Impressionistic manner of depiction. The main characteristic features of impressionism

“New world was born when the impressionists painted it”

Henri Kahnweiler

XIX century. France. Something unprecedented happened in painting. A group of young artists decided to shake 500-year-old traditions. Instead of a clear drawing, they used a wide, “sloppy” stroke.

And they completely abandoned the usual images, depicting everyone in a row. And ladies of easy virtue, and gentlemen of dubious reputation.

The public was not ready for impressionist painting. They were ridiculed and scolded. And most importantly, they didn’t buy anything from them.

But the resistance was broken. And some impressionists lived to see their triumph. True, they were already over 40. Like Claude Monet or Auguste Renoir. Others waited for recognition only at the end of their lives, like Camille Pissarro. Some did not live to see him, like Alfred Sisley.

What revolutionary did each of them accomplish? Why did the public take so long to accept them? Here are the 7 most famous French impressionists known to the whole world.

1. Edouard Manet (1832-1883)

Manet was older than most of the Impressionists. He was their main inspiration.

Manet himself did not claim to be the leader of the revolutionaries. He was a secular man. I dreamed of official awards.

But he waited a very long time for recognition. The public wanted to see Greek goddesses or still lifes, at worst, so that they would look beautiful in the dining room. Manet wanted to write modern life. For example, courtesans.

The result was “Breakfast on the Grass.” Two dandies are relaxing in the company of ladies of easy virtue. One of them, as if nothing had happened, sits next to the dressed men.

Compare his Luncheon on the Grass with Thomas Couture's Romans in Decline. Couture's painting created a sensation. The artist instantly became famous.

“Breakfast on the Grass” was accused of vulgarity. Pregnant women were absolutely not recommended to look at her.

In Couture's painting we see all the attributes of academicism ( traditional painting XVI-XIX centuries). Columns and statues. People of Apollonian appearance. Traditional muted colors. Manners of poses and gestures. A plot from the distant life of a completely different people.

“Breakfast on the Grass” by Manet is of a different format. Before him, no one had depicted courtesans so easily. Close to respectable citizens. Although many men of that time spent their leisure time this way. It was real life real people.

Once I portrayed a respectable lady. Ugly. He couldn't flatter her with a brush. The lady was disappointed. She left him in tears.

So he continued to experiment. For example, with color. He did not try to depict the so-called natural color. If he saw gray-brown water as bright blue, then he depicted it as bright blue.

This, of course, irritated the audience. “Even the Mediterranean Sea cannot boast of being as blue as Manet’s water,” they quipped.

But the fact remains a fact. Manet radically changed the purpose of painting. The painting became the embodiment of the individuality of the artist, who paints as he pleases. Forgetting about patterns and traditions.

Innovations were not forgiven for a long time. He received recognition only at the end of his life. But he no longer needed it. He was dying painfully from incurable disease.

2. Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Claude Monet can be called a textbook impressionist. Since he was faithful to this direction all his long life.

He painted not objects and people, but a single color construction of highlights and spots. Separate strokes. Air tremors.

Monet painted not only nature. He was also successful in city landscapes. One of the most famous - .

There is a lot of photography in this picture. For example, motion is conveyed through a blurred image.

Please note: distant trees and figures seem to be in a haze.

Before us is a frozen moment in the bustling life of Paris. No staging. Nobody is posing. People are depicted as a collection of brush strokes. Such lack of plot and “freeze-frame” effect - main feature impressionism.

By the mid-80s, artists became disillusioned with impressionism. Aesthetics are, of course, good. But the lack of plot depressed many.

Only Monet continued to persist, exaggerating impressionism. This developed into a series of paintings.

He depicted the same landscape dozens of times. At different times of the day. IN different times of the year. To show how temperature and light can change the same species beyond recognition.

This is how countless haystacks appeared.

Paintings by Claude Monet at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Left: Haystacks at sunset in Giverny, 1891. Right: Haystacks (snow effect), 1891.

Please note that the shadows in these paintings are colored. And not gray or black, as was customary before the Impressionists. This is another of their inventions.

Monet managed to enjoy success and material well-being. After 40, he already forgot about poverty. Got a house and a beautiful garden. And he created for his own pleasure long years.

