is Impressionism cheating?
neopaleon boneparts
quality of perception as filtered thru imperfect memory or some such.
and impressionists painters tried to illustrate this perceptory
experience...
but isn't this unnecessarily doing the work for the viewer?
after all, all you gotta do is look at a realist painting--or anything
for that matter--, then close your eyes and try to remember the image
and you have instant impressionism in your mind(unless you have a
photographic memory).
is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
photography, and cinema?
can architecture be impressionistic? well, it better not be on the
inside.
or how about impressionistic writing?
suppose someone says 'i ate a hotdog and two hrs later took a big
shit'.
suppose you didn't hear or don't remember the words exactly and it
sounded like
'i ed ahodog an twors laterook bishit'
is that literary impressionism?
is there impressionistic cooking? or is all sophisticated cooking
impressionistic since whole bunch of flavors all mix in strange
indiscernible ways?
Lew Fah
eat_the_boy...@hotmail.com says...
>
>i take it that impressionism is about conveying the fleeting unstable
>quality of perception as filtered thru imperfect memory or some such.
>
>and impressionists painters tried to illustrate this perceptory
>experience...
>
>but isn't this unnecessarily doing the work for the viewer?
Upon his return to France, Monet made many trips to the coasts
and rural areas to study the effects of light and color.
He employed meticulous observation and his perception was critical
to his work. In reaction to the harsh detail deemed fashionable
by the Salon, Monet and the Impressionists were more concerned
with how the object in the painting was portrayed, rather than
what the object in the painting actually was. Composition and
form was loose, and color was applied in bright strokes.
The 'father' of impressionism, Monet sought to paint scenes
as they would appear to a "relaxed" viewer. In fact, the
term 'Impressionism' is based on an art critic's negative
view of Monet's 1873 work, Impression: Sunrise.
>is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
>photography, and cinema?
Yes - in MUSIC for certain.
Ryan Tanaka
Literary impressionism would probabaly be more something like...
"And then I took it, and threw it over there."
Gestures are clear, but it doesn't have the precise definitions that
people might be looking for.
Ryan
Marc Sabatella
> quality of perception as filtered thru imperfect memory or some such.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that memory played a significant
role. One of the major ideas of Impressionism has to do with painting
from direct observation. Monet was famous for working on paintings for
only a few minutes at a time because after that the light had changed
too much.
Of course, one problem is that the term "impressionism" has no precise
definition - it had as much to do with the personalities of a group of
friends who painted and exhibited together as with any particular
aspects of their art. Most of the things that can be said about
impressionism are just generalizations that are true of some but not all
of their work. Many of the things that might be held to be true of the
work of Monet or Sisley are not true of the work Renoir or Degas, etc.
> after all, all you gotta do is look at a realist painting--or anything
> for that matter--, then close your eyes and try to remember the image
> and you have instant impressionism in your mind(unless you have a
> photographic memory).
There is no way a painting - no matter how realistic - can contain all
the information to enable you to form the same impression of the scene
you would have formed had you been there yourself. Not even a
photograph can do that. Consider a painting or photo seen in indoor
lighting. No spot on that image is as bright as a light colored object
in full sunlight. No spot on that image is as dark as a dark colored
object in shadow. Unless the image is a life-sized curved panoramic
mural, it is not going to engage your peripheral vision in the same way
as the scene itself would have. Your binocular vision will not be a
factor in gauging depth. And so on, and so on.
So in very real, physically measurable ways, you are *not* going to form
the same impression from a two-dimensional of a image of a scene as you
would have from the scene itself. Therefore, expecting the viewer to
form a specific impression from a realistic painting is, well, not
realistic. Of course they will form impressions, but they won't be the
ones the artist had while painting.
To the extent it makes sense to talk about the goals of impressionism in
this respect, I might say their paintings look as if they were
interested in painting in such a manner that they captured specific
aspects of their impressions in unmistakable ways. But I doubt any of
them would actually have agreed with that assessment, either.
> is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
> photography, and cinema?
That depends entirely on how you choose to define impressionism. To the
extent that it has to do with ways of representing the visual world in
fixed visual form, then the answer is no, not really. Well, sculpture
too, of course, and other visual media. But to the extent it has to do
with attitude toward life or the need for precise rendering of detail or
whatever other romantic notions one might care to associate with the
term, then sure, you can come up with lots of analogies.
--------------
Marc Sabatella
ma...@outsideshore.com
The Outside Shore
Music, art, & educational materials:
http://www.outsideshore.com/
sarpedon
> quality of perception as filtered thru imperfect memory or some such.
what books have you read on color theory or on the methods and
theories of the impressionists?
the sarp
sarpedon
In fact, the
> term 'Impressionism' is based on an art critic's negative
> view of Monet's 1873 work, Impression: Sunrise.
