Impressi - The history of impressionism. Artistic principles of impressionism What type of art is impressionism

At the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries in most countries Western Europe there was a new leap in the development of science and technology. Industrial culture has done a great job of strengthening the spiritual foundations of society, overcoming rationalistic guidelines and cultivating the humanity in people. She very keenly felt the need for beauty, for the affirmation of an aesthetically developed personality, for the deepening of real humanism, taking practical steps to embody freedom, equality, and harmonization of social relations.

During this period, France was going through difficult times. The Franco-Prussian War, a short, bloody uprising and the fall of the Paris Commune marked the end of the Second Empire.

After clearing the ruins left by the terrible Prussian bombing and furious civil war, Paris once again proclaimed itself the center of European art.

After all, the capital of European artistic life he became in the time of the king Louis XIV, when the Academy and annual art exhibitions were established, which received the name Salons - from the so-called Square Salon in the Louvre, where new works of painters and sculptors were exhibited every year. In the 19th century, it was the Salons, where intense artistic struggle would unfold, that would identify new trends in art.

The acceptance of the painting for the exhibition and its approval by the Salon jury was the first step towards public recognition of the artist. Since the 1850s, Salons increasingly turned into grandiose shows of works selected to suit official tastes, which is why the expression “salon art” even appeared. Pictures that did not in any way correspond to this nowhere-defined but strict “standard” were simply rejected by the jury. The press discussed in every possible way which artists were accepted into the Salon and which were not, turning almost every one of these annual exhibitions into a public scandal.

In the years 1800-1830 to French landscape painting and fine art in general began to be influenced by Dutch and English landscape painters. Eugene Delacroix, a representative of romanticism, brought new brightness of colors and virtuosity of writing to his paintings. He was an admirer of Constable, who strived for a new naturalism. Delacroix's radical approach to color and his technique of applying large strokes of paint to enhance form would later be developed by the Impressionists.

Of particular interest to Delacroix and his contemporaries were Constable's sketches. Trying to capture the infinitely variable properties of light and color, Delacroix noted that in nature they “never remain motionless.” Therefore, the French romantics got into the habit of painting in oils and watercolors faster, but by no means superficial sketches of individual scenes.

By the middle of the century, the most significant phenomenon in painting became the realists, led by Gustave Courbet. After 1850, over the course of a decade, French art experienced an unprecedented fragmentation of styles, partly acceptable, but never approved by authorities. These experiments pushed young artists onto a path that was a logical continuation of already emerging trends, but which seemed stunningly revolutionary to the public and the judges of the Salon.

The art that occupied a dominant position in the halls of the Salon was, as a rule, distinguished by external craft and technical virtuosity, interest in anecdotal, entertainingly told stories of a sentimental, everyday, fake historical nature and abundance mythological stories, justifying all kinds of nudity. It was eclectic and entertaining art without ideas. The corresponding personnel were trained under the auspices of the Academy by the School of Fine Arts, where such masters of late academicism as Couture, Cabanel and others were in charge of the whole business. Salon art was distinguished by its exceptional vitality, artistically vulgarizing, spiritually unifying and adapting to the level of the public's bourgeois tastes the achievements of the main creative quests of its time.

The art of the Salon was opposed by various realistic movements. Their representatives were the best masters French artistic culture those decades. Associated with them is the work of realist artists who continue in new conditions thematic traditions realism of the 40-50s. 19th century - Bastien-Lepage, Lhermitte and others. Decisive for fate artistic development France and Western Europe as a whole had the innovative realistic quests of Edouard Manet and Auguste Rodin, acute expressive art Edgar Degas and, finally, the work of a group of artists who most consistently embodied the principles of impressionist art: Claude Monet, Pissarro, Sisley and Renoir. It was their work that marked the beginning of the rapid development of the period of impressionism.

Impressionism (from the French impression-impression), a movement in the art of the latter thirds of the XIX- the beginning of the 20th century, whose representatives sought to capture in the most natural and unbiased way real world in its mobility and variability, to convey your fleeting impressions.

Impressionism constituted the second era in French art half of the 19th century century and then spread to all European countries. He reformed artistic tastes and restructured visual perception. Essentially, it was a natural continuation and development realistic method. The art of the Impressionists is as democratic as the art of their direct predecessors; it does not distinguish between “high” and “low” nature and completely trusts the testimony of the eye. The way of “looking” changes - it becomes more intent and at the same time more lyrical. The connection with romanticism is disappearing - the impressionists, like the realists of the older generation, want to deal only with modernity, alienating historical, mythological and literary themes. For great aesthetic discoveries, the simplest, daily observed motifs were enough for them: Parisian cafes, streets, modest gardens, the banks of the Seine, surrounding villages.

