Impressionism, Pointillism, Post Impressionism, Art Nouveau
7th grade
Christe Duschel
Oct 2013
Impressionism is a 19th-century (1860 and 1900) art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Their independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s, in spite of harsh opposition from the conventional art community in France.
Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.
Both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism refer to influential artistic movements arising in late 19th-century France. Impressionists rejected the system of state-controlled academies and salons in favor of independent exhibitions, the first of which was held in 1874. They painted contemporary landscapes and scenes of modern life, especially of bourgeois leisure and recreation, instead of drawing on past art or historical and mythological narrative for their inspiration. Interested in capturing transitory moments, the Impressionists paid attention to the fleeting effect of light, atmosphere and movement. They continued the break that the Realists began from the illusionist tradition by emphasizing the paint on the surface of the canvas, flattening the sense of perspective through a lack of tonal modeling, and using daring cropped perspectives which were influenced by Japanese prints. Confronting nature and modern city life directly, the Impressionists differed from their antecedents because they painted in the open air and used a palette of pure colors. The term Impressionism is used to describe a group of painters living in Paris who worked between c. 1860 and 1900. These artists, such as Frédéric Bazille, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Mary Cassatt, sparked an international group of followers and revolutionized Western conceptions of painting.
Art History:
Background on
the most well known Impressionist Artists:
Claude Monet-
(14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner (training model) of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting ( the act of painting outdoors). The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise.
Claude Monet-
- Sunrise
Dated 1872, its subject is the harbour of Le Havre in France, using very loose brush strokes that suggest rather than delineate it. Monet explained the title later:
“Landscape is nothing but an impression, and an instantaneous one, hence this label that was given us, by the way because of me……..“
Claude Monet-
Bridge Over a Pool of Lilies
An image of Claude Monet in his garden in Giverny with an unidentified visitor. From The New York Times photo archive, dated only 1922, author not given (the image presumably in a Times December 24, 1922 profile on the painter)
Claude Monet-
Bridge Over a Pool of Lilies
In 1893, Monet, a passionate horticulturist, purchased land with a pond near his property in Giverny, intending to build something "for the pleasure of the eye and also for motifs to paint." The result was his water-lily garden. In 1899, he began a series of eighteen views of the wooden footbridge over the pond, completing twelve paintings, including the present one, that summer. The vertical format of the picture, unusual in this series, gives prominence to the water lilies and their reflections on the pond.
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem:
Solution:
create a
Pierre-Auguste Renoir 1841–1919 was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty.
Renoir's paintings are notable for their vibrant light and saturated color, most often focusing on people in intimate and candid compositions. In characteristic Impressionist style, Renoir suggested the details of a scene through freely brushed touches of color, so that his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.
Pierre Auguste Renior-
- Luncheon of the Boating Party
The painting depicts a group of Renoir's friends relaxing on a balcony in France. Renior and his future wife, Aline Charigot, are in the foreground playing with a small dog. On the table is fruit and wine.
The diagonal of the railing serves to demarcate the two halves of the composition, one densely packed with figures, the other all but empty, save for the two figures.
In this painting Renoir has captured a great deal of light. The main focus of light is coming from the large opening in the balcony, beside the large man in the sleeveless shirt and the hat. The shirts of both men in the foreground and the table-cloth all work together to reflect this light and send it through the whole composition.
Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette ;
1876, Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Edgar Degas- born Hilaire-Germain; (19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his renditions of dancers.. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.
At the beginning of his career, he wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.
Musicians in the Orchestra, 1872, oil on canvas
Edgar Degas-
- A ballet painting such as Dancing Class
1873–1876, oil on canvas
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem: Drawing the human figure can be challenging. Dancers often pose in positions that the average person can not comfortably do.
Solution: Using pencil/colored pencil to create a figure drawing or quick sketch of a ballet dancer in the manner/ style of Degas. Do not add a lot of detail. It should look more like an outline then a finished sketch. Do not color in the drawing. you do not have to do a lot of detail. Do like Degas did in his sketches and keep it simple.
Mary Cassatt-
May 22, 1844 – June 14, 1926) was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists. Cassatt often created images of the social and private lives of women, with particular emphasis on the intimate bonds between mothers and children.
She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of "les trois grandes dames" of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot.
