Impressionism

Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir are known as the founder of Impressionism. They painted what they witness throughout their lives but they used different perspectives from each other. I pick these three paintings of them in order to explain basic tools of Impressionist style. Claude Monet, The Fall Effect,Argenteuil, 1873 is a painting which is famous for being a “giclee painting.” What I mean by giclee painting is the colours included is scattered through the whole painting. Monet and other impressionists as well use smoke sometimes fog in a greyish athmosphere in their work. By looking at an impressionist painting like this,we could not have a sense of subject,because it does not have a subject. The main idea behind most impressionists are “go outside,forget the past” This painting is also drawn outside. There are not much details,colours are blurred. Unlike realists, impressionist artists are not interested in reality. They focused on capturing the light outside rather than subject. They treated light in a way by questioning how colors are changed by intensity of light. Below I represent two paintings by Claude Monet and Auguste Renoir both are named “The Frog Pond” and painted in 1869. Monet and Renoir painted frog pond in their own style, each with slightly different perspective. For example Monet did care about representation of environment around people, realistic display of waves and boats. However, Renoir focused on people standing in the pond in this painting. He painted people in a detailed way, in a sense better than Monet. If we compare them in this way, we can come up with the idea that they interpret what they see in their own way. Even with the same subject, they approched subjective. This situation tells us basic idea behind impressionism. Impressionist artists argue that painting should not have to be like camera scene, there could be some editing according to artist’s taste, creativity. Impressionist artists draw what they see and what they impressed from. They mostly paint outside. They believed art for art’s sake which does totally fit those impressionist definitions. [pic] Claude Monet, The Fall Effect,Argenteuil, 1873 [pic] Monet, Frog Pond, 1869 [pic] Auguste Renoir, Frog Pond, 1869