The Impressionists lived in an era of struggle between modernity and tradition. We see in their works a radical and stunning break for that time with the traditional principles of art, the culmination, but not the completion of the search for a new look. Abstractionism of the 20th century was born from experiments with the art that existed at that time, just as the innovations of the Impressionists grew from the work of Courbet, Corot, Delacroix, Constable, as well as the old masters who preceded them.

The Impressionists abandoned the traditional distinctions between sketch, sketch and painting. They started and finished their work right in the open air - in the open air. Even if they had to finish something in the workshop, they still tried to preserve the feeling of a captured moment and convey the light-air atmosphere enveloping the objects.

Plein air is the key to their method. On this path they achieved exceptional subtlety of perception; They managed to reveal such enchanting effects in the relationships of light, air and color that they had not noticed before and probably would not have noticed without the painting of the Impressionists. It was not without reason that they said that London fogs were invented by Monet, although the Impressionists did not invent anything, relying only on the readings of the eye, without mixing with them prior knowledge of what was being depicted.

Indeed, the impressionists valued most of all the contact of the soul with nature, attaching great importance to direct impressions and observation of various phenomena of the surrounding reality. No wonder they patiently waited for clear warm days to paint outdoors in the open air.

But the creators of a new type of beauty never sought to carefully imitate, copy, or objectively “portrait” nature. In their works there is not just a virtuoso manipulation of the world of impressive appearances. The essence of impressionistic aesthetics lies in the amazing ability to condense beauty, highlight the depth of a unique phenomenon, fact, and recreate the poetics of a transformed reality, warmed by warmth. human soul. This is how a qualitatively different, aesthetically attractive world, saturated with spiritual radiance, arises.

As a result of the impressionistic touch to the world, everything, at first glance, ordinary, prosaic, trivial, momentary was transformed into poetic, attractive, festive, striking everything with the penetrating magic of light, richness of colors, quivering highlights, vibration of the air and faces radiating purity. In contrast to academic art, which relied on the canons of classicism - the obligatory placement of the main characters in the center of the picture, the three-dimensionality of space, the use of a historical plot for the purpose of a very specific semantic orientation of the viewer - the impressionists stopped dividing objects into main and secondary, sublime and low. From now on, the painting could include multi-colored shadows from objects, a haystack, a lilac bush, a crowd on a Parisian boulevard, the colorful life of a market, laundresses, dancers, saleswomen, the light of gas lamps, a railway line, a bullfight, seagulls, rocks, peonies.

Impressionists are characterized by a keen interest in all phenomena of everyday life. But this did not mean some kind of omnivorousness or promiscuity. In ordinary, everyday phenomena, the moment was chosen when the harmony of the surrounding world manifested itself most impressively. The impressionistic worldview was extremely responsive to the most subtle shades of the same color, state of an object or phenomenon.

In 1841, the American portrait painter John Goffrand, living in London, first came up with a tube from which paint was squeezed out, and paint dealers Winsor and Newton quickly picked up the idea. Pierre Auguste Renoir, according to his son, said: “Without paints in tubes there would have been neither Cezanne, nor Monet, nor Sisley, nor Pissarro, nor any of those whom journalists later dubbed impressionists.”

The paint in tubes had the consistency of fresh oil, ideal for applying thick, impasto strokes of a brush or even a spatula to the canvas; Both methods were used by the Impressionists.

A whole range of bright, permanent paints began to appear on the market in new tubes. Advances in chemistry at the beginning of the century brought new paints, for example, cobalt blue, artificial ultramarine, chrome yellow with orange, red, green tints, emerald green, white zinc, durable lead white. By the 1850s, artists had at their disposal a palette of colors that was bright, reliable, and convenient like never before. .

The impressionists did not ignore the scientific discoveries of the mid-century concerning optics and color decomposition. Complementary colors of the spectrum (red - green, blue - orange, purple - yellow) enhance each other when placed next to each other, and when mixed they become discolored. Any color put on White background, seems surrounded by a slight halo from additional color; there and in the shadows cast by objects when they are illuminated by the sun, a color appears that is complementary to the color of the object. Partly intuitively, and partly consciously, artists used such scientific observations. They turned out to be especially important for impressionistic painting. The impressionists took into account the laws of color perception at a distance and, if possible, avoiding mixing paints on the palette, they placed pure colorful strokes so that they mixed in the viewer’s eye. Light colors of the solar spectrum are one of the commandments of impressionism. They refused black and brown tones, because the solar spectrum does not have them. They rendered shadows with color, not blackness, hence the soft, radiant harmony of their canvases .

In general, the impressionistic type of beauty reflected the fact of spiritual man’s opposition to the process of urbanization, pragmatism, enslavement of feelings, which led to an increased need for a more complete disclosure of the emotional principle, actualization spiritual qualities personality and evoked a desire for a more acute experience of the spatio-temporal characteristics of existence.

