Impressionism and Post-Impressionism - Strickland

I. Impressionism

a. Started in France

b. Represented the initial sentiment felt by an artist using a lot of color and the affects of light

c. Pictures were con

sidered very seditious for their time

d. Manet – the father of modern art; classically trained and never really became a true impressionist

i. “Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe”

e. Monet – painted almost entirely outside recording nature especially water

i. “Waterlilies”

f. Renor – very cheerful fellow; art rooted in actual experience; obsessive in accurately capturing his subject

i. “Le Moulin de la Galette” – spent half a year observing this area before actually beginning to paint

g. Degas – unlike other impressionists he did not paint outside – zero interest in landscape; specialty was human figure

i. “The Glass of Absinthe”

h. Rodin

i. Considered a savior of sculpture – singlehandedly revived sculpture as a popular medium

ii. Majority of his statues were very realistic – also most were nude

iii. “Balzac” – sculpture by Rodin that is considered his greatest work but also what he is criticized for most – not accurate depiction of his subject (a famous writer)

II. Post-Impressionism

a. Started in France

b. Seurat – pointillism (millions of tiny dots making up a picture) – very labor intensive so he only has a few paintings

i. “A Sunday on La Grande Jatte”

c. Toulouse-Lautrec – contributed greatly to the art of lithography/ posters; very similar to Degas

i. “At the Moulin Rouge”

d. Cezanne – when young he was viciously criticized; captured “temperament of humans surrounded by nature”

i. “Large Bathers”

e. Gaughun – “life is color”; ditched everyone in his life to pursue art; always seen as a gifted person; spent a lot of time in the South Seas

i. “la Orana Maria”

f. Van Gogh – “love what you love”; early on he painted realistic portrayals of working-class life; 1866 he made a full switch in artistic style to unorthodox use of color

i. A lot of brooding self-portraits – Van Gogh was a misfit

ii. Kind of crazy – gave up his entire life, including a lot of meals, to paint for ten straight years

iii. “Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear”