Impressionism (pt. 13)

His most famous painting is Le Moulin de la Galette.  Here is the quintessential image of the observer of Modern life.  It shows a group of young people on an outdoor dance hall in Paris in the afternoon.  We have to see this as the new face of art in the Modern Age.  No longer focusing on subjects from the Classical past, this work of art is all about depicting the contemporary world.  As Baudelaire had expressed, the painter of Modern life would have to now turn his focus to the crowds, the metropolitan social circles, to rummage for whatever humanity and organic truth was left in the increasingly mechanized world of Industrialism.  (Art has always been against "the Machine").  For Renoir to choose this as the subject for his big canvas painting is a statement of shifting core emphasis.  Truth needs to now be found within the masses and the common everyday occurrences of urban life: this is the focus of Modernism, and Impressionism follows the tenants of Modernism.  In some ways, then, Impressionism is the culminating fulfillment of Modernist art theory.

It's an everyday subject of an enjoyable summer day in Paris, and the realism with which Renoir paints the scene makes us feel like we are there, amid the crowd, just walking by.  It's a happy painting of a vibrant social event, full of energy and liveliness as parties (at least, good parties) always are.  He has painted it with soft hues to demonstrate the scene's cheerful levity.  Blues and violets substitute blacks and greys.  Smooth, slick surfaces are richly textured with many short brushstrokes, and solid forms lose some of their solidity.  Blurred edges are put in place of hard, precise outlines.  These details are also missing because Renoir only includes within the painting what can be taken in with a single glance.  A party like this, especially a dance party, is a fast-moving scene; but this painting is so effervescently abundant in color and subjects that the canvas itself almost feels active, no?  Through its Impressionistic approach it captures all the instantaneous changeability of such a scene.  The painting features bright colors in dabs and dashes, blended together in lively commotion.  There is no center of the painting; our eye is made to glance here and there all across the canvas as one really would look at such a bustling scene.  And our gaze reaches far back into the distance as we see scores of more people in the background, dancing and moving energetically about.  Even the sunlight on this scene is lively, coming in through the overhead trees in patches of light.  Figures are in and out of shade; the sun's light is speckled throughout the painting in inconsistent pockets.  There is so much going on in this painting, but Renoir's brushstrokes have captured it all.

Impressionism (pt. 12)

Although his style may have mimicked Monet's, Renoir painted a different kind of Impressionism which I think continues on most prevalently to this day.  The artist chose Modern, everyday scenes and subjects (like a flâneur), unlike Monet's focus on purely technical elements (his subjects, remember, were twenty-some-odd haystacks, some water lilies, the face of a church building painted thirty times over, etc.).  Renoir, like Manet, focused more on people, the social life within Paris and the common centers of metropolitan popularity.  However, unlike Manet, he delighted in showing the joyful side of life.  His paintings typically do not show poignant and sad images of bar waitresses or prostitutes; they more often depict the happy partygoers, the socialites, the bons viveurs among the central urban patrons.  This more lighthearted approach to subject matter further inspired the artist to paint with whimsically capricious brushstrokes.  It better showed the frivolity of the people within the scenes he was painting, such as this scene of a Luncheon of the Boating Party.

Pictured here is a party scene of a group of people lounging about and conversing on the balcony of a restaurant in Paris.  It is a merry scene.  There is food and wine strewn out on the table, and everybody appears either pleasantly preoccupied in conversation or content in idle relaxation.  The scene itself is cluttered with figures, facing this way and that, some with their mouths open in mid-sentence, others in the middle of drinking a sip of wine.  There is liveliness to this painting as it recreates a kind of split-second, candid snapshot of the party.  Furthermore, these were all people who Renoir knew.  On the far right is fellow Impressionist artist Gustave Caillebotte.  Above him, in the upper right corner of the painting are two of Renoir's close friends.  On the far left (the seated woman playing with the little dog) is the artist's future wife.  These are Renoir's friends and acquaintances, and this is their casual, social lifestyle of cheerful merriment and partying.  Modern life, too, had its themes of idleness to be noted.

