Impressionism

Thomson, B. (2000) Impressionism. Origins, Practice, Reception. Thames and Hudson. London.

Impressionism involved discarding traditional, painstaking methods of building a composition from dark to light using tonal gradation and glazes, replacing them with emphatic brushwork and colouring of great freedom and subtlety. pg12

Solid quote of how it developed from realism.

It could also be argued that the dominance of mechanical forms of image-making, which increasingly constituted people’s main experience of the visual in the mid-nineteenth century, led certain painters, in reactive self-defence, to optimize the exclusive properties of painting - namely, its colouristic and tactile values. pg 35

When photography was invented in the 1820’s it had been supposed to herald the death of painting. Photographers consistently improved their techniques over subsequent decades, quickly achieving remarkable results in fields - architecture, portraiture, landscape - which were bound to make a forcible impact on the painting profession. pg 35

These photography quotes are important for here because it shows I haven't just made up how photography influenced painting. Maybe I should add a reference to this book after that bit in my dissy.

Jean Baptiste-Camille Corot, Dardagny, Morning, 1853

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/upload/img/corot-dardagny-morning-NG6339-fm.jpg

The mountains in this painting could have been taken from a matte painting.

Camille Pissarro, The Crystal Palace, 1871

https://publications.artic.edu/pissarro/sites/publications.artic.edu.pissarro/files/iip_thumbs/iip_image_node_123.jpg

this looks like a matte painting I've already looked at in the history of matte's, would be could to have these two side by side in the dissy.

“Manet was a charming and convivial artist who thrived on contact with others. He was a habitué of the café, a witty man about the town or boulevardier. pg 55

- this was just for twitter obviously!

‘Impressionism was born from the meeting of two men with names so alike that at first they were often taken for one another: Monet and Manet. From the crossbreeding of their two methods was born modern painting.’ So wrote Germain Bazin Chief Conservator of the Louvre in 1958. pg 87

 Growing up I always used to get Manet and Monet confused. I think this would be a useful quote if I was looking at both artist's in my dissertation, however although I think it would be a good thing to do, I think I would just end up going off on a tangent and it's really important I keep the dissertation on track and keep it relevant to matte painting.

Manet’s Chief stylistic characteristics were, on the one hand, seeing in terms of broad shapes so as to capture the general impression rather than the minute details; on the other, using a light-toned palette of bright, unmixed colours. Accepting such formal innovations was difficult for viewers accustomed to artists who built up solid forms by working with subtle gradations from dark to light, whose predictable, sober palettes dealt predominantly in tonal values. pg 87

This is a good quote to describe what impressionism is, it's really annoying that there isn't a simple quote with an outline of what it is, like it's blobs of colours that your eyes blend together to make into a more realistic painting essentially. 

Claude Monet Impression Sunrise

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Claude_Monet,_Impression,_soleil_levant.jpg

Charles Busson, The Village of Lavardin, c. 1877

‘A high-keyed, close-toned colour range is used to translate the single overriding effect which initially arrested the artist’s interest, Busson adopts a dramatically wide tonal range, passing from steely dark greys, and blackish browns, for overcast sky and shadowy water, to bright yellowish sunlit areas. Busson also uses a fine brush to pick out incidents, such as ducks and reeds in the foreground, thereby creating a readily acceptable, indeed beguiling, degree of anecdotal verisimilitude, just as Daubigny had done eighteen years earlier in his highly naturalistic The Banks of the Oise. Bussons whole compositional arrangement is brought in greater relief by the use of varnish, which pushes the houses back into a clearly articulated space. pg201

The above picture is my favourite, this digital image does not do it any justice. It amazing how when you look at it in the book it looks painted but you hold it at arms length and it looks really realistic. It's fantastic. 

It is clear, even from these examples, that while theoretically united by their devotion to nature, the Impressionists had no one definitive way of painting it. Most of them evolved different techniques year by year and, periodically, forced themselves to take stock and work on areas of weakness. This was true of both Renoir and Morisot ; dissatisfied with painterly effects that had perhaps come too easily, they felt the need, in the early 1880’s to strengthen the structural element of their work. Both went back to drawing and studying the Old Masters with that aim in view. pg 218

Free spiriting painters doing what they want rebelling against the traditional methods obviously.

Impressionism. Ingo F. Walther. Taschen. 2002 Munich.

I did read through this book but I felt it pointless rewriting the quotes because it basically is the same as the above book but in more detail, and it goes into impressionism all around the world.

Dietrichson felt that the Impressionists did not reproduce Nature as they saw it, but rather created an abstract image of it, by dividing colours into component parts and by using colourist rather than formal means to convey emotion. He drew attention to technological and scientific developments, and stressed photography’s ability to record the passing moment as one of the many preconditions that had made impressionism possible. pg 468

This is another definition, I just have been able to find a nice one. 

“I buy, I buy, I can’t help myself,” He told Halévy in 1895. He also went to exhibitions, dispensing his characteristic sarcasm: Monet’s landscapes, he said, with their light and agitated atmosphere, made him feel there must be a draught in the room - he felt like putting up his collar. 

pg 372/373 - about degas! - I love this quote, he was blind at the time and turned to sculpture!