Impressionism. Vivien Perutz

Transcription

1 Impressionism Vivien Perutz

2 What Precipitated Impressionism? Changes in the conception of what a landscape should be The example of the their immediate predecessors on whom the Impressionists built Technical developments that facilitated new ways of working The development of new pigments Increasing understanding of colour and light Increasing understanding of perception on which both Delacroix and Corot built before the Impressionists

3 The conception of landscape painting changed to become the rendering of the artist s sensation of nature. This, coupled with the Realist aesthetic: Il faut être de son temps, one must be of one s time, transformed painting. Realism was the avant-garde movement in literature and painting from the 1850s through to about Hence the artists painted nature as it s found in urban and suburban setting. Monet Argenteuil in the Snow c.1874 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Michallon Landscape Inspired by the View of Frascati 1822 Louvre Pissarro Lordship Lane Station, Dulwich 1872 Courtauld Gallery

4 Precursors Boudin The Regatta 1858 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Boudin On the Beach at Trouville Mus1860

5 Jonkind View from the Quai d Orsay 1854 Metropolitan Museum Jongkind River in France possibly near Pontoise 1855 Amserdam Rijksmuseum

6 Daubigny The Mill 1857 Philadelphia Museum of Art Daubigny River Scene with Ducks (River Oise?) 1859 National Gallery. To the right is the boat from which Daubigny often painted

7 Corot The Cathedral of Chartres 1830 Louvre

8 Technical Developments that Facilitated Impressionism Manufactured paints: sold at first in bladders and from 1841 in tubes making it easier to work outside. N.B. Manufacturers used poppy seed oil rather than linseed oil making the paints more buttery Paints pre-mixed to many different shades Paints that were workable for 6-8 hours rather than 1-3 as was the case with pigments ground and mixed in the artist s studio. This both facilitated outdoor painting and transformed how artists worked, how many colours it was practical to put on a palette Paints became cheaper partly as a result of additives reducing the quantity of pigment required The introduction of flat brushes in metal ferules suited to the Impressionist tache (blob, spot, stroke)

9 1724 prussian blue, a dark rather greenish blue (iron hexacyanoferrate) 1780 cobalt green, a soft slightly bluish green, semi transparent with poor tinting strength 17?? (I ve not found a precise date) synthetic red ochre (Mars red) 1804 chrome orange (lead chromate); variants in various shades of yellow swiftly followed All chrome pigments are liable to blacken if in contact with sulphurous air 1807 cobalt blue (much better than smalt which was made from cobalt blue glass but much better for watercolour than for oil painting) 1809 chrome green (designated emerald green in France). This green like earlier greens was far from ideal: it s liable to fade over time green designated emerald in England (copper acetoarsenic); poisonous and could not be mixed with chromes, vermilion or ultramarine blue 1820 cadmium yellow, much less problematic than the chromes (also cadmium orange and red) 1828 French ultramarine (400 francs per lb and much cheaper than the traditional lapis lazuli which, a little later, cost 3-5k francs per lb) 1838 viridian (hydrated chromium oxide), patented 1859 (much used by Cézanne),. It s stable and powerful zinc white suitable for oil 1859 cobalt yellow (better for watercolour than for oil) 1860 cerulean blue (cobalt stannate) 1859 cobalt violet (transparent) 1868 artificial madder cobalt oxide + aluminium oxide

10 Renoir Thie Skiff c National Gallery. New pigments used: cobalt blue, two chrome yellows, chrome orange, viridian Monet Gare St Lazare 1878 National Gallery. New pigments used: cobalt and cerulean blue, emerald green and viridian, and probably chrome yellow. Cézanne Hillside in Provence National Gallery. New pigments used: synthetic ultramarine, viridian, emerald green and probably some chrome yellow.

11 Increasing Understanding of Colour and Light In 1666 Newton disproved the view that had prevailed since Aristotle that it was different proportions of light and dark that form the colours we see. He famously refracted a beam of light through a prism and refracted the coloured beams back again. The interaction of coloured pixels in print and on monitors. They are called subtractive because the waves that are absorbed or subtracted determine the colour we see. The interaction of coloured light beams

12 Monet La Gare St Lazare 1878 Musée d Orsay, Paris Renoir La Place Clichy c.1880 Fitzwilliam Museum

13 Primaries, secondaries and tertiaries generally used by painters

14 Renoir Thie Skiff c National Gallery

15 Increasing Understanding of Perception In 1851 Goethe published his Theory of Colour. He conducted a lot of experiments which demonstrated that colours are not something absolute and out there in the world. What we see is dependent on the way we are structured. He observed that focus on one colour will induce a sensation of its additive complementary.