Impressionism (pt. 11)

Pierre Auguste Renoir suffered from rheumatism and was crippled.  He painted using a paintbrush tied to his wrist.  This caused him to adopt a painting style of light and wispy brushstrokes that in turn create something of a dreamy, cloudy impression of the subject.  Renoir's paintings dealt with light and atmospheric effects within environments, same as Monet, but his art took a step closer to a form of sentimentality.  He communicated a feeling along with each of his works; that, looking at a painting such as this (a portrait of Édouard Manet's niece), we can almost feel the softness of the subject's nature.  This young girl is painted with delicate brushstrokes to convey the gentleness of her character—and also the frailty of her condition.  This portrait was created just two years after the death of her father.  In less than a year she would become an orphan.

Impressionism (pt. 10)

After Monet, other artists adopted the Impressionist approach to stylistic painting to create their own works of art.  Pierre Auguste Renoir took inspiration from Claude Monet to produce his early works like this painting of Le Pont Neuf.

Similar to Monet's method, Renoir focuses on sunlight here.  The entire painting is almost blindingly bright because it is depicting the warm afternoon sun's effect on the light-colored pavement of the street.  The Seine River and the buildings in the distance beyond the bridge appear much shadier, but the radiation of the sun on the bright pavement's surface causes viewers to feel an immediate intensity of glare which almost makes one think about putting sunglasses on when looking at this painting.  The vividness of the light is one of the clearest elements of this painting, and Renoir intentionally wanted to paint this busy Parisian spot right in the middle of the day, at the height of the sun's brilliance.

Impressionism (pt. 9)

One of the major influences on late 19^th century Impressionism was Japanese woodblock prints.  Artists like Vincent Van Gogh would later directly mimic this Japanese style in some of his works, but early Impressionist artists like Claude Monet took inspiration from the subject matter of these prints (which usually showed nature scenes of pastoral Japan).  The Japanese had invented an inexpensive way of printing a century earlier.  They used wood blocks with varying colors of ink and would apply them all to the same piece of paper.  These prints did not show depth, perspective, or shading, but the Impressionists took interest in their unique depiction of nature that characteristically described a thing in addition to merely showing it.

The Japanese artists Hokusai and Hiroshige had produced images like this (the above is a print by Hokusai) approximately fifty years earlier, and their work quickly attained European notoriety as a result of Japan's reentrance onto the world stage after nearly two centuries of national isolationism.  Near the end of the Tokugawa shogunate, Japan's foreign policy laws of domestic seclusion were superseded by a series of international treaties which once again opened up trade between Japan and the Western world (Europe and America).  Japanese finery soon became a popular fashion in Europe and grew to heavily influence an entire generation of artists entering into the 20^th century.  This ensuing influence over Western art became known as Japonism.

This painting by Claude Monet shows one of his other staple subjects (added to the haystacks and architectural façades) combined with a Japanese influence.  We see a pond of water lilies in a garden that is explosively verdant with lush greenery.  Stretching across the pond we see a wooden Japanese-style footbridge.  Here the artist has simply taken from the subject matter of Japanese art, but later Impressionists would adopt the techniques of Japanese artists.  Earlier artists, like Manet, had already found inspiration in certain stylistic elements of woodblock prints, such as their flat sense of depth perception.  (Manet adapted this technique into his own Modern style to create a wholly new type of art which he believed would define the Modern Era).  Other elements of woodblock prints and Japanese style would continue to influence artists well into the 20^th century, but it is perhaps the Impressionists who most rapidly take to the concepts and styles of Japonism.

