ARH 2051 Module 9

Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte

(Pointillism) George Seurat, A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, 1884-1886, France, oil on canvas./ wanted to bring science to impressionism/ luminous and complex when it comes to color/ wanted to create a perfect purple/ he did optical mixture/ Parisians outside on a sunny day/ illusion of space/ clear contour, defined lines/ no emotion, no clear narrative/

Impressionism

A late-19th-century art movement that sought to capture a fleeting moment, thereby conveying the illusiveness and impermanence of images and conditions.

Modernism

A movement in Western art that developed in the second half of the 19th century and sought to capture the images and sensibilities of the age. Modernist art goes beyond simply dealing with the present and involves the artist's critical examination of the premises of art itself.

pointillism

A system of painting devised by the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat. The artist separates color into its component parts and then applies the component colors to the canvas in tiny dots (points). The image becomes comprehensible only from a distance, when the viewer's eyes optically blend the pigment dots. Sometimes referred to as divisionism.

plein air

An approach to painting much favored by the Impressionists, in which artists sketch outdoors to achieve a quick impression of light, air, and color. The sketches were then taken to the studio for reworking into more finished works of art.

Impressionism: Degas and Renoir

Both these works show the influence of Japonisme. The work at center is by SUZUKI HARUNOBU, Evening Bell at the Clock, from Eight Views of the Parlor series, Japan, Edo period, ca. 1765, Woodblock print. Japanese woodblock prints influenced Impressionism in the choice of subject, use of patterning, cropping, strong diagonal and the viewpoint. Degas: Degas falls under the category of Impressionism, his work captures the fleeing moment of dancers. We see the strong diagonal that leads our up towards the ballerinas. Notice the interest in reflections, postures, movement and light. Like the print there is space in the floor for eyes to move. There is also cropping, notice both the painting and print crop an object at the far left. Renoir: Le Moulin de la Galette by Renoir shows an outdoor dancehall. This work focuses on leisure and the optical experience of being there. Notice how light filters through the trees. Now that Haussmann has opened up the city, people enjoy walking down these large boulevards window shopping and socializing. The sharp angle of the bench is derived from prints. The figure on the far left is cropped. The instantaneous nature of photography is conveyed in this painting. Here loose brushwork and thick application of paint takes over.

Impression, Sunrise (Monet)

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise, 1872, France, oil on canvas./ original piece that sparked the impressionist movement/ oil on canvas, painted by monet in 1872, it depicts the harbor at lavre, a city in the upper normand region of france/ in 1725 the paris salon was the official art exhibition of the academy debuos ar, the greatest art event in the western world/ there were issues with the academic paintings and the impressionists were not welcomed/ napoleon iii, leader of france at time, he made the first impressionist salon/ monet at first did not have a name for it/ he wanted to name it sunrise but it was more of an impression of a sunrise/ it shows us characteristics of future impressionist paintings, small and thin but discretely visible brushstorkes, huge emphasis on depiction of light, something manifested in all impressionist pieces of art and also how people perceive the painting/ the most analized portion of the pai ting is the sun, it appears to be brighter than the surrouding, but if a photometer is used, you can measure the brightness of the pai ting and the sun is the same as its surroundings,

monet, rouen cathedral series

Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, 1894, France, oil on canvas./ over 30 canvases that monet made of the rouen cathedral near paris/ over 2 late winters and early springs he rented a space across the cathedral and painted it in different light, he had several canvases, each for a different moment of the day/ he was always interested in capturing a fleeting moment that he saw, but here it became the subject of the painting/ very light forms, lack a heavy threedimensionalty/ he chose something to paint that is very identified with france, the gothic style/ the canvases are meant to be seen together

