UNIT 13

IMPRESSIONISM IN PAINTING AND AS A REFLECT

IN MUSIC

NATASHA CENDRAWAN
2021LX066
ART PRACTICE 4
COLLEGE OF CHINESE & ASEAN ARTS
 What is impressionism? Impressionism is an art style that mainly focuses on
the viewer’s impression of the art. The impressionist movement was developed by
French painters in 1874 with the objective of promoting the freedom of artists to
focus on other unique aspects of painting aside from realistic representation.
Impressionism was invented to change the traditional painting styles used to focus
on the object and not the viewers. Just like its name, impressionism, the impression
has the meaning of an idea, feeling, or opinion about something or someone,
without conscious thought. This is what the impressionist artists were trying to do.
Impressionist paintings use visible strokes to create different textures using
a variety of colors, it also portrays different moods at different times of the day,
due to the changes in the lighting pattern. Most impressionist arts are not planned,
usually, artists will come up with new ideas in the process of making the art.
Classical music, especially Europian music was also affected by the
Impressionism movement. The main focus of impressionist music is the
atmosphere of the music that creates the suggestion of the music.
An example of the impressionist composer was Claude Debussy, though he
did not like the term. The word Impressionist came from the oil painting by
Claude Monet in 1872 called Impression, Sunrise (Schonberg). Personally,
when listening to Debussy’s music, his painting came into my imagination.
The painting style of Monet was similar to Debussy’s music style, which is
vague and not a precise representation. Debussy, instead of using the clear
major and minor scales, often preferred using pentatonic and whole-tone
scales. Debussy also preferred light touch and subtle tone. The result of
Debussy’s piano music is vague, sensual, and fine.
Here is the painting of Claude Monet, an impressionist painter, with
the title Impression, Sunrise 1872.