Today, impressionism is perceived as a classic, but in the era of its formation it was a real revolutionary breakthrough in art. Innovation and ideas in this direction have completely changed artistic perception art of the 19th and 20th centuries. And modern impressionism in painting inherits principles that have already become canonical and continues aesthetic searches in the transmission of sensations, emotions and light.

Prerequisites

There are several reasons for the emergence of impressionism; it is a whole complex of prerequisites that led to a real revolution in art. In the 19th century, a crisis was brewing in French painting; it was due to the fact that “official” criticism did not want to notice and allow various emerging new forms into galleries. Therefore, painting in impressionism became a kind of protest against the inertia and conservatism of generally accepted norms. Also, the origins of this movement should be sought in the trends inherent in the Renaissance and associated with attempts to convey living reality. Artists Venetian school are considered the first progenitors of impressionism, then the Spaniards took this path: El Greco, Goya, Velazquez, who directly influenced Manet and Renoir. Technological progress also played a role in the formation of this school. Thus, the appearance of photography gave rise to new idea in art it’s about capturing momentary emotions and sensations. It is this instantaneous impression that the artists of the movement we are considering strive to “capture.” The development of the plein air school, which was founded by representatives of the Barbizon school, also had an influence on this trend.

History of impressionism

In the second half of the 19th century, a critical situation developed in French art. Representatives classical school they do not accept the innovations of young artists and do not allow them to attend the Salon - the only exhibition that opens the way to customers. A scandal broke out when the young Edouard Manet presented his work “Luncheon on the Grass.” The painting aroused the indignation of critics and the public, and the artist was forbidden to exhibit it. Therefore, Manet participates in the so-called “Salon of the Rejected” along with other painters who were not allowed to participate in the exhibition. The work received a huge response, and a circle of young artists began to form around Manet. They gathered in a cafe, discussed the problems of contemporary art, argued about new forms. A society of painters appears who will be called impressionists after one of Claude Monet’s works. This community included Pissarro, Renoir, Cezanne, Monet, Basil, Degas. The first exhibition of artists of this movement took place in 1874 in Paris and ended, like all subsequent ones, in failure. Actually, impressionism in music and painting covers a period of only 12 years, from the first exhibition to the last, held in 1886. Later, the movement begins to disintegrate into new movements, and some artists die. But this period brought about a real revolution in the minds of creators and the public.

Ideological principles

Unlike many other movements, painting in impressionism was not associated with deep philosophical views. The ideology of this school was momentary experience, impression. The artists did not set themselves social goals; they sought to convey the fullness and joy of life in everyday life. That's why genre system Impressionism was generally very traditional: landscapes, portraits, still lifes. This direction is not a union of people based on philosophical views, but a community of like-minded people, each of whom conducts his own quest to study the form of being. Impressionism lies precisely in the uniqueness of the view of ordinary objects; it is focused on individual experience.

Technique

It is quite easy to recognize painting in impressionism by some characteristic features. First of all, it is worth remembering that the artists of this movement were ardent lovers of color. They almost completely abandon black and brown in favor of a rich, bright palette, often heavily bleached. The Impressionist technique is characterized by short strokes. They strive for a general impression rather than careful drawing of details. The canvases are dynamic and intermittent, which corresponds to human perception. Painters strive to place colors on the canvas in such a way as to achieve coloristic intensity or proximity in the picture; they do not mix colors on the palette. Artists often worked plein air, and this was reflected in the technique, which did not have time to dry the previous layers. The paints were applied side by side or one on top of the other, and an opaque material was used, which made it possible to create the effect of an “inner glow.”

Main representatives in French painting

The birthplace of this movement is France; it was here that impressionism first appeared in painting. Artists of this school lived in Paris in the second half of the 19th century. They presented their works at 8 Impressionist exhibitions, and these paintings became classics of the movement. It is the Frenchmen Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Morisot and others who are the progenitors of the movement we are considering. The most famous impressionist, of course, is Claude Monet, whose works fully embodied all the features of this movement. Also, the movement is rightly associated with the name of Auguste Renoir, who, with his main artistic task considered the transmission of the game of the sun; in addition, he was a master of sentimental portraiture. Impressionism also includes such outstanding artists like Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin.

Impressionism in other countries

Gradually the direction is spreading in many countries, the French experience has been successfully picked up in others national cultures, although they have to talk more about individual works and techniques than about the consistent implementation of ideas. German painting in impressionism is represented primarily by the names of Lesser Ury, Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth. In the USA, ideas were implemented by J. Whistler, in Spain - by H. Sorolla, in England - by J. Sargent, in Sweden - by A. Zorn.

Impressionism in Russia

Russian art in the 19th century was significantly influenced by French culture, therefore domestic artists It was also not possible to avoid being carried away by the new trend. Russian impressionism in painting is most consistently and fruitfully represented in the works of Konstantin Korovin, as well as in the works of Igor Grabar, Isaac Levitan, Valentin Serov. The peculiarities of the Russian school were the etude nature of the works.