Cézanne and Toulouse-Lautrec

Cézanne: The artist revives the still life and breaks the tradition of it looking real and hyper-real. He calls attention to the work of art as a work of art. Its modernism lays in the artist's critical examination of the premises of art itself. The canvas peaks through and the painting seems unfinished, the work seeks to call attention to form and how color creates form. Cézanne has interest in form and paves the way for Cubism. He wanted to do "Poussin over entirely from nature" by focusing not on traditional methods but on the color patterns an optical analysis of nature provides. Toulouse-Lautrec: At the Moulin Rouge shows the Parisian nightlife. Toulouse-Lautrec shows himself in the scene, he is the short man with the top hat. The bohemian crowds would welcome Toulouse-Lautrec even though he was an aristocrat because of his short stature. It was there he felt at home. The cropping and angles are left over from Impressionism and combined with the Post-Impressionist use of color. Here non-local color (color that appears where they would not in nature) is used in the face of the woman at right, a famous dancer. Here the brushwork is visible and pulsates with movement.

Degas, The Dance Class

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, ca. 1874, France, oil on canvas./ originally intended for the first impressionist exhibition in 1874 but not shown until 2 years later/ looks like a snapshot/ there are dancers waiting to dance, other is dancing, one already danced, the teacher, some are practicing/ not a clear narrative/ carefully planned by degas/ assymetrical

Gustav Klimt's The Kiss

Gustave Klimt, The Kiss, 1907-1908, Vienna, oil on canvas./ almost a perfect square/ large/ a lot of gold which makes people think to the byzantine tradition/ he was tring to create a modern icon/ patterning/ they almost have a halo/ looks like they are lost in eternity/ he is abstracting a universal experience from the anxieties of everyday life/ the bodies aren't present, theyre covered in a decorative pattern/ female is full frontal but horizontal, her eyes are closed

Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge

Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, At the Moulin Rouge, 1892-1895, France, oil on canvas./ real sense that its late at night/ represented paris after dark/ artists would mingle with the lower classes at the clubs on monte martre/ moulin rouge was a famous club/ it wasn't proper/ adventurous middle class would come to this place/ created a conversation between a group of people/ the woman at th right is a famous performr/

Cézanne, Still Life with Apples

Paul Cézanne, Still life with Apples, 1895-98, France, oil on canvas./ worked on this over the course of several years/ he never finished it/ he is resurrecting the still life/ heightened naturalism/ foundation for cubism, abstraction

Renoir, Moulin de la Galette

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876, France, oil on canvas./ people are socializing, dancing/ great example of impressionism: scene of the momentary, scenes of leisure, fleeting effects of light/ this is a beer hall, place to gather after work/ working class in the painting/ interactions/ academic painting exhibited in the salon had focus, but here all the figures are spread across and our eye rests at a multitude of places/ loose brushwork: visible strokes of paint that do not create clear contours/ asymmetry/ exhibited in the 3rd impressionist exhibition in 1877 held in opposition to the salon/ artists like monet are doing this (fleeting effects of light) with the landscape but degras did it with the figures/ large/

Japonisme

The French fascination with all things Japanese. Japonisme emerged in the second half of the 19th century.

Impressionism and Monet

The Style: A late-19th-century art movement that sought to capture a fleeting moment, thereby conveying the illusiveness and impermanence of images and conditions. Impressionism is direct result of three things: Haussmannization, Japonisme and photography. Although aesthetically "pretty" Impressionism is the art of industrialized and urbanized Paris. Haussmannization was the process taken on by Georges Haussmann created broad boulevards that transformed Paris into a modern city. The French fascination with all things Japanese, Japonisme, emerged in the second half of the 19th century. The French were intrigued by Japanese art and culture because of its beauty and exoticism. In 1867 at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the Japanese pavilion garnered more attention than any other. Artists were influenced by the Japanese woodblock print with their large areas of flat color, strong diagonal, high vantage point, and cropping. Cropping is also the result of the influence of photography. Now artists work outside in plein air, they sketch outdoors to achieve a quick impression of light, air, and color. The sketches were then taken to the studio for reworking into more finished works of art. We see in Impressionist paintings the think application of paint known as impasto. Monet: Impression: Sunrise painted in 1872 is the first Impressionist painting. The artist depicts an actual place, the port of Le Havre. He chose to show us the visual perception of the place and focuses on the importance of light. After Haussmannization the light of the city changed because of the widening of the streets. Notice the smoke stacks on the left of the painting. The work at first glance is beautiful but it does show industry and smog. The canvas is visible as are the brushstrokes. Paint is thickly applied in the area of the sun and its reflection. The term Impressionism was derogatory and the painting was not well received, ironically Impressionism now is the most widely recognized and highly valued style of art. As Monet's career progresses he produces works that get looser and show thicker application of paint. He obsesses over light to the point he will painstakingly paint over 30 canvases of the same subject under different times of the day and climates. His Rouen Cathedral series is a great example of this.