Read about the master’s most iconic painting in the article

3. Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)

Impressionism is the most positive painting. And the most positive among the impressionists was Renoir.

You won't find drama in his paintings. He didn't even use black paint. Only the joy of being. Even the most banal things in Renoir look beautiful.

Unlike Monet, Renoir painted people more often. Landscapes were less important to him. In the paintings his friends and acquaintances are relaxing and enjoying life.

You won't find any profundity in Renoir. He was very glad to join the impressionists, who completely abandoned subjects.

As he himself said, he finally has the opportunity to paint flowers and call them simply “Flowers.” And don’t invent any stories about them.

Renoir felt best in the company of women. He asked his maids to sing and joke. The stupider and more naive the song was, the better for him. And men's chatter tired him. It is not surprising that Renoir is famous for his nude paintings.

The model in the painting “Nude in Sunlight” appears to appear against a colorful abstract background. Because for Renoir nothing is secondary. The model's eye or a section of the background are equivalent.

Renoir lived a long life. And I never put down my brush and palette. Even when his hands were completely shackled by rheumatism, he tied the brush to his hand with a rope. And he drew.

Like Monet, he waited for recognition after 40 years. And I saw my paintings in the Louvre, next to the works of famous masters.

Read about one of the most charming portraits of Renoir in the article

4. Edgar Degas (1834-1917)

Degas was not a classical impressionist. He did not like working plein air (outdoors). You won’t find a deliberately lightened palette with him.

On the contrary, he loved a clear line. He has plenty of black. And he worked exclusively in the studio.

But still he is always put in a row with other great impressionists. Because he was an impressionist of gesture.

Unexpected angles. Asymmetry in the arrangement of objects. Characters taken by surprise. These are the main attributes of his paintings.

He stopped moments of life, not allowing the characters to come to their senses. Just look at his “Opera Orchestra”.

In the foreground is the back of a chair. The musician's back is to us. And on background the ballerinas on stage did not fit into the “frame”. Their heads are mercilessly “cut off” by the edge of the picture.

So his favorite dancers are not always depicted in beautiful poses. Sometimes they just do stretching.

But such improvisation is imaginary. Of course, Degas carefully thought through the composition. This is just a freeze frame effect, not a real freeze frame.

Edgar Degas loved to paint women. But illness or characteristics of the body did not allow him to have physical contact with them. He has never been married. No one has ever seen him with a lady.

Lack of real stories in it personal life added a subtle and intense eroticism to his images.

Please note that in the painting “Ballet Star” only the ballerina herself is depicted. Her colleagues behind the scenes are barely visible. Just a few legs.

This does not mean that Degas did not complete the painting. This is the reception. Keep only the most important things in focus. Make the rest disappear, illegible.

Read about other paintings by the master in the article

5. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895)

Berthe Morisot is rarely placed in the first rank of the great Impressionists. I'm sure it's undeserved. It is in her work that you will find all the main features and techniques of impressionism. And if you like this style, you will love her work with all your heart.

Morisot worked quickly and impetuously, transferring her impressions to the canvas. The figures seem to be about to dissolve into space.

Like Degas, she often left some details unfinished. And even parts of the model's body. We cannot distinguish the hands of the girl in the painting “Summer”.

Morisot's path to self-expression was difficult. Not only did she engage in “careless” painting. She was still a woman. In those days, a lady was supposed to dream of marriage. After which any hobby was forgotten.

Therefore, Bertha refused marriage for a long time. Until she found a man who respected her occupation. Eugene Manet was the brother of the artist Edouard Manet. He dutifully carried an easel and paints behind his wife.

But still, this was in the 19th century. No, I didn't wear Morisot trousers. But she could not afford complete freedom of movement.

She could not go to the park to work alone, without being accompanied by someone close to her. I couldn’t sit alone in a cafe. Therefore, her paintings are people from family circle. Husband, daughter, relatives, nannies.

Morisot did not wait for recognition. She died at the age of 54 from pneumonia, without selling almost any of her work during her lifetime. On her death certificate, there was a dash in the “occupation” column. It was unthinkable for a woman to be called an artist. Even if she actually was.