What was impressionism in painting? The founding artists sought to capture momentary impressions of contact with nature, and Russian creators also tried to convey a deeper, philosophical meaning works.

Impressionism today

Despite the fact that almost 150 years have passed since the emergence of the movement, modern impressionism in painting has not lost its relevance today. Thanks to their emotionality and ease of perception, paintings in this style are very popular and even commercially successful. Therefore, many artists around the world are working in this direction. Thus, Russian impressionism in painting is presented in the new Moscow museum of the same name. Exhibitions of contemporary authors, for example V. Koshlyakov, N. Bondarenko, B. Gladchenko and others, are regularly held there.

Masterpieces

Modern lovers of fine art often call impressionism in painting their favorite movement. Paintings by artists of this school are sold at auctions at incredible prices, and collections in museums enjoy great public attention. The main masterpieces of impressionism are considered to be the paintings by C. Monet “Water Lilies” and “The Rising Sun”, O. Renoir “Ball at the Moulin de la Galette”, C. Pissarro “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” and “Boildier Bridge in Rouen on a Rainy Day”, E. . Degas "Absinthe", although this list can be continued almost endlessly.

The most typical theme for the Impressionists is landscape, but they also touched on many other themes in their work. Degas, for example, depicted horse races, ballerinas and laundresses, and Renoir - charming women and children. In impressionistic landscapes created outdoors, a simple, everyday motif is often transformed by pervasive moving light, bringing a sense of festivity to the picture. In certain techniques of impressionistic construction of composition and space, the influence of Japanese engraving and partly photography is noticeable. The Impressionists created a multifaceted painting for the first time Everyday life of a modern city, captured the originality of its landscape and the appearance of the people inhabiting it, their life, work and entertainment.

The impressionists did not strive to touch upon acute social problems, philosophy or shocking creativity, focusing only on in various ways expressing impressions of the surrounding everyday life. Trying to “see the moment” and reflect the mood.

Name " Impressionism" arose after the 1874 exhibition in Paris, at which Monet's painting "Impression" was exhibited. Rising Sun" (1872; the painting was stolen from the Marmottan Museum in Paris in 1985 and is today on the Interpol lists).

More than seven Impressionist exhibitions were held between 1876 and 1886; upon completion of the latter, only Monet continued to strictly follow the ideals of Impressionism. “Impressionists” are also called artists outside of France who wrote under the influence of French Impressionism (for example, the Englishman F.W. Steer).

Impressionist artists

Famous paintings by impressionist artists:

Nowadays we perceive the masterpieces of impressionist artists in the context of world art: for us they became classics a long time ago. However, this was not always the case. It happened that their paintings were not allowed into official exhibitions, they were criticized in the press, and they did not want to buy them even for a nominal fee. There were years of despair, need and deprivation. And the struggle for the opportunity to paint the world as they saw it. It took many decades for the majority to be able to comprehend and perceive, to see themselves through their eyes. What was it like, the world into which impressionism invaded in the early 1860s, like a vigorous wind bringing transformation?

Social tremors late XVIII centuries, revolutions in France and America, transformed the very essence Western culture, which could not but affect the role of art in a rapidly changing society. Accustomed to social orders from the reigning dynasty or church, the artists suddenly discovered that they were left without their clients. The nobility and clergy, the main customers of art, experienced serious difficulties. A new era has begun, the era of capitalism, in full transforming rules and priorities.

Gradually, in the established republics and democratically organized powers, wealthy people grew middle class, as a result of which a new art market began to develop rapidly. Unfortunately, entrepreneurs and traders, as a rule, lacked hereditary culture and upbringing, without which it was impossible to correctly appreciate the variety of plot allegories or skillful performing skills that had long fascinated the aristocracy.

Not distinguished by an aristocratic upbringing and education, representatives of the middle class who became consumers of art were obliged to initially focus on the considerations of newspaper critics and official experts. The old academies of art, being the guardians of the classical foundations, became the central arbiters in matters of artistic gravity. It is not paradoxical that some young and seeking painters, disgusted with conformism, rebelled against the formal dominance of academicism in art.

One of the significant strongholds of academicism of those times were exhibitions of contemporary art, patronized by the authorities. Such exhibitions were called Salons - according to tradition, referring to the name of the hall in the Louvre, where court artists once exhibited their canvases.

Participation in the Salon was one chance attract the attention of the press and clients to your works. Auguste Renoir, in one of his letters to Durand-Ruel, speaks of the current state of affairs as follows: “In all of Paris there are hardly fifteen admirers who are able to recognize the artist without the help of the Salon, and eighty thousand people who will not acquire even a square centimeter of canvas if the artist does not admitted to the Salon."