Self-portrait by Mary Cassatt, c. 1878, gouacheon paper
The Boating Party by Mary Cassatt, 1893–94, oil on canvas
The Child's Bath (The Bath) by Mary Cassatt, 1893, oil on canvas, 39½ × 26 in
In 1893, Mary Cassatt created the oil painting with two subjects, a mother figure and a young child. The genre scene is based on the everyday bathing of a child, a moment that is “special by not being special”. The female figure holds up the child firmly and protectively with her left hand while the other hand carefully washes the child’s feet. The small and chubby left arm of the child braces against the mother’s thigh, while the other hand is clamped firmly on the child’s own thigh. The mother’s right hand presses firmly but still gently on the foot in the basin, mimicking the child’s own pressure on their thigh. To indicate depth, Cassatt painted the faces to recede into space. The paint strokes are layered and rough, creating thick lines that outline the figures and stand them out from the patterned background. The hand of the artist is evident through the roughness of the brush strokes and can be better viewed from a distance.
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem: How do you show emotion in a work of art? Draw something depicting an everyday scene, you must have at least one figure.
Solution:Using colored pencils create a figure drawing of a mother and child in the manner/style of Cassatt or draw something depicting an everyday scene that also shows some form of emotion.
Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists. Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, often thick application of paint, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary color.
The most well-known painters of the Post-Impressionist period.
Georges-Pierre Seurat-
2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising the technique of painting known as pointillism. His large-scale work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism. It is one of the icons of late 19th-century painting.
Detail from Circus Sideshow
1889- showing pointillism
Georges Seurat-
- Sunday Afternoon on the Island of the Grande Jette
1884-1886
oil on canvas
bustle-
Georges Seurat spent over two years painting A Sunday Afternoon, focusing meticulously on the landscape of the park. He reworked the original as well as completed numerous preliminary drawings and oil sketches. He sat in the park, creating numerous sketches of the various figures in order to perfect their form. He concentrated on the issues of color, light, and form. The painting is approximately 2 by 3 meters (7 by 10 feet) in size.
Motivated by study in optical and color theory, Seurat contrasted miniature dots or small brushstrokes of colors that when unified optically in the human eye were perceived as a single shade or hue. He believed that this form of painting, called divisionism at the time but now known as pointillism, would make the colors more brilliant and powerful than standard brush strokes. The use of dots of almost uniform size came in the second year of his work on the painting, 1885-86. To make the experience of the painting even more vivid, he surrounded it with a frame of painted dots, which in turn he enclosed with a pure white, wooden frame
Seurat's painting was a mirror of Bathers at Asnières (The left bank of working class), completed shortly before in 1884. While the bathers are doused in light, almost every figure on La Grande Jatte appears to be cast in shadow, either under trees or an umbrella, or from another person. Some of the characters are doing curious things. The lady on the right hand side has a monkey on a leash. A lady on the left near the river bank is fishing. The area was known at the time as being a place to procure prostitutes among the bourgeousie, a likely allusion of the otherwise odd "fishing" rod. In the painting's center stands a little girl dressed in white (who is not in a shadow), who stares directly at the viewer of the painting. This may be interpreted as someone who is silently questioning the audience, "what will become of these people, and their class?" Seurat paints their prospects bleakly, cloaked as they are in shadow and suspicion of sin. The border of the painting is, unusually, in inverted color, as if the world around them is also slowly inverting from the way of life they have known. Seen in this context, the boy who bathes on the other side of the river bank at Asnières appears to be calling out to them, as if to say "we are the future, come and join us".
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem: Create a picture entirely from dots of color.
Solution: Use optical mixing-An optical mix is when you create paint colors not by mixing them but how the eye perceives colors that lay beside or or overlap each other. Optical mixing occurs when two similar colors are placed side by side and our eyes 'mix' the colors together, making for a much brighter color. This method of optical mixing is often seen in pointillism art.
Post-Impressionism is a term used to describe the reaction in the 1880s against Impressionism. It was led by Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat. The Post-Impressionists rejected Impressionism’s concern with the spontaneous and naturalistic rendering of light and color. Instead they favored an emphasis on more symbolic content, formal order and structure. Similar to the Impressionists, however, they stressed the artificiality of the picture. The Post-Impressionists also believed that color could be independent from form and composition as an emotional and aesthetic bearer of meaning. Both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism include some of the most famous works of modern art such as Monet’s Waterlilies, a Series of Waterscapes and van Gogh’s Starry Night. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism continue to be some of the most well-known and beloved of artistic movements.
Vincent van Gogh
Self-Portrait with Straw Hat, Paris, Winter 1887/88
Age 13
Age 18
Self-Portrait (1889)
Vincent Willem van Gogh- 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found).His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.
Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh spent his early adulthood working for a firm of art dealers, traveling between The Hague, London and Paris, after which he taught for a time in England. In 1885, he painted his first major work The Potato Eaters. His palette at the time consisted mainly of somber earth tones and showed no sign of the vivid coloration that distinguished his later work. In March 1886, he moved to Paris and discovered the French Impressionists. Later, he moved to the south of France and was influenced by the strong sunlight he found there. His work grew brighter in color, and he developed the unique and highly recognizable style that became fully realized during his stay in Arles in 1888.
Sketch from a letter to Theo
Bedroom in Arles, 1888
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem:Like Van Gogh recreate your bedroom using one point perspective.
Solution: Using colored pencils create a drawing of your bedroom in the same manner of Van Gogh’s room drawings.Make sure you use one point perspective.
0ne problem within the making of 2D art is creating the buildings and images with the proper perspective to make them appear to have form and depth.
-The solutions is to use math to create the illusion of space.
Van Gogh’s most recognised work is
The Starry Night, June 1889
The extent to which his mental health affected his painting has been a subject of speculation since his death. Despite a widespread tendency to romanticize his ill health, modern critics see an artist deeply frustrated by the inactivity and incoherence brought about by his bouts of illness. According to art critic Robert Hughes, Van Gogh's late works show an artist at the height of his ability, completely in control and "longing for concision and grace.
Wheatfield Under Clouded Sky, July 1890, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, (F778), painted in July 1890 during his last weeks
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem:Creating the illusion of movement.
Solution: Create a painting in the manner of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Use tempera or acrylic paint. Make sure you use lines of color to create your entire work. Like Van Goah did with the wind and sky in Starry Night try to show some type of movement in your work.
-Paul Gauguin(June 7th, 1848 – May 8th, 1903) was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death. Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colors and synthetist style that were distinguishably different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. Gauguin’s art became popular after his death and many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector Sergei Shchukin. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art, while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.
Paul Gauguin
-The Vision After the Sermon (Jacob wrestling with the Angel)
1888
oil on canvas
Paul Gauguin-The Yellow Christ (Le Christ jaune), 1889
Paul Cézanne-
(1839–1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all."
Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of color and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects.
Still Life with a Curtain (1895) illustrates Cézanne's increasing trend towards terse compression of forms and dynamic tension between geometric figures.
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem:Creating a simple still life.
Solution: Create a still life like Cézanne (bowl of fruit/cloth) using colored pencils.
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1887
Jas de Bouffan, 1885–1887
Jas de Bouffan, 1876
The Overture to Tannhäuser: The Artist's Mother and Sister, 1868
Cézanne painted the things around him whether it be still lifes, landscapes, or his family.
One day, Cézanne was caught in a storm while working in the field. Only after working for two hours under a downpour did he decide to go home; but on the way he collapsed. He was taken home by a passing driver.His old housekeeper rubbed his arms and legs to restore the circulation; as a result, he regained consciousness. On the following day, he intended to continue working, but later on he fainted; the model with whom he was working called for help; he was put to bed, and he never left it again. He died a few days later, on 22 October 1906. He died of pneumonia and was buried at the old cemetery in his beloved hometown of Aix-en-Provence.
Pyramid of Skulls, c. 1901, The dramatic resignation to death informs several still life paintings Cézanne made in his final period between 1898 and 1905 which take the skulls as their subject. Today the skulls themselves remain in Cézanne's studio in a suburb of Aix-en-Provence.
Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem: Creating landscapes.
Solution:Create a landscape using colored pencils. Make sure you have a midground, foreground and background. The entire page must be covered.Use the post-impressionist style of Cézanne. Compare media in order to choose the best option to create art. Make sure you compare techniques and processes with other artist’s styles and techniques before you create your art.
Will you use pointillism or another style?
Make sure you apply safety knowledge to maintain a safe and orderly personal work space.
7.V.2.1, 7.V.3.1 , 7.V.3.2, 7.V.3.3
Art Nouveau and Graphic design of the Post Impressionist period
Henri Toulouse-Lautrec
November 24,1864 – September 9, 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 1800s yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times.
