Impressionism

Impressionism developed in France in the nineteenth century and is based on the

practice of painting out of doors and spontaneously ‘on the spot’ rather than in a
studio from sketches. Main impressionist subjects were landscapes and scenes of
everyday life.

Claude Monet Woman Seated on a Bench (c.1874) Tate

Impressionism was developed by Claude Monet and other Paris-based artists from
the early 1860s. (Though the process of painting on the spot can be said to have
been pioneered in Britain by John Constable in around 1813–17 through his desire
to paint nature in a realistic way).
Instead of painting in a studio, the impressionists found that they could capture the
momentary and transient effects of sunlight by working quickly, in front of their
subjects, in the open air (en plein air) rather than in a studio. This resulted in a
greater awareness of light and colour and the shifting pattern of the natural scene.
Brushwork became rapid and broken into separate dabs in order to render the
fleeting quality of light.
The first group exhibition was in Paris in 1874 and included work by Monet,
Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne. The work shown was greeted
with derision with Monet’s Impression, Sunrise particularly singled out for ridicule
and giving its name (used by critics as an insult) to the movement. Seven further
exhibitions were then held at intervals until 1886.
Other core artists of impressionism were Camille Pissarro and Berthe Morisot with
Edgar Degas and Edouard Manet also often associated with the movement.
Although originating in France, impressionism had great influence overseas. Core
British impressionists included Walter Richard Sickert and Wilson Steer.

Post-impressionism
Post-impressionism is a term which describes the changes in impressionism from
about 1886, the date of last Impressionist group show in Paris

Exhibition Catalogue ‘Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition’, Grafton Galleries, London

Exhibition Catalogue ‘Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition’, list of artists

The term is usually confined to the four major figures who developed and extended
impressionism in distinctly different directions – Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin,
Georges Seurat and Vincent van Gogh.
Cézanne retained the fundamental doctrine of painting from nature but with added
rigour, famously saying ‘I want to re-do Poussin from nature’. (Poussin being a
notoriously intellectual pioneer of French landscape). Seurat put impressionist
painting of light and colour on a scientific basis (neo-Impressionism, divisionism).
Gauguin retained intense light and colour but rejected painting from nature and
reintroduced imaginative subject matter. Van Gogh painted from nature but
developed highly personal use of colour and brushwork directly expressing
emotional response to subject and his inner world.
Post-impressionism as a term was first used by British artist and art critic Roger
Fry in 1910 when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and the Post-
Impressionists.

Neo-Impressionism
Neo-impressionism is the name given to the post-impressionist work of Georges
Seurat, Paul Signac and their followers who, inspired by optical theory, painted
using tiny adjacent dabs of primary colour to create the effect of light.

Georges Seurat Le Bec du Hoc, Grandcamp (1885)

Neo-impressionism is characterised by the use of the divisionist technique (often
popularly but incorrectly called pointillism, a term Paul Signac repudiated).
Divisionism attempted to put impressionist painting of light and colour on a
scientific basis by using an optical mixture of colours. Instead of mixing colours on
the palette, which reduces intensity, the primary-colour components of each colour
were placed separately on the canvas in tiny dabs so they would mix in the
spectator’s eye. Optically mixed colours move towards white so this method gave
greater luminosity.
This technique was based on the colour theories of M-E Chevreul, whose De la loi
du contraste simultanée des couleurs (On the law of the simultaneous contrast of
colours) was published in Paris in 1839 and had an increasing impact on French
painters from then on, particularly the impressionists and post-impressionists
generally, as well as the neo-impressionists.

Sianen, Habi Dwaine Haboy

BTLED-IA 2