The young painters had no choice but to appear in the Salons: at the exhibition they could hear unflattering words not only from the jury members, but also from deeply respected painters such as Eugene Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet, who were the favorites of young people, thereby receiving impetus for further creativity. In addition, the Salon was a unique opportunity to acquire a customer, be noticed, and build a career in art. The Salon's award marked the artist's guarantee of professional recognition. Conversely, if the jury rejected the submitted work, this was tantamount to aesthetic dismissal.

Often the painting proposed for consideration did not correspond to the usual canons, for which the Salon jury rejected it: in the artistic community, this episode caused a scandal and sensation.

One of the artists whose involvement in the Salon invariably created a scandal and caused academicians a lot of concern was Edouard Manet. A big scandal accompanied the demonstrations of his paintings “Lunch on the Grass” (1863) and “Olympia” (1865), created in an unusually harsh manner, containing an aesthetic alien to the Salon. And the painting “An Incident at a Bullfight,” presented at the Salon of 1864, reflected the artist’s passion for Goya’s work. In the foreground, Manet painted the prostrate figure of a bullfighter. The background of the picture was the arena stretching deep into the depths and the rows of discouraged, numb spectators. Such a sharp and defiant composition provoked a lot of sarcastic reviews and newspaper cartoons. Hurt by the criticism, Manet tore his painting into two parts.

It should be noted that critics and caricaturists were not ashamed of choosing words and methods to further insult the artist and push him to take some kind of retaliatory actions. “The Artist Rejected by the Salon” and later “The Impressionist” became favorite targets of journalists profiting from public scandals. The Salon's unabating strife with painters of other concepts and inclinations, who were tired of the strict boundaries of outdated academicism, significantly signaled a serious decline that had matured by that time in the art of the 2nd half of the 19th century. The conservative jury of the 1863 Salon rejected so many paintings that Emperor Napoleon III found it necessary to personally support another, parallel exhibition so that the viewer could compare the accepted works with the rejected ones. This exhibition, which acquired the name “Salon of the Rejected,” became an extremely fashionable place of entertainment - people came here to laugh and be witty.

In order to bypass the academic jury, wealthy painters could establish independent individual exhibitions. The idea for an exhibition of one artist was first announced by the realist artist Gustave Courbet. He submitted a series of his works to the Paris World Exhibition of 1855. The selection committee approved his landscapes, but rejected thematic program paintings. Then Courbet, contrary to tradition, erected a personal pavilion near the World Exhibition. Although Courbet's broad painting style impressed the elderly Delacroix, there were few spectators in his pavilion. During the Universal Exhibition in 1867, Courbet resumed this experiment with great triumph - this time he hung all his works in a separate room. Edouard Manet, following the example of Courbet, opened his own gallery during the same exhibition for a retrospective display of his paintings.

The creation of personal galleries and the private publication of catalogs involved a significant expenditure of resources - incomparably greater than those that artists often owned. However, the cases of Courbet and Manet prompted young painters to plan a group exhibition of artists of new movements that were not accepted by the official Salon.

Except social change for art XIX century Scientific research also had a noticeable impact. In 1839, Louis Daguerre in Paris and Henry Fox Talbot in London demonstrated photographic devices that they had created independently of each other. Soon after this event, photography freed artists and graphic artists from the responsibility of simply immortalizing people, places and incidents. Freed from the duty of sketching an object, many painters rushed to the sphere of conveying their own, subjective, expression of emotions on canvas.

The photograph gave rise to European art other views. The lens, with a different angle of view than the human eye, formed a fragmentary representation of the composition. Changing the shooting angle pushed artists to new compositional visions, which became the basis of the aesthetics of impressionism. One of the main principles of this movement was spontaneity.

In the same year of 1839, when the camera was created, a chemist from the laboratory of the Parisian Gobelin manufactory, Michel Eugene Chevreul, first published a logical interpretation of the perception of color by the human eye. While creating dyes for fabrics, he became convinced of the existence of three primary colors - red, yellow and blue, when mixed, all other colors appear. With the assistance of the color wheel, Chevreul proved how shades are born, which not only wonderfully illustrated a complex scientific idea, but also presented artists with a working concept for mixing colors. American physicist Ogden Rood and German scientist Hermann von Helmholli, for their part, supplemented this invention with developments in the field of optics.

In 1841, the American scientist and painter John Rand patented the tin tubes he created for perishable paints. Previously, when an artist went to paint en plein air, he was forced to first mix the paints he needed in the studio and then pour them into glass containers, which often broke, or into bubbles made from the entrails of animals, which quickly leaked. With the advent of Rand tubes, artists had the advantage of taking with them to the plein air all the variety of colors and shades. This discovery greatly influenced the abundance color range artists, and in addition convinced them to leave their workshops for nature. Soon, as one wit noted, in the countryside there were more landscape painters than peasants.

