Impressionism
The
impressionist movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries
was primarily founded by numerous French artists. It has come
to have widespread influence on all of Western art including
American.
Impressionist paintings have several characteristics:
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Visible brush strokes
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Open composition
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Emphasis on light and its change
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Unusual visual angles
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Depiction of movement
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Mundane subject matter
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No use of black, gray tones are achieved by mixing
complementary colors
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Paint wet on wet
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Minimum color mixing, colors are applied side-by side so
eye can do the mixing
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No transparency, no use of glazes
Implied in
these characteristics is the singular factor that has made
impressionism a major influence, arguably a turning point, in
Western art. That is, impressionism incorporates the
characteristics of the viewer. In a primitive but more or less
accurate way, impressionist painters recognized the fundamentals
of human visual perception and took them into consideration when
composing their paintings. For example, many impressionist
paintings were created with dots of paint rather than linear
brush strokes. That does two things for the viewer:
1.)
Impressionist paintings affect a compatibility with the punctate
nature of human vision and the ability of the brain to assemble
such input into a smooth non-punctate perception. The eye's
photosensitive surface, the retina, is composed of millions of
discrete receptors (called rods and cones) each of which
responds to a discrete dot of a visual field, yet viewers do not
see the field as a series of points or dots but as a whole. As
Gestalt psychologists point (pun intended) out, the sum is
more than the total of its parts.
2.) By
using different colored paint dots, impressionist paintings
allow the viewer's perceptual capacity to effect the blending of
colors. For example, instead of mixing red, yellow and white
pigments to create flesh color on the palette, the
impressionist will paint red, yellow and white dots on the
canvas where he/she wants a perception of flesh color and allow
the viewer's eye to do the blending.
Cezanne took
the concept further by involving the eye's capacity for depth
perception, causing the viewer to perceive three-dimensional
space on the two dimensional canvas surface. The concept of
perspective was worked out by the Old Masters but he went
further. Cezanne used color and shape as well as perspective to
convey perception of depth. The approach is often referred to
as post-impressionism.
It is not
difficult to see those concepts in "post-post-impressionist" art
ranging from Picasso's cubism to Hopper's ashcan school.
Indeed, the influence is evident in the work of virtually every
modern artist.
The number
of influential impressionist artists is far too big for doing
them justice in this overview. A few examples will have to
suffice. The reader is encouraged to become familiar with the
many who are not mentioned in the following examples.
