The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (234 page)
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Authors: Ian Chilvers
BOOK: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists
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impasto
.
.
Thickly applied opaque paint retaining the marks of the brush or other instrument of application.
Imperial War Museum
.
.
Impressionism
.
.
A movement in painting originating in the 1860s in France and regarded as one of the most momentous phenomena in 19th-cent. art. The Impressionists were not a formal group with clearly defined principles and aims; rather they were a loose association of artists linked by some community of outlook who banded together for the purpose of exhibiting. The central figures involved in the movement were (in alphabetical order)
Cézanne
,
Degas
,
Manet
,
Monet
, Camille
Pissarro
,
Renoir
, and
Sisley
. Monet , Renoir , and Sisley met as students, and the others came into contact with them through the artistic café society of Paris. There were friendly ties of varied degrees of intimacy linking each of them to most of the others, but Degas and even more Manet were set somewhat apart because they came from a higher stratum of society than the others, and the artists' commitment to Impressionism varied considerably (Manet was much respected as a senior figure, but he never exhibited with the group). The Impressionists reacted against academic teaching and conventions and also were in revolt from the basic principle of
Romanticism
that art should convey intense personal emotion. They repudiated imaginative art, including historical subjects, and were interested rather in the objective recording of contemporary life, trying to capture an ‘impression’ of what the eye sees at one particular moment. Landscape is considered the theme most typical of the Impressionists, but they painted many other subjects. Degas, for example, had little interest in landscape and made subjects such as horse races, dancers, and laundresses his own, and Renoir is famous for his pictures of pretty women and children.
The Impressionists' desire to look at the world with a new freshness and immediacy was encouraged by photography and by scientific research into colour and light. In trying to capture the effects of light on varied surfaces, particularly in open-air settings, they transformed painting, using bright colours and sketchy brushwork that seemed bewildering or shocking to traditionalists. The name ‘Impressionism’, in fact, was coined derisively, when it was applied to a picture by Monet ,
Impression: Sunrise
(Musée Marmottan, Paris, 1872), which was shown at the first Impressionist exhibition, held in Paris in 1874. There were seven more Impressionist exhibitions (1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, and 1886), and after the final one the group broke up, only Monet continuing to pursue Impressionist ideals rigorously. Although Impressionism was at first greeted with great hostility and many of its practitioners had to endure great financial hardship early in their careers, it began to win critical acceptance in the 1880s (see
DURAND-RUEL
) and its influence was enormous—much of the history of late 19th cent. and early 20th cent. painting is the story of developments from it or reactions against it. The
Neo-Impressionists
, for example, tried to give the optical principles of Impressionism a scientific basis, and the
Post-Impressionists
began a long series of movements that attempted to free colour and line from purely representational functions and return to the emotional and symbolic values that the Impressionists had sacrificed in their concentration on the fleeting and the casual.
Cézanne
,
Degas
,
Manet
,
Monet
, Camille
Pissarro
,
Renoir
, and
Sisley
. Monet , Renoir , and Sisley met as students, and the others came into contact with them through the artistic café society of Paris. There were friendly ties of varied degrees of intimacy linking each of them to most of the others, but Degas and even more Manet were set somewhat apart because they came from a higher stratum of society than the others, and the artists' commitment to Impressionism varied considerably (Manet was much respected as a senior figure, but he never exhibited with the group). The Impressionists reacted against academic teaching and conventions and also were in revolt from the basic principle of
Romanticism
that art should convey intense personal emotion. They repudiated imaginative art, including historical subjects, and were interested rather in the objective recording of contemporary life, trying to capture an ‘impression’ of what the eye sees at one particular moment. Landscape is considered the theme most typical of the Impressionists, but they painted many other subjects. Degas, for example, had little interest in landscape and made subjects such as horse races, dancers, and laundresses his own, and Renoir is famous for his pictures of pretty women and children.
The Impressionists' desire to look at the world with a new freshness and immediacy was encouraged by photography and by scientific research into colour and light. In trying to capture the effects of light on varied surfaces, particularly in open-air settings, they transformed painting, using bright colours and sketchy brushwork that seemed bewildering or shocking to traditionalists. The name ‘Impressionism’, in fact, was coined derisively, when it was applied to a picture by Monet ,
Impression: Sunrise
(Musée Marmottan, Paris, 1872), which was shown at the first Impressionist exhibition, held in Paris in 1874. There were seven more Impressionist exhibitions (1876, 1877, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, and 1886), and after the final one the group broke up, only Monet continuing to pursue Impressionist ideals rigorously. Although Impressionism was at first greeted with great hostility and many of its practitioners had to endure great financial hardship early in their careers, it began to win critical acceptance in the 1880s (see
DURAND-RUEL
) and its influence was enormous—much of the history of late 19th cent. and early 20th cent. painting is the story of developments from it or reactions against it. The
Neo-Impressionists
, for example, tried to give the optical principles of Impressionism a scientific basis, and the
Post-Impressionists
began a long series of movements that attempted to free colour and line from purely representational functions and return to the emotional and symbolic values that the Impressionists had sacrificed in their concentration on the fleeting and the casual.
imprimatura
.
.
A thin layer of transparent colour applied to a
ground
. It reduced the absorbent quality of the ground and could also be used as a middle tone in the painting.
ground
. It reduced the absorbent quality of the ground and could also be used as a middle tone in the painting.
Independent Group
.
.
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