The pioneers of plein air painting were the artists of the Barbizon school, which acquired its nickname from the village of Barbizon near the forest of Fontainebleau, where they created most of the landscapes.

If the senior painters of the Barbizon school (T. Rousseau, J. Dupre) were still based in their work on the heritage of the heroic landscape, then the representatives younger generation(C. Daubigny, C. Corot) endowed this genre with features of realism. Their canvases depict landscapes that are alien to academic idealization.

In their paintings, the Barbizonians tried to recreate the diversity of states of nature. That is why they painted from life, trying to capture the spontaneity of their perception. However, the use of outdated academic methods and means in painting did not help them achieve what the Impressionists later achieved. Contrary to this, the contribution of the artists of the Barbizon school to the formation of the genre is irrefutable: having left the workshops for the plein air, they offered landscape painting new ways of development.

One of the supporters of painting on location, Eugene Boudin, instructed his young student Claude Monet that it is necessary to create in the open air - among light and air, to paint what you contemplate. This rule became the basis of plein air painting. Monet soon introduced to his friends, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frederic Basil, a new theory: to paint only what you observe at a specific distance and under a specific lighting. In the evenings in Parisian cafes, young painters happily shared their thoughts and passionately discussed their new discoveries.

This is how impressionism appeared - a revolutionary movement in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Painters who set out on the path of impressionism tried to capture more naturally and truthfully in their works the world and everyday reality in their endless mobility and impermanence, to express their fleeting sensations.

Impressionism became a response to the stagnation of academicism that dominated art in those years, a desire to free painting from the hopeless situation into which it had fallen due to the fault of the Salon artists. That modern Art is in decline, many progressive-minded people said: Eugene Delacroix, Gustav Courbet, Charles Baudelaire. Impressionism was a kind of shock therapy for the “suffering organism”.

With the advent of young genre painters Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, the wind of change burst into French painting, giving spontaneity of contemplation of life, presentation of fleeting, seemingly unexpected situations and movements, illusory instability and unbalance of forms, fragmentary composition, unpredictable points of view and angles .

In the evenings, when the artists were no longer able to paint their canvases due to poor lighting, they left their studios and sat through passionate debates in Parisian cafes. So the Guerbois café became one of the constant meeting places for a handful of artists united around Edouard Manet. Regular meetings were held on Thursdays, and on other days one could find a group of artists animatedly talking or arguing. Claude Monet described the meetings at the Guerbois café this way: “There could be nothing more exciting than these meetings and the endless clash of views. They sharpened our minds, stimulated our noble and heartfelt aspirations, gave us a charge of enthusiasm that sustained us for many weeks until the idea was completely formed. We left these meetings in high spirits, with a strengthened will, with thoughts more distinct and clear.”

On the eve of the 1870s, impressionism was established in the French landscape: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley were the first to develop a consistent plein air system. They painted their canvases without sketches and sketches in the open air directly on canvas, embodying in their paintings the sparkling sunlight, the fabulous abundance of colors of nature, the dissolution of represented objects in the environment, vibrations of light and air, a riot of reflexes. To achieve this goal, they greatly contributed to the coloristic system they studied in all details, in which natural color was decomposed into the colors of the solar spectrum. To create an unusually bright, delicate colorful texture, the artists applied pure color to the canvas in separate strokes, while optical mixing was expected in the human eye. This technique, later transformed and theoretically argued, became central to another outstanding artistic aspiration - pointillism, called “divisionism” (from the French “diviser” - to divide).

Impressionists showed increased interest in the connections between object and environment. The subject of their scrupulous creative analysis was the transformation of the color and character of an object in a changing environment. To achieve this idea, the same object was depicted repeatedly. With the addition of pure color in the shadows and reflections, black paint has almost left the palette.

Critic Jules Laforgue spoke about the phenomenon of impressionism in the following way: “The impressionist sees and conveys nature as it is, that is, only with enchanting vibrations. Drawing, light, volume, perspective, chiaroscuro - all this is a classification that fades into reality. It turns out that everything is determined by the vibrations of color and must be imprinted on the canvas by vibrations of color.”

Thanks to outdoor activities and meetings in cafes, on December 27, 1873, “Anonymous, Sculptors, Engravers, etc.” - this is how the Impressionists first called themselves. The first exhibition of the society took place in the spring of a year later in the Commercial Gallery of Nadar, an experimental photographer who, in addition, sold creations of modern art.

The debut came on April 15, 1874. The exhibition was planned to last a month, visiting hours were from ten to six and, which was also an innovation, from eight to ten in the evening. Admission ticket cost one franc, catalogs could be purchased for fifty centimes. At first, the exhibition seemed to be filled with visitors, but the crowd did little more than jeer. Some joked that the task of these artists could be achieved if a gun was loaded with different tubes of paint, then shot at the canvas and finished with a signature.

