ImpressionismImpressionism

Speaker:

Vincent LEE Kwun-leung

Historical sequence

Renaissance Rococo Impressionism Expressionism

Why was Rococo so important to Impressionism?

Rococo emerged once Fr. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz introduced “Chinoiserie” to Europe after his tributary visit to Qing Regime.

John Hay wrote vernacular literature to glorify the Chinese golden vases. The Baroque trend within Renaissance absorbed silk, pottery and tea from China.

Why was Rococo so important to Impressionism? (continued)

The loosened pigments of Rococo paintings in the 17th century were inspired by Chinese aesthetics, specifically the ideas called “vividness of spiritual essences” (氣韻生動 ) and “vibrancy of structural brushworks” (骨法用筆 ) from the Six Rules of Xie He (謝赫六法 ).

Rococo masterpiece: “Pilgrimage to Cythera”

Artist / Patron: Jean-Antoine Watteau Date: 1721 A.D (18th century, A.D) Original location: France

Monet: Father of Impressionism

Title: Impression, Sunrise Artist / Patron: Claude Monet Date: 1873 A.D (19th century A.D) Original location: France

Manet: Politically struggled for equal treatment

Situation: “Salon de Paris” organized by Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1863.– Both Claude Monet and Edouard Manet, as well

as their Impressionistic fellows, were rejected by the jury panel from joining the “Salon de Paris”.

– “The Luncheon on the Grass” by Edouard Manet was particularly criticized by the academists.

– Napoleon III appreciated the rejected works and organized a “Salon des Refusés” for accommodating the exhibitions related to Impressionism. However, the advertising effect was still not strong enough to re-modify the conservative institutional restraints of the academists.

Manet: Politically struggled for equal treatment (continued)

Artists petitioned to Napoleon III and requested for establishing a new “Salon des Refusés”. But this petition was refused.

Manet, Renoir, Czanne, Edgar Degas and so forth jointly formed an association called “Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs” to exhibit their works independently.

The controversial piece of Manet that enlightened public awareness on the alienated situation of Impressionistic

artists: “The Luncheon on the Grass”

Title: “The Luncheon on the Grass”

Artist / Patron: Édouard Manet

Date: 1863 A.D (19th century A.D)

Original location: France

Edgar Degas

Title: The Rehearsal on Stage Artist / Patron: Edgar Degas Date: c. 1874 A.D (19th century A.D) Original location: France Material: Pastel over brush-and-ink drawing on wove paper, laid on bristol

board, mounted on canvas

Post-Impressionism

More visual elements that reflect the personalities of corresponding artists

A milestone towards the emergence of Expressionism

A trust to subconscious mind while rendering the perceptions on colours and compositions

Either “Pointillism” or vibrant brushstrokes were applied

George Seurat

Title: A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte Artist / Patron: Georges Seurat Date: 1884 – 1886 A.D (19th century A.D) Original location: The Art Institute of Chicago

Vincent Van Gogh

Title: The Starry Night Artist / Patron: Vincent van Gogh Date: 1889 A.D (19th century) Original location: Holland

Paul Czanne

Title: The Large Bathers Artist / Patron: Paul Cézanne Date: 1906 A.D (20th century A.D) Original location: France

Common features of Impressionistic artists

They discovered that they shared an interest in painting landscape and contemporary life rather than historical or mythological scenes.

They often ventured into the countryside together to paint in the open air, but not for the purpose of making sketches to be developed into carefully finished works in the studio, as was the usual custom.

By painting in sunlight directly from nature, and making bold use of the vivid synthetic pigments that had become available since the beginning of the century, they began to develop a lighter and brighter manner of painting that extended further the Realism of Gustave Courbet and the Barbizon school.

(adopted from Wikipedia)

Claude Monet, Jardin à Sainte-Adresse, 1867, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (a work showing the influence of Japanese prints) Thank you