After its first public presentation, the painting was heavily criticized for its lack of academic standards. When asked what title should be given to the catalogue of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, Claude Monet simply replied, "put Impression." He used the same name for this oil painting depicting the sunrise on the sea, which is considered a harbinger of the whole movement.Ĭlaude Monet's painting Impression Sunrise depicts Le Havre harbour while the red sun rises in the distance, dissolving forms in flickers of light. "I want to make modern people, in their essential traits, move about as they do on those friezes and place them on canvases organized by harmonies of colour," explained Seurat.Īs the Impressionist artist stated himself, he wanted to evoke timelessness associated with ancient friezes and bring some of the grandeur of ancient Egyptian and Greek sculptures to the modern moment.Ĭelebrated as one of the foremost examples of pointillism, a technique that was part of the broader impressionist experiments with colour and form, the painting comprises dots of colour that Seurat meticulously applied to the canvas, depicting different social classes relaxing on La Grande Jatte island in the Seine River.įeatured image: Impressionist artist Georges Seurat's work A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte, painted between 1884–1886, Creative Commons In addition, the figures appear as if chiseled, imposing in their statuesque forms. The selection below highlights some of the most famous examples of Impressionist paintings.įeatured image: Pierre Auguste Renoir's work, Luncheon of the Boating Party, 1880-81, detail, Creative CommonsĪ quick glance at this monumental Georges Seurat's painting A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte reveals a world that seems frozen in time. Impressionists rejected academism and created their own exhibition that took place each year in Paris from 1874-1886. The most famous Impressionist work, Claude Monet's Impression Sunrise, defined the movement. They worked mainly in Paris but also travelled to the seaside to make paintings depicting the impressions of light on the water, usually completing their works in a day. Among the leading representatives of Impressionism were Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Camille Pissarro. Writing about one of Manet's paintings, he says: "What Manet was painting was the look of a new form of life - a placid form, a modest form, but one with a claim to pleasure."īy choosing to paint what they saw around them, particularly in Paris, Impressionists and their followers created a new, modern image of the world, showcasing, through form, its defining aspects. Observing form together with social changes, Clark established a new reading of Impressionism that bridges formal and social considerations. Clark defined Impressionist art - characterised by the visible brushstrokes, the disintegration of forms, flatness, and the depiction of light effects - as a representation of the transformation of social class. Writing about the period in his book The Painting of Modern Life, the famous art theorist T. "Paintings aren’t made with doctrines," he modern era brought many changes, including the shift in art styles and topics chosen by artists. Yet, he never wavered in the quest to paint his direct, sensory impressions of nature without intellectual thought. Until late in his life, Monet suffered frequent personal and professional ups and downs. He was a leading figure in the Impressionists’ first group exhibition in 1874, which one critic ridiculed as "a collection of freshly painted canvases smeared with floods of cream." It was Monet’s painting of the Le Havre harbor in Impression, Sunrise, that gave the fledgling movement its name. Later, in Paris, he met and was influenced by future Impressionist colleagues Sisley, Renoir, and others. Navigation Top Impressionist Paintings Claude MonetĬlaude Monet (1840-1926) grew up in Le Havre, France, where an aunt first financed his painting studies.
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