Page 90 - Yellow Feather Book 1

Impressionist is a style of painting developed in France, in the 19th century. Artists wanted a new way to express themselves. Impressionist broke previous traditions to only paint royalty or history; they painted scenes and special moments for ordinary people. An important characteristic of this movement is the use of unmixed colors and the immediate visual impressions.
They changed the way traditional artists painted because impressionist often painted outside (en plein air) instead of doing it in a studio. Artists did not only paint what they saw, most importantly they painted what they felt.
Painters used short quick brushstrokes; shapes were painted as masses of bright colors, this is why if you stand too close the painting will look messy, hasty and the paint too thick. But, if you stand far you can see a beautiful masterpiece.
Madame Monet and Her Son (1875)
by Claude Monet
The Star
by Edgar Degas
Another main ingredient was to capture the appropriate light, that is why two keywords for impressionism are: light and color.
It is hard to believe critics of that era were not very kind to the artists, mainly because the paintings were so different of what people were used to seeing; some even thought the paintings were unfinished. But by the end of the century, impressionism had spread around the world.
Some key artists of this movement are Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet and Camille Pissarro.
“Impressionism is at the root of all modern art, because it was the first movement that managed to free itself from preconceived ideas, and because it changed not only the way life was depicted but the way life was seen” – Franceso Salvi.
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The Yellow Feather Literature Third Course