In a 2005 auction at Christie's auction house, a new record was set when La blanchisseuse, an early painting of a young laundress, sold for $22.4 million
The Laundress (1889)
At the Moulin Rouge: Two Women Waltzing (1892)
Quadrille at the Moulin Rouge(1892)
Lautrec
- At the Moulin Rouge
Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a poster by French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. It is a colour lithograph from 1891, probably printed in about 3,000 copies, advertising the famous dancers La Goulue and "No-Bones" Valentin, and the new Paris dance hall Moulin Rouge. Although most examples were pasted as advertising posters and lost, surviving examples are in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art and many other institutions. Moulin Rouge: La Goulue is a bold, four-color lithograph depicting the famous cancan dancer La Goulue and her flexible partner Valentine le désossé made to advertise the popular French club, Moulin Rouge. Their audience is reduced to silhouettes in order to focus attention on the performers and evoke the Japanese art then in vogue. The triple repetition of the club's name draws the focus down to the central figure of the poster, La Goulue herself. The stark white of her petticoats, depicted with just a few lines on the white paper, epitomizes Toulouse-Lautrec's boldly simplistic style, a sharp break from the text-heavy posters of the day
Art Nouveau- is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that was most popular during 1890–1910. English uses the French name "Art Nouveau" ("new art"), but the style has many different names in other countries. A reaction to academic art of the 19th century, it was inspired by natural forms and structures, not only in flowers and plants but also in curved lines. Architects tried to harmonize with the natural environment.
Art Nouveau is considered a "total" style, embracing architecture, graphic art, interior design, and most of the decorative arts including jewellery, furniture, textiles, household silver and other utensils and lighting, as well as the fine arts. According to the philosophy of the style, art should be a way of life. For many Europeans, it was possible to live in an art nouveau-inspired house with art nouveau furniture, silverware, crockery, jewellery, cigarette cases, etc. Artists desired to combine the fine arts and applied arts, even for utilitarian objects.
Although Art Nouveau was replaced by 20th-century Modernist styles it is now considered as an important transition between the eclectic historic revival styles of the 19th-century and Modernism.
- Art Nouveau was a pervasive style of decoration and architecture
Alphonse Mucha was another artist creating posters during this time. His work and style reflects the architectural style during this time. The volume of Mucha’s output was outstanding. In addition to graphics, he designed furniture, carpets, stained-glass windows and manufactured objects.
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Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
Problem:Use printmaking to create a basic image with text using only three colors. In the Art Nouveau style.
Solution: Create a poster/or advertisement using a printmaking process. Take foam and draw a design on it, cut it out and glue it to a sheet of cardboard creating a stamp.This will work well for solid shapes of color. You may also use rubber letters and number stamps to add text to your image. You must choose only 3 colors for your image. You will also make a stamp by gluing yarn to cardboard, letting it dry, then pressing it on an ink pad or paint and then on your paper.
Skill Based Vocabulary:
evaluate-
critique-
problem-
solution-
compare-
contrast-
analyze-
theme-
perspective-
point of view-
Content Vocabulary:
impression-
lighting-
point of view-
still life-
pointillism-
optical mixing-An optical mix is when you create paint colors not by mixing them but how the eye perceives colors that abut or overlay each other.Optical mixing occurs when two similar colors are placed side by side and our eyes 'mix' the colors together, making for a much brighter color. This method of optical mixing is often seen in pointillism art.
-themes found within impressionist/post impressionist art
-explain possible problems/solutions when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
Elements/Principles of Art:
-characteristics of Impressionism and Post Impressionism
-compare various types of media when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
-compare various types of techniques when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
Art History:
Background on
-Impressionist Artists: Claude Monet. Pierre Auguste Renior, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, Georges Seurat and
-pointillism: Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec,
- Art Nouveau as a pervasive style of decoration
-themes found within impressionist/post impressionist art
-explain possible problems/solutions when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
-analyze impressionist/post impressionist art from a historical perspective
Elements/Principles of Art:
-characteristics of Impressionism and Post Impressionism
-compare various types of media when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
-compare various types of techniques when creating impressionist/post impressionist art
7.V.1.1 Use art vocabulary to analyze art.
7.V.1.3 Identify themes in art.
7.V.2.1 Evaluate solutions to artistic problems.
7.V.3.1 Apply safety knowledge to maintain a safe and orderly personal work space.
7.V.3.2 Compare media in order to choose the best option to create art.
7.V.3.3: Compare techniques and processes to create art.
7. CX.1.2 Analyze art from various historical periods in terms of style, subject matter, and movements.
7.CR. 1.1 Generate responses to art using both personal and formal criteria.
8.CR.1.2: Critique personal art based on identified criteria.