Read about the master’s paintings in the article

6. Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903)

Camille Pissarro. Non-conflict, reasonable. Many perceived him as a teacher. Even the most temperamental colleagues did not speak badly of Pissarro.

He was a faithful follower of impressionism. In great need, with a wife and five children, he still worked hard in his favorite style. And he never switched to salon painting to become more popular. It is not known where he got the strength to fully believe in himself.

In order not to die of hunger at all, Pissarro painted fans, which were eagerly bought up. But real recognition came to him after 60 years! Then finally he was able to forget about his need.

The air in Pissarro's paintings is thick and dense. An extraordinary fusion of color and volume.

The artist was not afraid to paint the most changeable natural phenomena, which appear for a moment and disappear. First snow, frosty sun, long shadows.

His most famous works are views of Paris. With wide boulevards and a bustling motley crowd. At night, during the day, in different weather. In some ways they echo a series of paintings by Claude Monet.

IMPRESSIONISM(French impressionnisme, from impression - impression) - a movement in art of the late 1860s - early 1880s, main goal which was the transmission of fleeting, changeable impressions. Impressionism was based on the latest discoveries in optics and color theory; in this he is in tune with the spirit of scientific analysis characteristic of the late 19th century. Impressionism manifested itself most clearly in painting, where special attention was paid to the transmission of color and light.

Impressionism appeared in France in the late 1860s. Its leading representatives are Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley and Jean Frédéric Bazille. Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas exhibited their paintings with them, although the style of their works cannot be called impressionistic. The word "impressionism" comes from the title of a painting by Monet Impression. Rising Sun (1872, Paris, Marmottan Museum), presented at the exhibition in 1874. The title implied that the artist conveys only his fleeting impression of the landscape. Now the term “impressionism” is understood more broadly than just the subjective vision of the artist: as a careful study of nature, primarily in terms of color and lighting. This concept is essentially the opposite of the traditional understanding of the main task of painting, dating back to the Renaissance, as conveying the shape of objects. The goal of the impressionists was to depict instantaneous, seemingly “random” situations and movements. This was facilitated by the asymmetry, fragmentation of compositions, and the use of complex angles and cuts of figures. The picture becomes a separate frame, a fragment of the moving world.

Landscapes and scenes from city life are perhaps the most characteristic genres impressionistic painting - painted “in the open air”, i.e. directly from nature, and not on the basis of sketches and preparatory sketches. Impressionists looked closely at nature, noticing colors and shades usually invisible, such as blue in the shadows. Their artistic method consisted of decomposing complex tones into their constituent pure colors of the spectrum. The results were colored shadows and pure, light, vibrant painting. The Impressionists applied paint in separate strokes, sometimes using contrasting tones in one area of ​​the picture, the size of the strokes varied. Sometimes, for example, to depict a clear sky, they were smoothed with a brush into a more even surface (but even in this case, a free, careless painting manner was emphasized). The main feature of impressionist paintings is the effect of living flickering of colors.

Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet preferred landscapes and urban scenes in their work. Auguste Renoir painted people in the open air or in the interior. His work perfectly illustrates the characteristic tendency of impressionism to blur the lines between genres. Pictures like Ball at the Moulin de la Galette(Paris, Musée D'Orsay) or Rowers' Breakfast(1881, Washington, Phillips Gallery), are colorful memories of the joys of life, urban or rural.

Similar searches for the transmission of the light-air environment, the decomposition of complex tones into pure colors of the solar spectrum, occurred not only in France. The impressionists include James Whistler (England and the USA), Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth (Germany), Joaquin Sorolla (Spain), K.A. Korovin, I.E. Grabar (Russia).

Impressionism in sculpture implies living, free modeling of fluid soft forms, which creates challenging game light on the surface of the material and a feeling of incompleteness. The poses accurately capture the moment of movement and development; the figures seem to have been taken using hidden camera, as, for example, in some works by E. Degas and O. Rodin (France), Medardo Rosso (Italy), P. P. Trubetskoy (Russia).

