one another. The charm of a girl's face, the poetry of a life image, a light-saturated colorful painting. The charm and freshness of the study, organically combined two trends, two forces that formed a single form of pictorial vision. Everything seems so simple and natural, but there is so much depth and wholeness in this simplicity!! With the utmost expressiveness, V. Serov conveyed the light pouring in a silvery stream from the window and filling the room. The girl is sitting at the table and is not busy with anything, as if she really sat down for a moment, automatically picked up a peach and holds it, looking at you simply and frankly. But this peace is only momentary, and a passion for frisky movement peeps through it.

"Children"- shows the spiritual world of children (sons). The elder is looking at the sunset, and the younger is facing the viewer. A different outlook on life.

"Mika Morozov"- sits in a chair, but rolls down on the viewer. Childish excitement is conveyed.

"Chorus Girl"- etude. He paints with juicy strokes of the brush, wide strokes in the foliage, strokes either vertical or horizontal and different in texture ⇒ dynamism, air and light. The combination of nature and girls, freshness, immediacy.

"Paris. Boulevard des Capucines" - colorful kaleidoscope of colors. Artificial lighting - entertainment, decorative theatricality.

I.E. Grabar - volitional, emotional beginning.

« February azure»- I saw a birch from ground level and was shocked. The chimes of the rainbow are united by the azure of the sky. The birch is monumental (to the whole canvas).

"March Snow"- the girl carries buckets on the yoke, the shadow of the tree on the melted snow.

Impressionism opened a new art - it is important how the artist sees, new forms and ways of presenting. They have a moment, we have a stretch in time; we have less dynamics, more romanticism.

Mane Breakfast on the grass Mane Olympia

Manet "Bar Folies-Bergere" Mane Flutist"

Monet "Impression. Rising Sun Monet "Breakfast on the Grass" - "Boulevard des Capucines in Paris"

Monet "Rocks in Belle-Ile"» Monet Gare Saint-Lazare

Monet Boulevard des Capucines in ParisRenoir"Swing"

Renoir "Ball at the Moulin de la Gallette" Renoir "Portrait of Jeanne Samary"

Renoir "Portrait of Madame Charpentier with Children"

Degas "Blue Dancers" Degas "Apsent"

Pissarro -"Opera Passage in Paris"(series) Pissarro "Entrance to the village of Voisin»

Sisley "Frost in Louveciennes" Serov "Girl with Peaches"

Serov "Children" Serov "Mika Morozov"

Korovin "Chorus Girl" Korovin "Paris. Boulevard of the Capucines»

Grabar "February azure" Grabar "March snow"

There is an opinion that painting in impressionism occupies not such an important place. But impressionism in painting is the opposite. The statement is very paradoxical and contradictory. But this is only at first, superficial glance.

Perhaps, that for all the millennia of existence in the arsenal of mankind of artistic fine art, nothing more new, revolutionary has appeared. Impressionism is in any modern art canvas. It can be clearly seen both in the frames of the film of the famous master, and among the gloss of a ladies' magazine. He penetrated music and books. But once upon a time everything was different.

Origins of Impressionism

In 1901, in France, in the Combarel cave, rock paintings were accidentally discovered, the youngest of which was 15,000 years old. And it was the first impressionism in painting. Because the primitive artist did not set out to read morality to the viewer. He simply painted the life that surrounded him.

And then this method was forgotten for many, many years. Mankind has invented others And the transfer of emotions by the visual method has ceased to be topical for him.

In some ways, the ancient Romans were close to impressionism. But part of their efforts were covered in ashes. And where Vesuvius did not reach, the barbarians came.

Painting was preserved, but began to illustrate texts, messages, messages, knowledge. She ceased to be a feeling. It has become a parable, an explanation, a story. Look at the tapestry from Bayeux. He is wonderful and priceless. But this is not a picture. This is seventy meters of linen comics.

Painting in impressionism: the beginning

Slowly and majestically developed painting in the world for thousands of years. New colors and techniques appeared. Artists learned the importance of perspective and the power of a colorful hand-drawn message on the human mind. Painting became an academic science and acquired all the features of monumental art. She became clumsy, prim and moderately pretentious. At the same time, refined and unshakable, like a canonical religious postulate.

Religious parables, literature, staged genre scenes served as the source of plots for the paintings. The strokes were small and inconspicuous. Glazing was introduced into the rank of dogma. And the art of drawing in the foreseeable future promised to ossify like a primeval forest.

