ARTT1105

Week 5
Impressionism
First Impressionist Exhibition: 1874, studio of photographer Nadar, Paris.
Claude Monet (1840-1926)
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
Alfred Sisley (1839-1899)
Edgard Degas (1834-1917)
Camille Pisarro (1830-1903)
Edouard Manet (1832-1883)
Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894)
Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)
Mary Cassat (1844-1926)
Marie Bracquemond (1840-1916)
Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (1874)
“They are Impressionists in the sense that they
render not the landscape but the sensations
produced by the landscape. This very word has
entered their language: in the catalogue, Mr.
Monet’s Sunrise is not a landscape, it is an
impression. In this respect, they leave reality
and enter into full idealism”

Jules-Antoine Castagnary, 1874

The STYLISTIC FEATURES OF
IMPRESSIONISM
Rejection of Chiaroscuro

Caravaggio – Supper at Emmaus (1606)

Camille Pisarro, Hoarfrost (1873)
Monet, Regatta at Argenteuil (1872)
En Plen-Air
Painting

Claude Monet, Women in the Garden, 1866-67.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Study [Torso Sunlight Effect], 1876, 64 x 80 cm
Coarse
Surfaces

C. Pisarro, Red Roofs, Corner of a Village in Winter (1877)

Auguste Renoir - Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, 1876
Off-balanced composition

Edagr Degas, Place de la Concorde (Viscomte Lepic and his Daughters) 1875.
Gustave Caillebotte, Boulevard Seen from Above, 1880
Edouard Manet, Argenteuil, les canotiers, 1874, 149 x 115 cm
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Study [Torso Sunlight Effect], 1876, 64 x 80 cm
 THE POLITICS OF
IMPRESSIONISM

Berthe Morisot, Edma Pontillon at a Window, 1869

Gustave Caillebotte, Luncheon, 1876
Gustave Caillebotte, Paris Street in Rainy Weather,1877
Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Les Grands Boulevards, 1875.
 Impressionism vs. Courbet’s Realism
Realism (Courbet):
• Defiance
• Direct statements of a specific position

Impressionism:
• Dandysh coolness
• Detachment
• Evasiveness
• Alienation (or psychological ambivalence)
• Withdrawal
• Irony
• Autonomy (‘Art pour l’Art’ or ‘Art for Art’s Sake’)
 JAPONISME
Japanese ports
reopened to trade
with the West in
1853: shiploads of
Oriental bric-à-brac
—including fans,
kimonos, lacquers,
bronzes, and silks—
had begun pouring
into England and
France.

Exposition Universelle, Paris 1889, the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
 Japonaiserie

‘Art is not one, or

rather there is no
single art. Japanese
art is as great as
Greek art’

Edmond and Jules de

Goncourt, Journals, 1862

Edouard Manet, Portrait of Emile

Zola, 1867
 Arles would be the
painter’s paradise. It
would be absolute
Japan”
Van Gogh, Letter to his brother
Teo, 1888.

Vincent Van Gogh, Portrait of Pere Tanguy, 1887-8, oil, 92 x 75 cm.

 Ukiyo-e: picture of the ‘fleeting or floating world’ (Edo period, 17th-19th centuries)

Katsushika Hokusai, Storm below Mount Fuji , from the series Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji (Fugaku
sanjūrokkei), ca. 1830–32
Hishikawa Moronobu, Street Scene in Yoshiwara, late 17th century
Mary Cassatt, The Coiffure (study), 1890, Drypoint and acquatint on paper (36 x 27 cm)
Mary Cassatt,The Bath, c.1891 Kitagawa Utamaro, A Mother Bathing Her Son, Edo period,
18th century, print, 37 x 25 cm
James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Variations in Purple and Green, 1871, oil, 61,5 x 36,0 cm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRrc91jXXmE
[Right] Hokusai (1760-1849), The Cultivation of Rice, Woodblock Print, 19th century.
[Right] Hishida Shunso, Cat and Plum Blossoms, 1906, color on silk, hanging scroll,
1180 x 498 cm
 MATERIALS
NIHONGA style = literally, "Japanese painting" (or indigenous
style); in general, the support is paper, silk, wood, or plaster,
to which sumi ink, mineral pigments, white gofun (a white
pigment made from pulverized seashells), animal or vegetable
coloring materials, and other natural pigments were applied,
with nikawa, an animal glue, as the adhesive. Gold and other
metals (in gold leaf and other forms) were also effectively
incorporated in paintings.

YOGA style = literally ‘Western-Style painting’, the materials

used are oil on canvas
NIHONGA materials
 NIHONGA
style

Translucent and precious colours,

Monochrome lines,
Polychromatic,
Flat uniform background,
No concern for space and
movement

Uemura Shōen (1875 – 1949),

Jo-no-Mai
 YOGA

Lake Ashi at the

time was a
popular
summer resort
among
foreigners and
this painting
was initially
titled "Summer
Resort."

Kuroda Seiki, Lakeside, 1897, oil, 69 x 84.7 cm

 ‘ACADEMIC
IMPRESSIONIST’

Kuroda Seiki, detail of

Wisdom, Impression,
Sentiment, triptych,
1899, oil on canvas
Whose Sleeves?
(right screen) late 16th–early 17th century (Momoyama Period);
Pair of six-panel folding screens; ink, color, and gold on gilt paper
 HYBRIDITY

Hishida Shunso, Cat and Plum Blossoms, 1906, Detail

Kuroda Seiki, Lakeside, 1897 Kuiichiro Kume, Île-de-Bréhat, 1892
Kuroda Seiki, Kume Keiichiro in his Studio, 1889