At the beginning of the 20th century. new trends have emerged in painting, expressed in the rejection of realism and a turn to abstraction; they caused younger artists to turn away from Impressionism. However, Impressionism left a rich legacy: primarily an interest in problems of color, as well as an example of a bold break with tradition.

Impressionism (French impressionnisme, from impression - impression), a movement in the art of the last third of the 19th - early 20th centuries, whose masters, recording their fleeting impressions, sought to capture the most naturally and impartially real world in its mobility and variability. Impressionism originated in French painting in the late 1860s. Edouard Manet (formally not a member of the Impressionist group), Degas, Renoir, and Monet brought freshness and spontaneity of perception of life to fine art.

French artists turned to the depiction of instantaneous situations, snatched from the flow of reality, the spiritual life of a person, the depiction of strong passions, the spiritualization of nature, interest in the national past, the desire for synthetic forms of art are combined with motives of world grief, a desire to explore and recreate the “shadow”, " night side human soul, with the famous “romantic irony”, which allowed the romantics to boldly compare and equate the high and the low, the tragic and the comic, the real and the fantastic. Impressionist artists used the fragmented realities of situations, used seemingly unbalanced compositional structures, unexpected angles, points of view, cross-sections of figures.

In the 1870–1880s, the landscape of French impressionism was formed: C. Monet, C. Pissarro, A. Sisley developed a consistent system of plein air, creating a feeling of sparkling in their paintings sunlight, the richness of the colors of nature, the dissolution of forms in the vibration of light and air. The name of the movement comes from the name of Claude Monet’s painting “Impression. Rising Sun” (“Impression. Soleil levant”; exhibited in 1874, now in the Marmottan Museum, Paris). The decomposition of complex colors into pure components, which were applied to the canvas in separate strokes, colored shadows, reflexes and values ​​gave rise to an unprecedentedly light, vibrant painting of impressionism.

Certain aspects and techniques of this trend in painting were used by painters from Germany (M. Lieberman, L. Corinth), USA (J. Whistler), Sweden (A.L. Zorn), Russia (K.A. Korovin, I.E. Grabar ) and many other national art schools. The concept of impressionism is also applied to sculpture of the 1880–1910s, which has some impressionistic features - the desire to convey instantaneous movement, fluidity and softness of form, plastic sketchiness (works by O. Rodin, bronze figurines by Degas, etc.). Impressionism in fine arts influenced the development of expressive means of contemporary literature, music, and theater. In interaction and polemics with the pictorial system of this style in artistic culture In France at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the movements of neo-impressionism and post-impressionism arose.

Neo-Impressionism(French neo-impressionnisme) is a movement in painting that arose in France around 1885, when its main masters, J. Seurat and P. Signac, developed a new painting technique of divisionism. French neo-impressionists and their followers (T. van Rijselberghe in Belgium, G. Segantini in Italy and others), developing the tendencies of late impressionism, sought to apply modern discoveries in the field of optics to art, giving a methodical character to the methods of decomposing tones into pure colors; At the same time, they overcame the randomness and fragmentation of the impressionistic composition, and resorted to planar decorative solutions in their landscapes and multi-figure panel paintings.

Post-Impressionism(from the Latin post - after and impressionism) - the collective name of the main movements of French painting of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Since the mid-1880s, masters of post-impressionism have been looking for new means of expression that can overcome the empiricism of artistic thinking and allow them to move from the impressionistic recording of individual moments of life to the embodiment of its long-term states, material and spiritual constants. The post-impressionist period is characterized by active interaction individual directions and individual creative systems. Post-impressionism usually includes the work of the masters of neo-impressionism, the Nabi group, as well as V. van Gogh, P. Cezanne, P. Gauguin.

Reference and biographical information for the "Planet Small Bay Art Galleries" has been prepared based on materials from the "History" foreign art" (ed. M.T. Kuzmina, N.L. Maltseva), " Art Encyclopedia foreign classical art", "Great Russian Encyclopedia".

Impressionism is an art movement that emerged in the second half of the 19th century. His main goal was to convey fleeting, changeable impressions.

The emergence of impressionism is associated with science: with the latest discoveries in optics and color theory.

This trend affected almost all types of art, but it was most clearly manifested in painting, where the transmission of color and light was the basis of the work of impressionist artists.

