Midterm Review

Impressionism
Three key points of impressionist technique 1. Rejection of chiaroscuro (traditional shading, using dark and light) 2. The depiction of the interaction of light and colour en plein air (painting in open air) 3. Equalization of brush strokes across the surface of the canvas Why paint? What is the purpose of art with the emergence of photography /what is art? o Painting created and portrayed atmosphere through colour use o Light colour be portrayed as colour Explored photography versus painting Painting portrayed the sensation of the landscape

o Ex. Boulivard des Capucines Impressionist Technique Oil in tubes Painted en plien air (outside, fast) Using contrasting colours side by side Used broad brush strokes to mimic how we see Perspective as where we are as a viewer (Ex. Mary Cassatt Opera) Classical Technique Chiaroscuro: use of strong contrast between dark and light (Ex. Mona Lisa) Makes studies (artist was not there when painted)

** Impressionist painting light leaves spots or stripes Ex. Ball at the Moulin de Galette

Avant Garde Vs Modernism

Terms: Realism: Coined in 1855 to emphasise that subjects that are a record of what the artist has experienced Avant-garde: Any creative group active in the innovation and application of new concepts and techniques in a given field (Ex. Czanne) Modernism: An artist who by his works make an aesthetic statement

Ex. Manet Dejeuner Sur lherbe

Flaneur: member of the upper middle class of France (the Bougeoisie) who didnt have to work for a living. Ex. Manet Impasto: Thick application of paint on canvas, textured surface

Examples of people in impressionism John Constable

Radical in his time Art was of traditional scene o Went back and added small globs of white Ripples, underside leaves, reflection in the water When Delicroix had thought he was done painting Massacres of Scio

(1824) (people on the beach) he went and saw Constable's The Hay Wain and literally RAN home to add white to bring his new painting to life
Did many studies of the sky Gustave Corbeit Ex. The stonebreakers

Jean Millit Ex. The Gleaners

Movement in images Only escape from the environment is a tiny window Not a portrait because you cannot see faces o Shadows + hidden faces help set these people apart Figures take up majority of the space o Implying importance Gleaners wear red which is colours of France o Very political

Neo-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism was not a movement o Refers to a generation of artist who often worked independently and whose works are in debted to impressionism

There are two Neo-impressionists Paul Signac George Seurat

Seurat

Took studies and sketches for work Methodical process consistent with academic process Last layer are the dots Sketchy style No harsh lines Places figures within a contemporary style

o Rejected by the salon in 1864 showed in the first exhibition of independent artist Sunday Afternoon on the Island La Grande Jatte 1884 o Literalness and an abstraction at the same time Classical posing o Portrays modern life Money portrays the theatre or the darker side of society Upper middle class portrayal Pointillism Points of colour o The use of Pigment to recreate light and colour Le Chahut 1889-90 o At Moulin rouge o Emotions can be depicted by angels and colours Vertical: abrupt, strength, stability Up on an angle: joy and gayety Down on an angle: sadness Horizontal: restfulness o

Paul Signac

Use of dots is sometimes overboard

3 Paradoxes of Neo-Impressionism 1. Captures literalness of a photograph but also is almost abstract in its rendering 2. Carries something of the classical academic tradition, yet is unconventionally of the modern life 3. Interest in science yet contains the sense of utopian, the ideal Paradox of the loss of the individual of the artist o Seeking to find a universal but becoming distinct as there are only really two neo-impressionist

Vincent Van Gough

Japan opened its door to international trade o Vincent though Japan was the ideal world o Japanese wood block painting had a different way of portraying distance 1887 Bridge in the rain is inspired by a block print

Examples + Explanations 1887 Portrait of Pere Tanguy o Seated in manner of Japanese Buddhist monk o Aura with brush strike o Impasto technique 1888 La Crau o Very Japan o Clarity startling yellows vs. blue sky o Each brushstroke is a stock of wheat o Well defined like a print Night Caf o Wants to depict a place where one can go mad, and ruin ones self o Portrays terrible passion of the humanity in green and red o Use of colour is effective in portraying emotion o Emotion and anxiety 1885 Potato Eaters o Earlier painting o Emphasize the values of those that work to earn their living o Feeling of guilt for the upper middle class he is part of 1888 The Harvest

Paul Czanne Theme of representation and perception o Representing on a 2D canvas, what he sees o Evidence of strong pictorial order Paradox of Modernity and Modernism o Concern of representing the physical world but intensely personal o Sought to restore sense of physicality/weight of objects that had disappeared with impressionism o Revaluates traditional one point perspective that was dependent on a fixed viewpoint

o Uses tradition type subject matter Terms: Passage Technique of broken down colour A painting doesnt have to represent something Czanne would never go as far as abstraction but he wants to show in each of his work that it can be an object and presentation it does not have to be a presentations hes interested in the arrangement of the colour and form on canvas Mont Sainte Victoire

1872-3 Modern Olympia Venus Rich commentary on Venus Guy is freaking out staring at the The lust cat replaces the poodle The slave is pulling of the sheets

1867-8 The Murder Impressionist dont focus on the darkness of the social upheaval they were going through We see this focus and awareness of the issues + very formal

1879-82 House in Provence Time is inherent in this landscape o Source of light comes from different angles o Traditional in terms of perspective o Cezanne walks through, observing

Gauguin and Primitivism

Provides the other cornerstone of modern art The representing of idea beyond the physical world Art is not just a copy of nature Symbolist art; coincides with the emergence of symbolism in literature Terms: Primitivism: Complex, multi-dimension term in the late 19th c Systhetism: Coined by Gauguin and Bernard, not a mirror image of the world but a synthesis image that has a deeper, emotional, invisible meaning; not so much a style as a style where simplification and concentration of elements are used to convey essential ideas Fin-de-Siecle: Literally, end of the century, refers to the mental state of the mind prevalent amongst many intellectuals at the end of the 19th people who were disenchanted with the excess of the modern world Parisians started leaving Paris to go to Britony They wanted to go out and enjoy primitive life o Probably because the overwhelm of primitivism o Embrace the country side and also the exotic