Opinions were divided: either the exhibition was not taken seriously at all, or it was criticized to smithereens. The general perception can be expressed in the following article of sarcastic aspiration, “Exhibition of the Impressionists,” signed by Louis Leroy, published in the form of a feuilleton. Here is a dialogue between the author and an academic landscape painter who was awarded medals; together they walk through the halls of the exhibition:

“...The imprudent artist came there without expecting anything bad, he expected to see there the kind of canvases that can be found everywhere, demonstrative and useless, more useless than demonstrative, but not far from certain artistic standards, culture of form and respect for the old masters.

Alas, the form! Alas, old masters! We are not going to honor them any more, my poor friend! We have transformed everything!”

The exhibition also included a landscape by Claude Monet, showing the morning dawn in a fog-shrouded bay - the painter called it “Impression. Sunrise" (Impression). Here is a comment from one of the characters in Louis Leroy’s satirical article on this painting, which gave its name to the most sensational and famous movement in the art of the 19th century:

“...- What is drawn here? Take a look at the catalogue. - "Impression. Sunrise". - Impression - that's what I expected. I was just thinking to myself that since I was under the impression, then some kind of impression must be conveyed in it... and what a looseness, what a smooth performance! The wallpaper in its original state of processing is more perfect than this seascape...”

Personally, Monet was in no way against this name for the artistic technique that he used in practice. The main essence of his work is precisely capturing and capturing the fleeting moments of life, which is what he worked on, giving rise to his countless series of canvases: “Haystacks”, “Poplars”, “ Rouen Cathedral", "Gare Saint-Lazare", "Pond at Giverny", "London. Parliament Building" and others. Another case is Edgar Degas, who liked to call himself “independent” because he did not participate in the Salon. His harsh, grotesque style of writing, which served as an example for many supporters (among whom Toulouse-Lautrec was especially outstanding), was unacceptable to the academic jury. Both of these painters became the most proactive organizers of subsequent impressionist exhibitions, both in France and abroad - in England, Germany, and the USA.

Auguste Renoir, on the contrary, appearing in the first exhibitions of the Impressionists, did not lose hope of winning the Salon, sending two paintings to its exhibitions every year. He explains the characteristic duality of his actions in correspondence to his comrade and patron Durand-Ruel: “...I do not support the painful opinions that a work is worthy or unworthy depending on the place where it is shown. In short, I don't want to waste time and get angry at Salon. I don't even want to pretend to be angry. I just think that you need to draw as best you can, that’s all. If I were to be accused of being unscrupulous in my art or of renouncing my views out of absurd ambition, I would accept such accusations. But since there is nothing even close to this, there is no need to reproach me.”

Although he did not consider himself officially involved in the Impressionist movement, Edouard Manet considered himself a realist painter. However, the constant close connection with the Impressionists, visiting their exhibitions, imperceptibly transformed the painter’s style, bringing him closer to the impressionistic. In the dying years of his life, the colors in his paintings become lighter, the strokes are sweeping, the composition is fragmentary. Like Renoir, Manet expected favor from official experts in the field of art and was eager to take part in Salon exhibitions. But contrary to his wishes, he became the idol of the Parisian avant-garde artists, their uncrowned king. Despite everything, he stubbornly stormed the Salon with his canvases. Only before his death he was lucky enough to acquire the official location of the Salon. Auguste Renoir also found it.

Describing the key figures of impressionism, it would be rude not to recall at least fragmentarily the man with whose help the repeatedly disgraced artistic movement became a significant artistic achievement of the 19th century and conquered the whole world. The name of this man is Paul Durand-Ruel, a collector, art dealer, who repeatedly found himself on the verge of bankruptcy, but did not give up his attempts to establish impressionism as a new art that would still reach its apogee. He organized exhibitions of impressionists in Paris and London, arranged personal exhibitions painters in his gallery, organized auctions, and simply assisted artists financially: there were times when many of them did not have funds for paints and canvas. Proof of the ardent gratitude and respect of the artists is their letters to Durand-Ruel, of which there are plenty left. Durand-Ruel's personality is an example of an intelligent collector and benefactor.

“Impressionism” is a relative concept. All the painters whom we consider to be part of this movement underwent academic training, which required meticulous attention to detail and a smooth, glossy painting surface. However, they soon preferred paintings in a realistic direction, reflecting real reality and everyday life, to the usual themes and plots prescribed by the Salon. Subsequently, each of them painted in the style of impressionism for a certain time, trying to objectively convey objects in their paintings under different lighting conditions. After this impressionist stage, most of these avant-garde artists moved on to independent research, acquiring the collective name “post-impressionism”; Later, their work contributed to the emergence of abstract art in the 20th century.