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19 Goethe also noted that shadows are the complementary of the light source. Monet explored this effect in the 1860s. Monet The Magpie Musée d Orsay

20 In 1839 Chevreul, an organic chemist who was director of the dye works of the Gobelins, which manufactured tapestries, published De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs et de l assortiment des objets colorés translated into English in 1854 as The Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colour. Chevreul s principles: Where two colours meet, each affects the other. Hence, for example, dark blue meeting yellow will make the yellow paler. Conversely a pale blue meeting yellow will make it more orange. A green reflection on a blue surface will appear greenish blue. The neighbouring blue area will appear a more violet blue as it will be affected by the complementary of the green, an effect related to the phenomenon of after images. A dominant colour will create the illusion of the same light spread everywhere; for example, purples will become redder, greens will become yellower, etc. Analogous values and hues create harmony Contrasting values and hues (i.e. complementaries) create harmony but they must not be too extreme

21 Renoir Le Moulin de la Galette 1876 Musée D Orsay, Paris Monet La Gare St Lazare 1878 Musée d Orsay, Paris

22 Delacroix Jacob Wrestling with the Angel Saint Sulpice, Paris. Oil and wax on plaster Delacroix favoured optical mixing of colours (i.e. the principle used in colour printing). He placed brushstrokes of slightly different colours beside one another to increase vibrancy and create rhythmic patterns. He deployed coloured reflections in the shadows.. He interlaces the tones, breaks them up, and, making the brush behave like a shuttle, seeks to produce a tissue whose many coloured threads constantly cross and interrupt each other. (Villot in 1865, cited by M. Kemp The Science of Art, p.309.)

23 Delacroix Two Moroccans Seated in the Countryside Watercolour. Private collection In notes made in 1854 and published in 1865 Delacroix suggested painters should avoid earth colours as the Impressionists began to do around 1870.

24 By 1850 it was understood that there were 3 types of cones in our eyes responsive to the 3 primaries of light. Violet activates the blue cone, and partially activates the red cone. Blue activates the blue cone. Cyan activates the blue cone and the green cone. Green activates the green cone, and slightly activates the red and blue cones. Yellow activates the green cone and the red cone. Orange activates the red cone, and slightly activates the green cone. Red activates the red cone. Magenta activates the red cone and the blue cone. White activates the red cone, the green cone, and the blue cone. In 1872 it was further postulated, and subsequently proved, that our eyes were designed to make judgements in an antagonistic way: red vs. green, blue vs. yellow, black vs. white.

25 We now know that our brains make two kinds of judgement: they weigh the proportions of three specific light-wave lengths, those we see as red, green and blue, to which sets of cones in our eyes respond. Separately our eyes respond to brightness or luminance and again make relative judgements. We use colour analysis to determine what we are seeing and luminance to judge objects location in space, to distinguish figure and ground, three dimensionality and speed. To judge colour, small retinal ganglion cells subtract the different cone responses to the wave lengths that excite them. To judge luminance large ganglion cells add the different cone responses to the wave lengths that excite them. These cells send their information to different parts of the brain.

26 . Plate from Margaret Livingstone Vision and Art. She points out that by giving the sun the same luminance value as the sky behind it, Monet made the sun eerily unstable with the result that it appears to pulsate. Monet Impression: Sunrise 1872 Musée Marmottan

27 Examples of Peinture Claire Corot The Cervas:The Roman Countryside c Cleveland Museum of Art Monet Houses on the Achterzaan 1871 Metropolitan Museum

28 French pictorial vocabulary impacted n the way artists thought and talked about pictures Monet La Pointe de la Hève x 73 cm National Gallery. Étude Monet La Pointe de la Hève at Low Tide x cm Kimble Art Museum Fort Worth. Tableau

29 Ébauche (first lay-in/unfinished picture) Monet Charing Cross Bridge c.1900, Indianapolis Museum of Art

30 Renoir Nude in Sunlight 1876 Musée d Orsay; Renoir termed this painting an esquisse (sketch) Monet Croquis (sketch) for The Gare St Lazare 1878

31 Monet The Beach at Trouville 1870 National Gallery. Pochade (a dashedoff sketch)

32 Études Monet Bathers at La Grenouillère 1869 National Gallery Renoir Bathers at La Grenouillère 1869 National Museum, Stockholm

33 Monet Impression: Sunrise 1872 Musée Marmottan An impression is a work begun under direct stimulus of a motif selected by the artist, making frank use of materials and gestural marks unique to the artist (Richard Brettell). Impression could also carry the connotation it had for the philosopher, David Hume, namely the perceptual sensation. Monet said that he called this painting sn impression because it wasn t a view.

34 How did Impressionism develop? Monet The Picnic 1866 Pushkin Museum, Moscow

35 Monet Luncheon on the Grass Musée d Orsay, x 2.18 m

36 Monet Women in the Garden Musée d `Orsay

37 Manet Street Singer c Museum of Fine Arts, Boston