The true beauty of life…

The Impressionistic style of visual arts is one of the most inventive ways of painting to come of the Romantic era. Many Romantic artists like Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, with the exception of William Blake and his explorative style, and Realistic artists such as Marie-Rosa Bonheur are too concerned with the politics and science of the arts. But with Impressionism, a whole new world of creative painting had been born to create works that were not important for the piece as a whole, more like the technique that was used to create the piece.

Claude Monet, being the father of Impressionism, really brought about the creationism aspect of Impressionism with his piece Impression, Sunrise (1873, Paris). This piece took so much criticism when it came to the style of Impressionism because of how much it look like a simple impression, not a finished piece. But the beauty of Monet’s work is astounding! Every time I look at anything done by him I am taken away to such a beautiful place.

That is the greatest aspect about Impressionism is that they weren’t concerned with the politics and realistic aspects of society, but just the true beauty of the perception of life. With the use of surrealistic colors and shadows of light and dark to create sunergy, it is almost as though the painting creates a life of it’s own. Unlike Impressionism and the Romantic era, other eras before really tried to capture actions and stuck with one style of painting. But with the Romantic era there was such a surge in the visual arts and the explosion of photography created so much to look forward to that not many people were too impressed with Impressionism.

Monet started out using mainly dark colors on his palette marked by shadows and shades. But around 1860 he switch to only light pastel colors that completely lacked any black. One of the most interesting facts about Monet was that when he reached age 68, he began to develop cataracts that started to affect his vision. Talk about irony. But the fact that he lost his vision, but created such beautiful images for people to last decades, even a century, is the most amazing thing. Impressionism has really impressed me.

“As for the colors I use, what’s so interesting about that ? I don’t think one could paint better or more brightly with another palette. The most important thing is to know how to use the colors. Their choice is a matter of habit. In short, I use white lead, cadmium yellow, vermilion, madder, cobalt blue, chrome green. Tha t’s all.”  ~such simplicity can create so much beauty…

Works Cited:

http://www.eyeconart.net/history/impressionism.htm

http://www.eyeconart.net/history/impressionism2.htm

http://giverny.org/monet/welcome.htm

http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/monet.html

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~ by whitegirl907 on October 24, 2009.