Impressionism (pt. 6)

This is a work by Claude Monet depicting a train station in Paris.  Although the sun appears to be shining brightly in this painting, our lines of clarity are once again distorted by the atmospheric effect of the scenic environment.  Here it is steam and exhaust from the locomotive engines rolling in and out of the station.  Monet paints everything here with a hasty and capricious brush, literally dotting color spots here and there to give a picture of the energetic movement and sights at such a busy place.  You will recall Édouard Manet's painting The Railway, which focused on the brief moment of time in which a woman looked up from her book while seated by a fence, assumedly awaiting the train.  Manet's painting looked flatly drawn and hurriedly completed because the subject was such a transitory one.  Here, Claude Monet has dotted and speckled his canvas with paint in an even faster pace, speedily constructing the scene with little attention to detail because the image will soon change, and then the artist would have to start over.  The scene is always changing; and while the artist could make his quick sketch and add the detail in later to better finish the painting, Impressionists like Monet chose to leave their works looking unfinished to more accurately depict their subject's constant kinesis and brevity.  A train station is an especially bustling center for activity and energy.  To capture this in his work, the artist had to paint with equal rapidity and liveliness.

And Monet frequently liked to include people in his landscapes and scenes (lest you think he was all haystacks and cathedrals).  This beautiful painting of a Poppy Field Near Argenteuil features women and children out for a stroll in an open field.  The red flowers stand out brilliantly in the scene, and yet for them the artist only used quick dabs of paint.  But that's all they need.  This is another good example of the artist's illusion of visual focus.  When looked at from a distance, the otherwise blurry flower patch becomes clearer.  You can even test this out for yourself right now.  Click on the image of the painting above, and the link should enlarge the image.  Once it's full-screen, walk about six steps back (or to the back of the room) and turn around to face your computer screen again.  Once you're standing at such a distance away from the screen, look at the flower patch in the painting and see if it looks different than up close.  (Obviously this works better with the actual, original painting that Monet created himself, but this must suffice for now, until we can all afford a trip to Paris to see it in person at the Musée d'Orsay).

Impressionism (pt. 5)

Similarly, the artist painted and repainted the same scene of a view of the Parliament building from across the Thames River in London.  At different times of day and in different weather conditions, it of course appeared very different and provided his paintings with variety.  Even more interestingly than his Rouen series, however, is the total spatial ambiguity that these paintings render.  Naturally, this can be attributable to both the distance at which Monet is from the subject and also the typically foggy weather that characterizes London; but even considering those two factors, the Houses of Parliament still don't look like the Houses of Parliament here, do they?  It's been said that the Victoria Tower is painted here to look more like a tombstone rising from a foggy graveyard than an active center for political legislation.

There is this concept that through art variant images can be made of things we thought we knew—honest images, but perhaps shown from a perspective we might not have thought of before, causing us to question the world around us.  When seen as a painting, objects, places, or even people that we know take a different shape, a different form.  Through art we can rediscover the world, see things we may not have seen before but also (more importantly) see things in a new light.  This painting of the Houses of Parliament gives us a feeling not just for the atmospheric environment (the soft light of sunrise, as Monet was intending to convey); it also gives us an emotional reaction to the place itself, does it not?  We are given an impression of Parliament from seeing it like this.  In that sense, I wouldn't say Impressionist paintings are solely about sunlight and atmosphere, though those are probably the style's most definitive elements; the way the subject gets painted is also key, and that in turn results in an impression made on the viewer.  As this doesn't come into the artwork of Claude Monet much but rather in the later works of other Impressionists, I'll delve further into this as we go on.

A useful trick for many of Monet's paintings is that they were meant to be viewed from a distance.  Up close, this painting would be indiscernible, but from several steps back we see the full picture—the tower, the sun, the reflection on the water—and can grasp a realization of what we are looking at.  Paintings like these would appear to be simple splotches of color from too close, since that is, essentially, what they are.  No lines give objects clarity except wispy alterations in hue.  Again, Monet does this because he is painting something that cannot be painted with lines; he is painting the intangible light as seen through the morning atmosphere, and he is painting the visible air of fog all around the scene.  How does one paint fog?  The answer is: you really can't.  You can only give the impression (aha!) of fog through painting blurred shapes and blending colors.  Here the whole painting is centered around the fog and the light as the impression of the environment around London on this particular morning.  Monet captures not just the subject but the experience of the subject.  Perhaps you can almost feel the cold of the atmosphere just by looking at this painting.  Or perhaps you can see the fog in the artist's airy brushstrokes.  This is the impression the artist creates.