Favourite Impressionist Painters

Favourite Impressionists

Whilst I have been looking so closely at colour it has become clear that the Impressionists are where I should look for a master class.  I have tried to condense what I have learnt into just this little space trying all the while to focus on the contribution made to colour by the artists.

The Impressionists were a group of artists who turned away from traditional subject matter and conventional techniques to investigate the world around them in paint.   Their first exhibition was held in a photographer’s studio in Paris in 1874 and drew derogatory comments and accusations of sloppy and slapdash work.  Over time their art was accepted and today they are acclaimed as artists who were able to change not only what was painted but how.  New pigments and metal tubes made materials easier to transport so many paintings were done plein air (open air) and captured the effects of light and movement rarely seen in paintings previously.  Although Turner and Constable had made sketches outdoors they were only preparation for the studio work.  Some Impressionists continued to prefer this way of working but others used the plein air idea exclusively.  Charles-Francois Daubigney  (1817-78) led the Barbizon School and was the first to use the plein air approach to create finished pictures.

The Impressionists developed plein air working to capture the atmosphere so speed was of the essence as the quality of light was so important and changed quickly. Traditionally paintings had been done over several sessions but the Impressionists liked to paint alla prima – in one go in order to capture the essence of the subject.  There was usually some finishing to be done in the studio but the bulk of the work was completed outdoors although Sisley (1839-99) was the exception and preferred the studio. It was a time of great exploration and experimentation both of style and technique.

My favourite Impressionist artists

Oscar-Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Claude Monet painted by Renoir 1869
www,musee-orsy.fr

Monet is the very obvious face of Impressionism; his work can be found on everything from post it notes to pottery.  As a young man he chose to work in an independent studio and he became friendly with other young artists like Renoir and Sisley who shared his dissatisfaction with mainstream painting.

Monet used quick brushstrokes to capture light and atmosphere and his work was completed quickly to seize the moment.  In order for this to work well Monet planned his work meticulously and put the finishing touches to it in the studio.  A quick rule of thumb for all Impressionists is if the canvass is small it was probably completed plein air. Monet is renowned dashing between canvasses as the light changed and offered what he needed for his picture.

Houses of Parliament Sunset 1903
www.blind-flaneur.com

Cammille Pissaro (1830 - 1903)

Self Portrait Detail
www.recollectionbooks.com

The style Pissaro adopted changed greatly throughout the course of his life.  He was influenced by many artists and was very self effacing about his own work.  He is said to have been a wonderful teacher; generous and supportive with a very kind, paternalistic manner with his students.  As he grew older he became increasingly aware of light and colour as he viewed work by Constable, Turner and Monet.  He worked with Seurat and Signac and enjoyed playing with Pointillism as it was developing.  At the end of his career he placed only complementary colours next to each other and balanced warm and cool colours across the canvas.

Kinder auf Bauernhof 1887
www.enwikipedia.org

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Self Portrait 1910
www.wikipaintings.org

Renoir came from a modest background and was primarily a figure painter.  Probably because of this he was never fully committed to the Impressionist movement and the plein air way of working.  Renoir moved away from stiff posed pictures and instead painted his models in real life situations.  He looked towards the Impressionists for ideas about light and he adopted their looser style of painting.  During his most intense Impressionistic period he restricted his palate to eight colours which varied depending on his subject matter.  He used only two colours to create neutral and slurred them together rather than mixing them.

The Skiff (Ka Yole)
www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Mary Cassat (144-1926)

Self Portrait Detail 1878
www.friendsofart.net

Mary Cassatt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but came to Europe to travel and study because the more relaxed culture allowed her more freedom to paint than at home.  She met Degas and they became great friends and in 1877 and he invited her to exhibit with the Impressionists.  Her later pictures were built up of quick strokes of unmixed colour.

As a woman her subject matter was severely restricted so Cassatt concentrated mainly on women and children.  Her portraits of mother and child are so beautifully tender.  Cassatt was very aware of the position of women and supported the suffrage movement emerging in Europe at the time. 

Breakfast in Bed 1897
www.wetcanvas.com

Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Self Portrait 1886
www.poullwebb.blog.spot.com

Degas never painted plein air and didn’t defer to the values of the Impressionists.  He preferred studio work and artificial light but his subject matter in later work captured the fleeting moment as it did with the Impressionists. Degas highlighted the importance of drawing over colour and pleaded with the Impressionists not to over emphasise colour and to dwell more on draughtsmanship.  Degas used pastels and paints and in the last Impressionist exhibition in 1886 he showed ten pastel nudes. 

Woman combing her hair 1884-86
www.poulwebb.blog.spot.com

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)

Cezanne self Portrait, about 1880
www. nationalgallery.org.uk

At the beginning of his career Cezanne’s work varied greatly between styles and techniques but during the 1880’s he began to experiment with the application of paint in overlapping brushstrokes.  Cezanne, who usually worked alone, often painted still lifes repeatedly because he was  fascinated by the structure of objects.  He abandoned the accepted rules of perspective and worked on new ways to represent his subject.  He never intended to paint what he saw but rather his emotion at the sight of it.  Work by Cezanne paved the way for later artists like Picasso to develop things further.

Still Life with Apples
www.ibiblio.org

Georges Seurat (1859-1891)

Self Portrait
www.wortlevillage.net

Seurat had a conventional art training.  He had a scientific interest in colour theory and completely abandoned earth tones for bright colours. His main fascination was in tonal contrasts and he used Conte crayon on textured paper.  Seurat began working with the Impressionists and exhibited with them in 1886 but because he wasn’t entirely satisfied with their way of working he continued to develop his own style and technique.

Pointillism (although Seurat preferred the term Divisionism) refers to the use of dots to create pictures and became Seurat’s trademark style.  It exploited the contrasts of warm and cool colour, light and dark tones and the optical illusions that were possible from placing colours very exactly.  The idea was to produce maximum brilliance of colour by systematically placing small dots of colour side by side.  Seurat advocated that the eye would merge the colours and this became known as optical mixing.  Close up Seurat’s painting look like mosaics but at a distance the colours appear to fuse and create clean, soft forms.  

Seurat used eleven colours in a particular order in each painting.  He sometimes left colours out but he never added any.  Most of his colours were mixed with white to get a light, opaque effect.  By 1885 he was using just dots to create the impression of a solid mass of colour.  Seurat considered his work to be scientific, systematic and not at all spontaneous like the other Impressionists – he called it his “method”.

Pissarro and Signac used Pointillism as well but it was Seurat who pushed the boundaries.  

Seurat died at the young age of 31 and Pointillism stopped but he had taken the Impressionists ideas and moved them on.

La Parade (detail)
www.renoirinc.com

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890)

Self Portrait (1889)
www.duwichonview.org.uk

Initially van Gogh didn’t like the Impressionists work or ideals; he thought them ugly, sloppy and badly executed.  He used tried and tested techniques but he was introduced to Pissarro and through him met a wider range of artists and by 1887 began to develop an interest in using lighter colours and complementary colour contrasts.  Van Gogh briefly used Pointillism but then began to use the broad, denser brush strokes that became his trademark.  He experimented with colours and materials and said

“This world of colours is completely new to me and thrills me extraordinarily”.

Vivid colours entirely replaced earlier strong dark tones and were used to express emotion and mood.

Irises 1889
www.enwikipedia.org

Acknowledgements

Susie Hodge, 2004, How to Paint like the Impressionists. Collins