Meaning of the term

Impressionism(French Impressionnisme) from impression - impression). This style of painting appeared in France in the late 1860s. He was represented by Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro, Berthe Morisot, Alfred Sisley, Jean Frederic Bazille. But the term itself appeared in 1874, when Monet’s painting “Impression. The Rising Sun" (1872). In the title of the painting, Monet meant that he was conveying only his fleeting impression of the landscape.

K. Monet “Impression. Sunrise" (1872). Marmottan-Monet Museum, Paris
Later, the term “impressionism” in painting began to be understood more broadly: a careful study of nature in terms of color and lighting. The goal of the impressionists was to depict instantaneous, seemingly “random” situations and movements. To do this, they used various techniques: complex angles, asymmetry, fragmented compositions. For impressionist artists, a painting becomes a frozen moment of a constantly changing world.

Impressionist artistic method

The most popular genres impressionists - landscapes and scenes from city life. They were always painted “in the open air”, i.e. directly from nature, in nature, without sketches or preliminary sketches. The Impressionists noticed and were able to convey colors and shades on canvas that were usually invisible with the naked eye and an inattentive spectator. For example, transfer of blue color in the shadows or pink - at sunset. They decomposed complex tones into their constituent pure colors of the spectrum. This made their paintings appear bright and vibrant. Impressionist artists applied paints in separate strokes, in a free and even careless manner, so their paintings are best viewed from a distance - it is with this view that the effect of living flickering of colors is created.
The Impressionists abandoned the contour, replacing it with small, separate and contrasting strokes.
C. Pissarro, A. Sisley and C. Monet preferred landscapes and city scenes. O. Renoir loved to depict people in the lap of nature or in the interior. French impressionism did not raise philosophical and social problems. They did not turn to biblical, literary, mythological, historical subjects that were inherent in official academicism. Instead, an image of everyday life and modernity appeared on paintings; an image of people in motion, while relaxing or having fun. Their main subjects are flirting, dancing, people in cafes and theaters, boat rides, beaches and gardens.
The impressionists tried to capture a fleeting impression, the smallest changes in each object depending on the lighting and time of day. In this plan highest achievement can be considered the cycles of paintings by Monet “Haystacks”, “Rouen Cathedral” and “Parliament of London”.

C. Monet “The Cathedral of Rouen in the Sun” (1894). Orsay Museum, Paris, France
“Rouen Cathedral” is a cycle of 30 paintings by Claude Monet, which represent views of the cathedral depending on the time of day, year and lighting. This cycle was painted by the artist in the 1890s. The cathedral allowed him to show the relationship between the constant, solid structure of the building and the changing, easily playing light that changes our perception. Monet concentrates on individual fragments of the Gothic cathedral and selects the portal, the tower of St. Martin and the tower of Alban. He is solely interested in the play of light on the stone.

K. Monet “Rouen Cathedral, Western Portal, Foggy Weather” (1892). Orsay Museum, Paris

K. Monet “Rouen Cathedral, portal and tower, morning effect; white harmony" (1892-1893). Orsay Museum, Paris

K. Monet “Rouen Cathedral, portal and tower in the sun, harmony of blue and gold” (1892-1893). Orsay Museum, Paris
Following France, impressionist artists appeared in England and the USA (James Whistler), in Germany (Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth), in Spain (Joaquin Sorolla), in Russia (Konstantin Korovin, Valentin Serov, Igor Grabar).

About the work of some impressionist artists

Claude Monet (1840-1926)

Claude Monet, photograph 1899
French painter, one of the founders of impressionism. Born in Paris. He was fond of drawing since childhood, and at the age of 15 he showed himself to be a talented caricaturist. TO landscape painting he was introduced by Eugene Boudin - French artist, predecessor of impressionism. Later, Monet entered the university at the Faculty of Arts, but became disillusioned and left it, enrolling in the painting studio of Charles Gleyre. In the studio he met the artists Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Frédéric Bazille. They were practically peers, held similar views on art, and soon formed the backbone of the impressionist group.
Monet became famous for his portrait of Camille Doncieux, painted in 1866 (“Camille, or Portrait of a Lady in a Green Dress”). Camilla became the artist's wife in 1870.

