On Wednesday, April 17th, we continued our discussion on Realism and began talking about Impressionism. We spoke about the importance of photography (originally known as heliography) at the time. Oftentimes photography took up to 8 hours to process. The photos we looked at included political, controversial photos, for example, death on the battlefield during war and also many still-lifes, displaying shade, sun, and light versus dark portions contrasting one another in a photo. The photo of abolitionist, John Brown, holding the flag and taking a vow while raising his right hand portrays symbolism, as the flag lies as a sign for the Underground Railroad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This class marks the beginning of impressionism. A continuation of realism, the goals of impressionism consisted of portraying reality, though capturing a brief moment in time. We focused on multiple artists that are some of the most well-known artists in the world. These artists included, Claude Monet, \u00c9douard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas. We began studying Monet’s On the Bank of the Seine<\/em>, Bennecourt<\/em>, and his Boulevard des Capucines. <\/em>These works are typical of Impressionism. Both display visible, light brushstrokes. Monet took over the style of painting “en plain air,” taking great interest in painting city streets and people. Known for the technique of utilizing short, individual brushstrokes, each of a different color. \u00c9douard Manet plays the role of a bridge between Realism and Impressionism. As Charles Baudelaire states, Manet is a \u201c[p]ainter of Modern Life”(Impressionism Powerpoint). Manet served as an artist that studied past works and older artists, especially Spanish painter, Diego Valazquez. Based off of Henri Fantin-Latour’s painting, Edouard Manet<\/em>, portraying a portrait of the French artist we learn about the artist himself. The painting depicts Manet as a “Fl\u00e2neur,” meaning a man of great strength, intelligence, education, well-rounded person. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We focused then on Manet’s Le d\u00e9jeuner sur\u00a0l\u2019herbe<\/em>, also known as Luncheon on the Grass,<\/em> a painting focused on the foreground and a work which made a statement through the depiction of pale, nude women sitting in from of dark clothed men. The brushwork and lighting of this work is particularly interesting and draws attention and a statement to female bodies, specifically because the background darkly painted. We compared Le d\u00e9jeuner sur\u00a0l\u2019herbe<\/em> to Titian’s,\u00a0F\u00eate Champ\u00eatre<\/em>, a work depicting more warmer colors than Manet’s and Giorgione’s\u00a0the Tempest, <\/em>where the people’s role seem to be ancillary to the rest of the painting. Pierre Auguste Renoir and Edgar Degas continued depicting city-life, but focused on people rather than landscapes or buildings. Degas specifically found a fondness for painting the arts, specifically dancers and musicians, which is clearly seen in his The Orchestra of the Paris Op\u00e9ra.<\/em> Finally, in the late 1850’s Japanese prints began to hold a heavy influence on Parisian artists during the rush of Japanese works entering Paris markets. Artists began to further modernize their works by undergoing the style of “Japonisme.” The paintings were often flat, with strong outlines of figures and objects. Sharp diagonals occur in these paintings, and oftentimes the viewer looks down on the works. I wonder what the public’s response to “Japonisme” was, and whether there was any controversy over the works and modernizations? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Wednesday, April 17th, we continued our discussion on Realism and began talking about Impressionism. We spoke about the importance of photography (originally known as heliography) at the time. Oftentimes photography took up to 8 hours to process. The photos we looked at included political, controversial photos, for example, death on the battlefield during war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17568"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2823"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2873,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2823\/revisions\/2873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ar112-spring2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}