Summary
Highlights
Impressionist works often depict outdoor scenes like landscapes or people in nature, focusing on the effects of light and color. Renoir's 'Le Moulin de la Galette' (1876) exemplifies this, showing filtered light and lively color. Impressionist art also frequently portrays Parisian city life and leisure activities such as cafes, concerts, ballets, and parties. This reflected the era of industrialization, which created set working hours and dedicated leisure time, a new concept for many at the time, showcasing the 'glass half full' perspective compared to Realism.
Renoir's 'Le Moulin de la Galette' depicts an outdoor dance hall, capturing the essence of dancing, chatting, and drinking. The painting emphasizes light and draws the viewer in, creating a sense of being a participant. The lack of hard outlines and continuous composition convey constant motion and the excitement of fast-paced modern city life, a significant departure from previous art movements that focused on religion, ancient history, dreams, or harsh realities.
Berthe Morisot's 'The Reading' (1873) showcases another typical Impressionist subject: outdoor leisure activities. It features a well-to-do woman reading, highlighting the beautiful life of the affluent. This represents a stark contrast to the serious work depicted in Realist art, underscoring the Impressionists' focus on the positive aspects of modern life.
Monet's 'St. Lazare Train Station' demonstrates the Impressionists' interest in the positive aspects of urbanization and development. Monet maintains a safe distance, capturing the excitement of trains arriving and departing Paris with quick, sketchy brushwork. This contrasts sharply with Daumier, who would push viewers onto the train to show the harsh reality and ugly life of the poor, emphasizing the Impressionists' optimistic portrayal of industrialization.
While Gustave Caillebotte is considered an Impressionist, his 'Paris Street; Rainy Day' has a tighter brushstroke than typical Impressionist works. However, it is impressionistic in its subject matter, highlighting the positive aspects of Paris's redesign and rebuild, with wide avenues and new infrastructure. The composition, though, uses an informal, asymmetrical arrangement and two-point perspective to convey movement and changeability, achieving a similar transient feeling to the quick brushstrokes of other Impressionists.
Mary Cassatt's 'The Child's Bath' features a tighter brushstroke but employs a flattened, tilted space, demonstrating a modern departure from traditional one-point perspective. This reflects the Impressionists' disinterest in strict adherence to traditional artistic rules. Cassatt, as a female Impressionist, often depicted domestic interiors and the lives of women and children, a realm she had unique access to. Her work combines the objectivity of daily maternal tasks with tenderness and sentimentality, offering a nuanced view of motherhood that was popular for its time.