Life was changing, technology was rapidly developing, and only artists continued to churn out prim portraits and smoothed sketches of country parks. This state of affairs did not suit everyone. But the inertia of the consciousness of society was overcome with difficulty at all times.

However, the 19th century was already in the yard, having long passed its second half. Social processes that used to take centuries now took place before the eyes of one generation. Industry, medicine, economics, literature, and society itself developed rapidly. It was then that painting showed itself in impressionism.

Happy birthday! Impressionism in painting: paintings

Impressionism in painting, like paintings, has an exact dating of its birth - 1863. And his birth was not without curiosities.

The center of world art then, of course, was Paris. It annually hosted large Parisian salons - world exhibitions and sales of paintings. The jury, which selected works for the salons, was mired in petty internal intrigues, useless squabbles and stubbornly oriented towards the senile tastes of the then academies. As a result, new, bright artists, whose talent did not correspond to ossified academic dogmas, did not get to the exhibition in the salon. During the selection of participants in the exhibition in 1863, over 60% of applications were rejected. These are thousands of painters. A scandal was brewing.

Emperor-gallery

And the scandal erupted. The inability to exhibit deprived a huge number of artists of their livelihood and access to the general public. Among them are the names now known to the whole world: Monet and Manet, Renoir and Pizarro.

It is clear that this did not suit them. And there was a big buzz in the press. It got to the point that on April 22, 1863, Napoleon III visited the Paris Salon and, in addition to the exposition, purposefully examined some of the rejected works. And I did not find anything reprehensible in them. And even made this statement in the press. That is why, in parallel with the great Paris Salon, an alternative exhibition of paintings with works rejected by the salon jury was opened. It went down in history under the name "Exhibition of Outcasts".

So, April 22, 1863 can be considered the birthday of all modern art. Art that has become independent of literature, music and religion. Moreover, painting itself began to dictate its terms to writers and composers, for the first time getting rid of subordinate roles.

Representatives of impressionism

When we talk about impressionism, we first of all mean impressionism in painting. Its representatives are numerous and multifaceted. Suffice it to name the most famous: Degas, Renouan, Pizarro, Cezanne, Morisot, Lepic, Legros, Gauguin, Renoir, Thilo, Forain and many, many others. For the first time, the Impressionists set the task of capturing not just a static picture from life, but snatching a feeling, an emotion, an inner experience. It was an instant cut, a high-speed photograph of the inner world, the emotional world.

Hence the new contrasts and colors, hitherto not used in painting. Hence the large, bold strokes and the constant search for new forms. There is no former clarity and slickness. The picture is blurry and fleeting, like a person's mood. This is not history. These are feelings that are visible to the eye. Look at them. They are all a little cut off in mid-sentence, a little fleeting. These are not paintings. These are sketches brought to ingenious perfection.

The emergence of post-impressionism

It was the desire to bring a feeling to the fore, and not a frozen temporal fragment, that was revolutionary and innovative for that time. And then there was only one step left to post-impressionism - a trend of art that brought to the fore not emotion, but patterns. More precisely, the transfer by the artist of his inner, personal reality. This is an attempt to tell not about the outside world, but about the inner one, through the way the artist sees the world. perception.

Impressionism and post-impressionism in painting are very close. And the division itself is very conditional. Both currents are close in time, and the authors themselves, often the same, as a rule, moved from one style to another quite freely.

And yet. Look at the work of the Impressionists. Slightly unnatural colors. A world familiar to us, but at the same time a little fictional. This is how the artist saw it. He does not give us a nature contemporary to him. He just bares his soul a little for us. The soul of Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh and Denis, Gauguin and Seurat.

Russian impressionism

The experience of impressionism, which captured the whole world, did not leave Russia aside either. Meanwhile, in our country, accustomed to a more measured life, not understanding the bustle and aspirations of Paris, impressionism could not get rid of academicism. He is like a bird that took off on takeoff, but froze halfway into the sky.

Impressionism in Russian painting did not receive the dynamism of the French brush. On the other hand, he acquired a dressed up semantic dominant, which made him a bright, somewhat isolated phenomenon in world art.

Impressionism is a feeling expressed in the form of a painting. He does not educate, does not demand. He claims.

Impressionism served as the starting point for Art Nouveau and expressionism, constructivism and avant-garde. All modern art, in fact, began its report on April 20, 1863. Impressionist painting is an art born in Paris.