4.2 The Impressionism Movement

Question 1

Answer 1

Claude Monet, Impression: Sunrise (1872)

Question 2

Answer 2

Auguste Renior, Moulin de la Galette (1876)

Question 3

Answer 3

Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night (1889)

Question 4

Answer 4

Paul Cezanne, Mont Saint-Victoire (1885-87)

Question 5

impressionism

Answer 5

1. A movement originating in 19th Century Paris. The style takes its name from Monet’s work, Impression: Sunrise (1872). Impressionist artists were interested in capturing the optical reality of a specific moment in time, and frequently worked en plein air. Impressionist style included visible brushwork, an interest in the changing quality of light, and unusual perspectival angles that draw the viewer into the scene.x

Question 6

oppositional color theory

Answer 6

2. In 1872, Edward Herring advanced his oppositional color theory, which asserts that we see color not just unto itself, but in relation to adjacent colors. This, and his observation that oppositional colors have a greater affect on the eye greatly informed the technique of impressionist and post-impressionist painters such as Van Gogh. For example, Fourteen Sunflowers (1888) exemplifies this technique.

Question 7

Plein aire

Answer 7

3. In French,“En plein air” means “in the open air” and describes the act of painting outdoors, a strategy particularly important to the Impressionists, who left their studios and set up their easels outdoors in order to capture the immediacy of outdoor scenes. Renoir and Monet both painted en plein aire at La Grenouillere in 1869.

Question 8

Paris Commune

Answer 8

4. The Paris Commune was an 1871 worker/socialist uprising against Napoleon III after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussion War, which cost many French lives, and left the French people substantially impoverished. The uprising lasted four months, and was ultimately subdued, in part because the wide boulevards created by Haussman’s renovation of Paris made it more difficult for fighters to defend their territory from the military onslaught.

Question 9

Renoir was quoted that Impressionism relied on the introduction of oil paint in tubes. What was his reasoning?

Answer 9

The introduction of tube paint in 1841 made paint more affordable, long-lasting and portable. A larger variety of colors were also introduced, greatly expanding the artist’s palette. Tube paint allowed artists to escape the confines of the studios and take their inspiration directly from the natural world as it was, capturing the immediacy of scenes and their natural light. For the first time ever, it was practical to make a finished painting on site. The variety of colors also allowed artists to paint differently, without laborious mixing, and applying color all over the canvas all at once. Renoir’s point is that without the changes made possible by tube paint, the cornerstones of Impressionism – plein air painting, and the capturing of natural light, and the expanded artist’s palette – would not have been possible.