Friday, February 6, 2009

Impressionism


We should talk about impressionismmmmmmmmmmmmmm.........

19 comments:

tmichals said...

I really really like the paintings that we have studied so far from the impressionist period. Although it is not completely and totally impressionism, I love the Degas paintings, especially "Dance Class". I find them so beautiful in the way that they are not extremely idealistic and seem rather unfinished. I also like his connection to New Orleans. I feel like the paintings we have studied so far are very easy on the eye and pleasant to look at.

Mr. Plainview said...

When I looked at Monet's first Impressionist piece this morning, it gave me a headache. The brush strokes seemed to make it so busy. Now that I look at it again, I must confess I like how the orange sun contrasts the blue atmosphere that surrounds it. I have yet to reach my final verdict on Impressionism.

Caroline said...

I agree with Taylor that I really like the impressionism paintings we've seen so far. I especially like Monet's paintings, and I think its really cool how he does the same scenes in different light.

Anonymous said...

i like impressionism a lot. even though lines are blurred and details left out, many times you could recognize a person from an impressionist painting if they walked in the door. i also think they are pretty.

jp said...

I like about half the impressionist paintings we've done, and I'm kinda undecided about the others.

That one with the boat, for example, seems to me to have an overabundance of the "smoky" effect which does kind of give it the appearance of having been done by a third-grader who was fingerpainting. It's not like terrible though - I do like the man in the boat in silhouette in the middle though, as the one distinct thing in the painting.

Anonymous said...

I feel like impressionism is a great movement. the unidealic nature feels better than the heavily drawn up earlier paintings. The brushstrokes took some getting used to but now i enjoy them

Mr. Plainview said...

Perhaps I'm digging too far into this, but there is one thing I've noticed with Christ in the House of His Parents. If you look through the door on the left, you will notice there is a single ram surrounded by sheep. Could this mean anything...?

Anonymous said...

i can stand how monet does the same pieces in different light because i can only see the same subject painted once before i get board of it. but i still think it is a neat idea to do the same painting in different lights!

Anonymous said...

board as in a piece of wood?

anyway i think the three paintings make it look great. it shows how light adjust a view of one stagnet object.

jp said...

Some of these new art pieces make me think that maybe this period was when art stopped being about painting an emotionally moving or aesthetically pleasing picture, and more about intellectual snobbery.

Pieces like the "Large Women" to me are not really pretty to look at, at all - they are rather just a trap for the uncultured heathens to say "What's so great about that? He doesn't even paint all of the canvas!" so the "enlightened" can pounce on them and say "You insufferable fool! Its incompleteness is beautiful! It is novel and innovative, and makes a statement about the incompleteness of all of our lives!"

I guess that's just the art world coming full-circle - after it gets good enough, "bad" becomes "innovative."

I do really like Van Gogh, however. His paintings actually look good, and he doesn't paint differently just for the sake of painting differently - when he tries a new technique it actually makes his piece look better.

tl;dr "large women" sucks, art elitists suck, van gogh is cool

El Paco said...

You know, at first I didn't like impressionism - but the more I've learned about it the more I like it. The heavy brush strokes and the blotchiness makes more sense to me (only a little). I think I like it now - still not as much as I like Renaissance art, but I do like it. Monet is great

El Paco said...

I hated the post impressionists at first, too. But after seeing that movie about Van Gogh, I feel like I get him more.

Anonymous said...

I think that the whole concept of impressionism is interesting because it exemplifies the here and now and related the importance of portraying the world in an instant as that is how we generally observe things in the real world. The lack of attention to detail allows for a more naturalistic portrayal.

Ehren said...

Taylor -
I agree, I love Dance Class. I like it because the architecture of the building they are in looks so typical of New Orleans. You could almost even tell that the painting was set in a New Orleans building without even knowing that the painter lived here. I think "Dance Class" really captures a lot of the beauty of New Orleans buildings with the framed doorways, wooden floors and light coming in from a window in the background.

Anonymous said...

i really like dance class too. i think it is really beautiful and typical new orleans. i also like how even though impressionism doesn't show things exactly. it would still be easy to tell who the people were that were painted if they walked into a room.

puddlewonderful said...

Posin, I wouldn't say that impressionism and postimpressionism were created simply for the sake of trapping the uncultured. Who would do that?... Well, I guess there are people who would, but I doubt that was Monet's/Van Gogh's/Cezanne's goal.

We saw in the movie how Van Gogh was committed to his art, to his vision, although it was different and never earned him a single penny. Now, I know you like Van Gogh, but I figure all the impressionists/post-impressionists were like that. Cameras made naturalism kind of obsolete-- why try to represent something when a machine can do it? Yeah, it's neat to show off how accurately you can draw a person, but it's not something that's unique to you and a few other artists of your same skill level. You want to separate yourself from a machine-- you want to show off the human faculty for art, something a machine cannot imitate. So you draw with the mind as your eye-- you draw the impressionistic human perception-- you push the borders of representation, you show your paint strokes, you blur the lines, you move trees to the sky. Maybe you don't like the way it looks-- and that's why I probably wouldn't put that pre-cubist Mt. Ste-Victoire in my living room-- but you've used your human faculties, you've created something unique, something a machine cannot do-- because a machine cannot mimic the human mind.

I think what we see with impressionism/post-impressionism is really a change in the definition of art. Art used to be a representation of reality. It seems to be becoming a representation of the mind/mind's perception.

joel derby said...

Michelle, I only read the last paragraph of what you wrote, but I agree. Impressionism is a shift in the meaning of art. Art is no longer simply representing beauty as nationalistically and idealistically as possible.

Art becomes more about meaning than about beauty.

jp said...

Michelle -

I didn't say anything about painting things that aren't true-to-life realistic. But whatever you're painting, I think, you should at least try to make it look visually pleasing or compelling in some way.

I don't really give props for doing something "different for the sake of being different" - in painting, music, or any kind of art. If you're doing something new, cool, but it should make your art better in some appreciable way - or at the very least make it interesting.

I am only momentarily amused by people who make shoes out of tupperware, or who paint pictures using melted Skittles. The noveltry wears off rather quickly.

Anonymous said...

i love finding the meaning in art, it makes it all the more enjoyable if it has some neat and beautiful meaning behind it through which one can relate and it makes the art more personal and enjoyable.