C. Monet “Camille” (“Lady in Green”) (1866). Kunsthalle, Bremen

C. Monet “Walk: Camille Monet with her son Jean (Woman with an Umbrella)” (1875). National Gallery of Art, Washington
In 1912, doctors diagnosed C. Monet with double cataracts, and he had to undergo two operations. Having lost the lens in his left eye, Monet regained his sight, but began to see ultraviolet light as blue or purple, causing his paintings to take on new colors. For example, when painting the famous “Water Lilies,” Monet saw the lilies as bluish in the ultraviolet range; to other people they were simply white.

C. Monet “Water Lilies”
The artist died on December 5, 1926 in Giverny and was buried in the local church cemetery.

Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)

C. Pissarro “Self-Portrait” (1873)

French painter, one of the first and most consistent representatives of impressionism.
Born on the island of St. Thomas (West Indies), in a bourgeois family of a Sephardic Jew and a native of the Dominican Republic. He lived in the West Indies until he was 12 years old, and at the age of 25 he and his entire family moved to Paris. Here he studied at the School of Fine Arts and the Académie de Suisse. His teachers were Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Charles-François Daubigny. He started with rural landscapes and views of Paris. Pissarro had a strong influence on the Impressionists, independently developing many of the principles that formed the basis of their painting style. He was friends with the artists Degas, Cezanne and Gauguin. Pizarro was the only participant in all 8 Impressionist exhibitions.
He died in 1903 in Paris. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery.
Already in early works the artist paid special attention to the depiction of illuminated objects in air environment. Light and air have since become the leading theme in Pissarro's work.

C. Pissarro “Boulevard Montmartre. Afternoon, sunny" (1897)
in 1890, Pizarro became interested in the technique of pointillism (separate application of strokes). But after a while he returned to his usual manner.
IN last years During his life, Camille Pissarro's vision noticeably deteriorated. But he continued to work and created a series of views of Paris, filled with artistic emotions.

C. Pissarro “Street in Rouen”
The unusual angle of some of his paintings is explained by the fact that the artist painted them from hotel rooms. This series became one of the highest achievements of impressionism in conveying light and atmospheric effects.
Pissarro also painted in watercolors and created a series of etchings and lithographs.
Here are a few of him interesting statements about the art of impressionism: “Impressionists on on the right track, their art is healthy, it's feeling-based, and it's honest."
“Happy is the one who can see beauty in ordinary things, where others see nothing!”

C. Pissarro “The First Frost” (1873)

Russian impressionism

Russian impressionism developed from the late 19th to early 20th centuries. It was influenced by the work of the French impressionists. But Russian impressionism has a pronounced national specificity and in many ways does not coincide with textbook ideas about the classical French impressionism. In the painting of Russian impressionists, objectivity and materiality prevail. It is more loaded with meaning and less dynamic. Russian impressionism is closer than French to realism. French impressionists They focused on the impression of what they saw, and the Russians also added a reflection of the artist’s inner state. The work had to be completed in one session.
A certain incompleteness of Russian impressionism creates the “thrill of life” that was characteristic of them.
Impressionism includes the work of Russian artists: A. Arkhipov, I. Grabar, K. Korovin, F. Malyavin, N. Meshcherin, A. Murashko, V. Serov, A. Rylov and others.

V. Serov “Girl with Peaches” (1887)

This painting is considered the standard of Russian impressionism in portraiture.

Valentin Serov “Girl with Peaches” (1887). Canvas, oil. 91×85 cm. State Tretyakov Gallery
The painting was painted at the estate of Savva Ivanovich Mamontov in Abramtsevo, which he acquired from the daughter of the writer Sergei Aksakov in 1870. The portrait depicts 12-year-old Vera Mamontova. The girl is drawn sitting at a table; she is wearing a pink blouse with a dark blue bow; there is a knife, peaches and leaves on the table.
“All I was striving for was freshness, that special freshness that you always feel in nature and don’t see in paintings. I painted for more than a month and exhausted her, poor thing, to death; I really wanted to preserve the freshness of the painting while being completely complete, just like the old masters” (V. Serov).