Pointillism and Seurat

The Style: Pointillism or Divisionism is a system of painting devised by the 19th-century French painter Georges Seurat. The artist separates color into its component parts and then applies the component colors to the canvas in tiny dots (points). The image becomes comprehensible only from a distance, when the viewer's eyes optically blend the pigment dots. This work is grouped broadly under Post-Impressionism. Seurat: A Sunday on La Grande Jatte is the quintessential pointillist work and it is done in a technique invented by Seurat. We have the interest in light and leisure left over from Impressionism but now we focus on color. The scientific focus on color makes this work Post-Impressionism. He also shows an interest in form. The figures are solid and we see a repetition of form, notice the umbrellas, the same use of the bust form and the skirt. This work is very large, about 6 by 10 feet so when you get up close you can see the dots!

Post-Impressionism and Van Gogh

The Style: Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colors, thick application of paint, distinctive brush strokes, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary color. Van Gogh: Van Gogh's Starry Night is a world recognized work that shows the night sky. Van Gogh wrote "Just as we take the train to get to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to reach a star." He painted this piece while in an insane asylum, it's a view onto an actual place in St. Remy and some claim that he depicts the sky and stars as they would have been outside his window. Van Gogh led a troubled life and only sold one work while alive. His work shows heavy impasto and the brushwork is intense. Here emotion is conveyed through color. In Van Gogh's work we see the beginnings of non-local color that will continue in the early 20th century.

Symbolism

The Style: Symbolism is a late-19th-century movement based on the idea that the artist was not an imitator of nature but a creator who transformed the facts of nature into a symbol of the inner experience of that fact. Klimt: The Kiss is a Modern icon about love that recalls Byzantine icons and mosaics. The couple is shown embracing in a sea of two-dimensional patterns, curved for her and rectilinear for him. The flatness of the patterns contrasts the three-dimensional rendering of the faces, hands and feet.

Van Gogh, The Starry Night

Vincent van Gogh, Starry Night, 1889, Holland, oil on canvas./ he painted this in a lunatic asylum 1 year before he killed himself/ 1889/ the spirals are based off a real nebula/ turbulent brushwork/ part of the canvas is bare because he was working so fast/ at the bottom the houses are outlined in black, the sky swirls/ movement/ opposition between the earth's tangible solidity and the sky's wave-like dynamism, the cypress links them/ sense of communion with heaven and earth/ he discovered light pollution, artificial light blinds us to the stars, and invades the city's surroundings/ he glorified the power of the heavens/ the sky puts us in touch with the beautiful and the sublime/ cypress=evokes death/

Post-Impressionism

extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colors, thick application of paint, distinctive brush strokes, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary color.

Symbolism

late-19th-century movement based on the idea that the artist was not an imitator of nature but a creator who transformed the facts of nature into a symbol of the inner experience of that fact.

Georges Haussmann

was the French civic planner most responsible for the rebuilding of Paris in the 1860s at a cost of 2,500,000,000 francs. Critics forced his resignation for extravagance, but his vision of the city still dominates Central Paris.