art Exposition Degas, Monet, Renoir, etc. o Independent society of artists o Planned an exposition to correspond with that of the salon o Critic dealer system o No direct relationship to patrons o Viewer-ship for this art very small, only about 3,500 Impressionism Interested in color and light Another artist used the word "impressionist" as a derogatory term o Just an impression, rather than finished Art "dangerous" to society as a whole Idea that illusionism equals skill, so impressionists were not skilled Pursue, with varying techniques, the same goal: to render with absolute sincerity the impression aroused in them by the various aspects of society Break the traditional landscape tradition No constructed out of horizontals and verticals, but instead diagonals Cropping, allows us to see this as an arbitrary view o Random instead of premeditated More about vision than about art Impressionist painting needs to create a painting that responds to the modern word Saw Japanese woodblock prints o Came to the west following the opening of Japan Based on actual physical experience, rather than a conceptual one Wanted to be truthful to the way we see All about motion, things will change Artist has become a "recording machine" Disregard the anecdotal, romantic, no narrative Simply an observation of life, or the landscape Impressionist landscapes are not about the things of the landscape, but the drama of the weather, the flow of the water, the scintillation of light Explore the transient visual phenomena Law of scientific contrast, our perception of color is never pure, but contingent on the colors around it Put flecks of other colors in their paintings, depending on the environment Mix colors on the canvas, apply them and do not mix them completely Shadows are not really brown or grey, seem to be more blue or purple, carry with them colors from the objects they reflect Doe not try to infuse his mood, but rather paints environment, the seasonal, etc Inquiry into the nature of vision Are no hard edges, not hard shadows, in the world Painting is self-conscious, acknowledges the canvas of the painting itself Artists worked quickly and accurately recorded the vision they saw Many paintings are taken back to the studios and completed or touched up there
Impressionist project is a masculine one, women cannot walk through the landscape or the city freely and unaccompanied o Women impressionists have to limit their subject matter, cannot represent all aspects of the city, including the seedy nightlife o Males can walk through an urban environment anonymously Seek out places of middle-class leisure o Render these places in lovely terms o Subject matter is not necessarily aggressive o Edit these suburban landscapes, never include the industry that is right next to these locations o Edit out the pollution, no measures in 19th century to clean up waste Paradoxically confrontational in the style, and idyllic in the subject matter Allows artists to break the bonds of illusionism, think outside the box If vision is ambiguous, then nature of representation itself is as well Turns artist into a transcription machine o No art of imagination, no sketches, no thinking about what you're doing Cannot go back to illusionism Monet Forget that there are objects, and paint it as it looks to you As an adult, he started painting as if everything was completely fresh, opened his eyes o Try to forget what he knows o Unmediated and immediate view of the scene Goes out to paint, not in their studios o Not entirely new, many artists did sketches outside Emphasis on color, match color to what you see Pigment now being produced by manufacturers, can get it in tubes Black and purple come onto the market Academic painters do not like the newer, brighter colors Artist tries to "forget" what he knows o No filter in between o Set pattern for traditional landscape painting