Analysis Of Different Works Of Impressionism

Part 1.

Impressionism was a rebellion. The first exhibition that Monet, Degas, Pissarro, Morisot, Sisley, and Manet helped to launch was mostly a failure from the eyes of the critics at the time. The works being displayed were not supported by the local academy’s at the time. But impressionist painting styles are like a dream to me. They are like an overdubbed choir of shimmering reverberous notes from a piano or guitar alike. Stubby yet blended brushstrokes make an effort to display the movement of light through the frame.

For example, a green grass patch uses more than 5 different tones of green to create depth (caused by light) within the corner. Leroy’s comparison of Monet’s exhibit to wallpaper in my opinion wasn’t completely for naught. Monet’s early works, like in particular has a very natural glow about it. Simple details are not ultra-glorified as the renaissance would have done, but the complexions are a little smoothed out, and a uniform beauty is attempted to be encapsulated. Like a portrait for a scene, the experience of the artist within the location is magnified. Another master such as Degas seems to stretch a moment into a longer, lingering picture, like a film of sorts. The pictures also “hit” fast to a viewer like a printed medium. Degas was said to have been studying yukio-e Japanese art at the time. The goal is to bring the viewer to a location and a view of that location that the artist knows. Degas is more realistic in his approach, but that same dreamlike quality lingers in the paintings of that time.

Part 2.

Cezanne’s is a homage of Monet’s and Titian’s at the same time that it is a reimagining. The picture specialises in bringing tension, or a particular, maybe personal feeling of uncomfortability to the viewer. Cezanne was interested in finding the missing details of one person’s perspective. He designed paintings rather than channelling uncontrolled feelings through them. He drew many still life figures. Cezanne’s still lives tells a different story than something like or. The still lives are a more holistic and realistic expression of a viewpoint. Cezanne owes to Impressionism what guitar players owe to the earliest of blues guitar players. A player like Robert Johnson was only interested in bringing out a primal sensation of a desolate feeling: the blues. The technique was limiting, the song structure was undefined and a little messy, the idea of it was very simplistic. But the foundations of the blues that have been laid out by such players is an amazing standing point for understanding higher concepts and ideas. From the verse-refrain blues comes the 12 bar blues. From the 12 bar blues comes the Modal blues. From that, (as seen in All Blues on Kind of Blue) freedom. Cezanne’s still life paintings are like a modal blues that uses three simple ingredients. Stable perspective/rhythm, open and panoramic framing/harmony and subjects that are consistent with the direction and intensity of light/consonant melody. Anyone these days could play a hack/rock guitar blues to quote unquote express themselves. But realistic objectivity, like an improvised line that follows harmony for its relevance, uses techniques from everything that came before the time of the artist to construct a new objective standard for a painting or performance for years to follow.

As he famously said once, “I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you. ” The problems that Cezanne faced are the same problems artists today face. The name I have for that problem is limited perspective angles. For example, there are three perspective twisters on Instagram that can change the following: the spherical (360° in 2D) angle, vertical (triangular) perspective and the horizontal (L&R) perspective. These controls are there to de-warp badly shot photos that show a face that in smaller on one side than the other. Cezanne was attempting, half failing sometimes and winning massively at figuring out how to straighten out his view and the shape of an object on the canvas to deliver the most holistic and maybe pleasing picture. Cezzane’s is a good example of a Cezzane’s careful constructing. If one moves a hand over the big tree on the left, the depth suddenly shrinks. He uses green patches that could either be the ground on which the tree stands or a forest that is much more farther than where the tree is, to simply blend the gap. Cezzane fully employs the colour palette/blending techniques and brush stroke styles of the impressionists while using a serious angular objectivity to ensure viewing pleasure. He then paved the way for modernism, expressionism, cubism and much more by creating a more complicated standard for what is good art. It’s like moving from a tube driven stereo hifi sound system to a transistor full range surround sound system. Suddenly preexisting preamps for recording sound doesn’t sound so good anymore. And those problems of certain perspectives not looking so good are still pre-existent in any competent artist’s mind.

Part 3.

Monet - Impression, Sunrise

This paining by Monet immediately jumps at the viewer with a sense of haziness within the composition of the object in the canvas and the depth of said objects. While a balance is struck by the presence of a functional horizontal “belt” of the darker patches of blue and green, the objects portrayed within the belt are not winds or waves. Rather, they are boats with closed masts and dockyards supposedly far away, as the tops of the objects are cut my the circular red wind strokes which are the reflections of the sun through the clouds. Moreover, it’s hard to tell what is what in this painting. The only two concrete features of the painting are the sun, and the small row-boat with a drive and a passenger. This is nowhere near a still life or an objective look at a sunrise. Rather it’s a painting (a long turnover time medium) that is expressing more of a feeling than a concrete look at a harbour during sunrise. However, this painting is not to be used as proof by subjectivists for their argument of beauty being in the eye of the beholder. This painting is objectively beautiful. That is an educated assumption based on the memories somany other paintings and photographs imitating the visual space that puts forth. Heck, it’s a well known notion that a sunrise in any place is beautiful. This painting can also be called objectively beautiful because it is completely naturalistic. It doesn’t have a staunch, dead body in the middle of it, nor does it have skeletons and spiders crawling all over the sky. The argument for the quality of the painting itself is where the subjectivism can really do its work. Like the account of Gompert, Leroy took Monet’s first impressionist efforts and dictates that wallpaper would have more composed substance than the hazy and imposing works that Monet was displaying. Leroy is not the biggest enemy in this debate.

In the assigned reading of Clive Bell divides art viewers into two sections: the smart people with no aesthetic emotion and the stupid people with amazing aesthetic notions. The smart ones can explain themselves whereas the stupid people, (mainly creators and fans alike) can’t explain what they are feeling when experiencing such art. I belong in the latter. That’s why my papers suffer from being too long, but it is probable that by learning what consists of a painting or a song, or knowing the anatomy of something; artists and creators can get to the bottom of what something means, or why some songs sound better than others. That’s the argument for subjectivism; know what Monet’s suns look like, know what Monet’s waves are like, know what makes Monet’s paintings Monet’s. Knowing the format is half the fight. From there, artists are able to assess if an artwork fits the criteria of the format it is working in. If it meets the criteria, it wins. It’s good art. Unfortunately, when Monet was debuting his works alike, the criteria for Impressionism as we know today had not been set up. Having said all that, is not that great of an “impressionist” painting after all. The signature trait of impressionism displayed in the painting is: “sketchiness. ” It makes it seem as if the absence of more stubby brushstrokes, shapes and colour variance render this painting to be a half baked artwork, but the one thing this painting excels at is in providing the feeling of Impressionism. Not a representation. Just what Monet was feeling from the sunrise out of a hotel window. Hence the name.