In the 70s of the 19th century, Europe became addicted to Japanese art. Edmond de Goncourt writes in his notes: “...Passion Japanese art... embraced everything - from painting to fashion. At first it was a mania for eccentrics like my brother and me... later impressionist artists joined us.” Indeed, the paintings of the impressionists of that time often depicted the attributes of Japanese culture: fans, kimonos, screens. They also learned stylistic methods and plastic solutions from Japanese engraving. Many Impressionists were keen collectors of Japanese prints. For example, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas.

In general, the so-called impressionists organized 8 exhibitions at irregular intervals from 1874 to 1886; half of the 55 painters who belonged to the Anonymous Society, due to various circumstances, appeared only in the 1st. An exceptional participant in all 8 exhibitions was Camille Pissarro, who had a calm, peaceful disposition.

In 1886, the final exhibition of the Impressionists took place, but as an artistic method, it continued to exist. The painters did not give up their hard work. Although the former camaraderie and unity were no longer there. Everyone trampled their own path. The historical confrontations were over, ended in the triumph of new views, and there was no need for a unification of forces. The illustrious unity of impressionist artists split, and could not help but split: they were all too dissimilar, not only in temperament, but also in their views and artistic convictions.

Impressionism, as a movement consistent with its time, did not fail to leave the borders of France. Painters in other countries asked similar questions (James Whistler in England and the USA, Max Lieberman and Lovis Corinth in Germany, Konstantin Korovin and Igor Grabar in Russia). Impressionism’s passion for instant movement and fluid form was also adopted by sculptors (Auguste Rodin in France, Paolo Trubetskoy and Anna Golubkina in Russia).

Having carried out a revolution in the views of their contemporaries, expanding their worldview, the Impressionists thereby prepared the ground for the subsequent development of art and the emergence of new aesthetic aspirations and ideas, new forms that were not long in coming. Emerging from impressionism, neo-impressionism, post-impressionism, fauvism, subsequently also stimulated the formation and emergence of new aesthetic trends and directions.

Impressionism (impressionnisme) is a style of painting that appeared at the end of the 19th century in France and then spread throughout the world. The very idea of ​​impressionism lies in its name: impression - impression. Artists who are tired of traditional techniques Academic paintings, which, in their opinion, did not convey all the beauty and liveliness of the world, began to use completely new techniques and methods of depiction, which were supposed to express in the most accessible form not a “photographic” appearance, but rather the impression of what was seen. In his painting, the impressionist artist, using the nature of his strokes and color palette, tries to convey the atmosphere, warmth or cold, strong wind or peaceful silence, a foggy rainy morning or a bright sunny afternoon, as well as his personal experiences from what he saw.

Impressionism is a world of feelings, emotions and fleeting impressions. What is valued here is not external realism or naturalness, but rather the realism of the expressed sensations, the internal state of the picture, its atmosphere, and depth. Initially this style came under strong criticism. The first Impressionist paintings were exhibited at the Parisian “Salon of Les Misérables,” where works by artists rejected by the official Paris Salon of Arts were exhibited. The term “impressionism” was first used by critic Louis Leroy, who wrote a disparaging review in the magazine “Le Charivari” about an exhibition of artists. As the basis for the term, he took Claude Monet’s painting “Impression. Rising Sun". He called all the artists impressionists, which can be roughly translated as “impressionists.” At first, the paintings were indeed criticized, but soon more and more fans of the new art direction began to come to the salon, and the genre itself turned from a rejected one to a recognized one.

It is worth noting that the artists late XIX centuries in France they did not come up with a new style out of nowhere. They took as a basis the techniques of painters of the past, including artists of the Renaissance. Painters such as El Greco, Velazquez, Goya, Rubens, Turner and others, long before the emergence of impressionism, tried to convey the mood of a picture, the liveliness of nature, the special expressiveness of the weather with the help of various intermediate tones, bright or, on the contrary, dull strokes that looked like abstract things. They used it quite sparingly in their paintings, so unusual technique did not catch the viewer's eye. The Impressionists decided to take these image methods as the basis for their works.

Another specific feature of the works of the impressionists is a certain superficial everydayness, which, however, contains incredible depth. They do not try to express any deep philosophical themes, mythological or religious problems, historical and important events. The paintings of artists of this movement are inherently simple and everyday - landscapes, still lifes, people walking down the street or going about their normal business, and so on. It is precisely such moments, where there is no excessive thematic content that distracts a person, that feelings and emotions from what they see come to the fore. Also, the impressionists, at least at the beginning of their existence, did not depict “heavy” themes - poverty, wars, tragedies, suffering, and so on. Impressionist paintings are most often the most positive and joyful works, where there is a lot of light, bright colors, smoothed light and shade, smooth contrasts. Impressionism is a pleasant impression, joy from life, the beauty of every moment, pleasure, purity, sincerity.

The most famous impressionists became such great artists as Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro and many others.

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Alfred Sisley - Lawns in Spring

Camille Pissarro - Boulevard Montmartre. Afternoon, sunny.