Impressionism in other forms of art

In literature

In literature, impressionism as a separate movement did not develop, but its features were reflected in naturalism And symbolism .

Edmond and Jules Goncourt. Photo
Principles naturalism can be traced in the novels of the Goncourt brothers and George Eliot. But Emile Zola was the first to use the term “naturalism” to refer to his own work. The writers Guy de Maupassant, Alphonse Daudet, Huysmans and Paul Alexis grouped around Zola. After the release of the collection “Medan Evenings” (1880), with frank stories about the disasters of the Franco-Prussian War (including Maupassant’s story “Dumpling”), the name “Medan group” was assigned to them.

Emile Zola
The naturalistic principle in literature has often been criticized for its lack of artistry. For example, I. S. Turgenev wrote about one of Zola’s novels that “there is a lot of digging in chamber pots.” Gustave Flaubert was also critical of naturalism.
Zola maintained friendly relations with many impressionist artists.
Symbolists used symbols, understatement, hints, mystery, enigma. The main mood captured by the Symbolists was pessimism, reaching the point of despair. Everything “natural” was represented only as an “appearance” that had no independent artistic significance.
Thus, impressionism in literature was expressed by the author’s private impression, the rejection of an objective picture of reality, and the depiction of every moment. In fact, this led to the absence of plot and history, the replacement of thought with perception, and reason with instinct.

G. Courbet “Portrait of P. Verlaine” (circa 1866)
A striking example of poetic impressionism is Paul Verlaine’s collection “Romances without Words” (1874). In Russia, Konstantin Balmont and Innokenty Annensky experienced the influence of impressionism.

V. Serov “Portrait of K. Balmont” (1905)

Innokenty Annensky. Photo
These sentiments also affected dramaturgy. The plays contain a passive perception of the world, analysis of moods, states of mind. The dialogues concentrate fleeting, scattered impressions. These features are characteristic of the work of Arthur Schnitzler.

In music

Musical impressionism developed in France in the last quarter XIX V. – early 20th century He expressed himself most clearly in the works of Erik Satie, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

Erik Satie
Musical impressionism is close to impressionism in French painting. They not only have common roots, but also cause-and-effect relationships. Impressionist composers sought and found not only analogies, but also expressive means in the works of Claude Monet, Paul Cezanne, Puvis de Chavannes and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Of course, the means of painting and means musical art can be connected with each other only with the help of special, subtle associative parallels that exist only in consciousness. If you look at the blurry image of Paris “in the autumn rain” and the same sounds, “muffled by the noise of falling drops,” then here we can only talk about the property artistic image, but not the real image.

Claude Debussy
Debussy writes "Clouds", "Prints" (the most figurative of which, a watercolor sound sketch - "Gardens in the Rain"), "Images", "Reflections on the Water", which evoke direct associations with famous painting Claude Monet "Impression: Sunrise". According to Mallarmé, impressionist composers learned to “hear light”, to convey in sounds the movement of water, the vibration of leaves, the blowing of wind and refraction sun rays in the evening air.

Maurice Ravel
Direct connections between painting and music exist in M. Ravel in his sound-visual “Play of Water”, the cycle of plays “Reflections”, and the piano collection “Rustles of the Night”.
The Impressionists created works of refined art and at the same time clear in expressive means, emotionally restrained, conflict-free and strict in style.

In sculpture

O. Rodin “The Kiss”

Impressionism in sculpture was expressed in the free plasticity of soft forms, which creates a complex play of light on the surface of the material and a feeling of incompleteness. The poses of the sculptural characters capture the moment of movement and development.

O. Rodin. Photo from 1891
This direction includes sculptural works by O. Rodin (France), Medardo Rosso (Italy), P.P. Trubetskoy (Russia).

V. Serov “Portrait of Paolo Trubetskoy”

Pavel (Paolo) Trubetskoy(1866-1938) – sculptor and artist, worked in Italy, USA, England, Russia and France. Born in Italy. Illegitimate son Russian emigrant, Prince Pyotr Petrovich Trubetskoy.
Since childhood, I have been independently engaged in sculpture and painting. He had no education. In the initial period of his creativity, he created portrait busts, works of small sculpture, and participated in competitions for the creation of large sculptures.

P. Trubetskoy “Monument to Alexander III”, St. Petersburg
The first exhibition of works by Paolo Trubetskoy took place in the USA in 1886. In 1899, the sculptor came to Russia. Takes part in a competition to create a monument to Alexander III and, unexpectedly for everyone, receives first prize. This monument has caused and continues to cause conflicting assessments. It is difficult to imagine a more static and ponderous monument. And only a positive assessment of the imperial family allowed the monument to take its appropriate place - in the sculptural image they found similarities with the original.
Critics believed that Trubetskoy worked in the spirit of “outdated impressionism.”

Trubetskoy’s image of the brilliant Russian writer turned out to be more “impressionistic”: there is clearly movement here - in the folds of the shirt, the fluttering beard, the turn of the head, there is even a feeling that the sculptor managed to capture the tension of L. Tolstoy’s thought.

P. Trubetskoy “Bust of Leo Tolstoy” (bronze). State Tretyakov Gallery

For me, the impressionism style is, first of all, something airy, ephemeral, inexorably elusive. This is that stunning moment that the eye barely has time to capture and which then remains in the memory for a long time as a moment of highest harmony. The masters of impressionism were famous for their ability to easily transfer this moment of beauty onto canvas, endowing it with tangible sensations and subtle vibrations that, with all reality, arise when interacting with a painting. When you look at the work outstanding artists This style always leaves a certain aftertaste of mood.

Impressionism(from impression - impression) is an art movement that originated in France in the late 1860s. Its representatives sought to capture the real world in its mobility and variability in the most natural and unbiased way, and to convey their fleeting impressions. Special attention paid attention to the transmission of color and light.

The word "impressionism" comes from the title of Monet's painting Impression. Sunrise, presented at the 1874 exhibition. The little-known journalist Louis Leroy in his magazine article called the artists “impressionists” to express his disdain. However, the name stuck and lost its original negative meaning.

The first important exhibition of the Impressionists took place from April 15 to May 15, 1874 in the studio of the photographer Nadar. 30 artists were presented there, with a total of 165 works. Young artists were reproached for “unfinished” and “sloppy painting,” lack of taste and meaning in their work, “an attack on true art,” rebellious sentiments and even immorality.

Leading representatives of impressionism are Alfred Sisley and Frederic Bazille. Edouard Manet and Eduard Manet exhibited their paintings with them. Joaquin Sorolla is also considered an impressionist.

Landscapes and scenes from city life - perhaps the most characteristic genres of impressionistic painting - were painted "en plein air", i.e. directly from nature, and not on the basis of sketches and preparatory sketches. Impressionists looked closely at nature, noticing colors and shades usually invisible, such as blue in the shadows.

Their artistic method consisted of decomposing complex tones into their constituent pure colors of the spectrum. The results were colored shadows and pure, light, vibrant painting. The Impressionists applied paint in separate strokes, sometimes using contrasting tones in one area of ​​the painting. The main feature of impressionist paintings is the effect of living flickering of colors.

To convey changes in the color of an object, the impressionists began to prefer to use colors that mutually reinforce each other: red and green, yellow and purple, orange and blue. These same colors create the effect of consistent contrast. For example, if we look at red for a while and then move our gaze to white, it will appear greenish to us.

Impressionism did not raise philosophical problems and did not even try to penetrate under the colored surface of everyday life. Instead, artists focus on superficiality, the fluidity of a moment, mood, lighting or angle of view. Their paintings presented only the positive aspects of life, without touching on acute social problems.

Artists often painted people in motion, while having fun or relaxing. Subjects of flirting, dancing, being in a cafe and theater, boat trips, on beaches and in gardens were taken. Judging by the paintings of the Impressionists, life is a continuous series of small holidays, parties, pleasant pastimes outside the city or in a friendly environment.

Impressionism left a rich legacy in painting. First of all, this is an interest in color problems and non-standard techniques. Impressionism expressed the desire for renewal artistic language and a break with tradition, as a protest against the painstaking technique of the masters classical school. Well, you and I can now admire these magnificent works outstanding artists.