Impressionist was the critics handy but incorrect label for an entire
group of painters. The painters called impressionists included Degas,
who had very little to do with Monet. The two were lumped together
because neither could gain admission to the Paris Salon of that year,
so they exhibited together at the show that was later called
impressionist.
>
> >is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
> >photography, and cinema?
>
> Yes - in MUSIC for certain.
I think of Debussey as impressionist.
the sarp
John Ng
> >is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
> >photography, and cinema?
>
> Yes - in MUSIC for certain.
Not quite true. It is impossible to compare the ear to the eyes. An
impressionistic music is probably more like synthetised sound in place
of the real thing, or, music with every other every other byte chopped
off.
John Ng
Advocates an art renewal and the return to sensible art
Leave graffiti to the scoundrels
http://community.webshots.com/user/pigsmayfly
Erik A. Mattila
neopaleon boneparts wrote:
> i take it that impressionism is about conveying the fleeting unstable
> quality of perception as filtered thru imperfect memory or some such.
Maybe not memory. Impressionism was a response to the philosophical
movement called "French Naturalism" and the aim of painters was to
overcome ideology in painting and portray things as they really look.
Take the human eye, for example (and "natrualism" was very science
oriented) which has a very shallow depth of field, but a very rapid
focus mechanism. So, a view of the world, frozen at the moment of
vision, is mostly out of focus, except for the very shallow plane that
the human eye affords. I think that's what you see as "fleeting and
unstable" which is really quite stable. Contrast that with, say, French
Academic painting, which portrays a world in sharp focus from the
immediate foreground to the most distant horizon. Which view is
"natural" or "realistic" insofar as the experience of human vision is
concerned?
Photography probably comes into play, specifically that concept of the
"instant of vision" governed by the shutter speed. Academic painting,
in this context, is not a human "instant of vision" as it implys the
time that the eye focus and refocus on the various depth planes in the
act of vision.
>
> and impressionists painters tried to illustrate this perceptory
> experience...
>
> but isn't this unnecessarily doing the work for the viewer?
Good point...but the lack of ideology doesn't seem to represent "work"
anymore than taking in a scene in nature is work. I would say, however,
that if your interest in painting was in fact ideological content,
Impressionism might seem lacking.
>
> after all, all you gotta do is look at a realist painting--or anything
> for that matter--, then close your eyes and try to remember the image
> and you have instant impressionism in your mind(unless you have a
> photographic memory).
That's the thing...your eye can hold picture space in focus, but if you
are looking at 3D space in nature, it can't. I would think that the
"realist" painting is more like a memory than an Impressionist painting.
>
> is impressionism possible in anything other than painting,
> photography, and cinema?
Well, music, as others have mentioned. But I don't know the aesthetic
background of impressionistic music. That would be interesting to hear.
>
> can architecture be impressionistic? well, it better not be on the
> inside.
>
> or how about impressionistic writing?
The correspondent literary movement that derived from French Naturalism
was represented by Emil Zola. Quite like Impressionist paintings,
except that Zola's novels looked at "life" without idealizing it. Very
realistic.
>
> suppose someone says 'i ate a hotdog and two hrs later took a big
> shit'.
You're not too far off, actually. Read Zola's "Germinal" about striking
coal miners. There's language similar to yours there.
>
> suppose you didn't hear or don't remember the words exactly and it
> sounded like
>
> 'i ed ahodog an twors laterook bishit'
>
> is that literary impressionism?
That's pushing it too far, I think. I think you're caught-up in the
fuzzy out of focus quality of some Impressionistic paintings. That is
just an aspect (as in the "eye" example above.) That aspect belonged to
the larger criteria of "realism" without "idealism."
>
> is there impressionistic cooking? or is all sophisticated cooking
> impressionistic since whole bunch of flavors all mix in strange
> indiscernible ways?
Henri de Talouse-Lautrec was a great cook, so you might want to study
his recipes.
Matthew Fields
musical technique but a marketing label. Debussy himself aligned himself
variously with the Symbolist [? same problem!] poets, the neoclassicist
movement, etc.
--
Matthew H. Fields http://personal.www.umich.edu/~fields
Music: Splendor in Sound
To be great, do things better and better. Don't wait for talent: no such thing.
Brights have a naturalistic world-view. http://www.the-brights.net/
Erik A. Mattila
Matthew Fields wrote:
> Seems to me that "impressionism" was neither a visual technique nor a
> musical technique but a marketing label. Debussy himself aligned himself
> variously with the Symbolist [? same problem!] poets, the neoclassicist
> movement, etc.
Well, the name came about by a critic, Louis Leroy, who hated the
exhibit of a group of "anti-salon" painters. He used "Impressionists"
as an intended perjorative, after a Monet's "Impression Sunrise" which
was in the 1874 exhibit. I don't think your idea of a "marketing label"
would stand firm against historical knowledge.
Artist's themselves seldom choose these sorts of labels.
>
>
Marc Sabatella
>
> Not quite true. It is impossible to compare the ear to the eyes. An
> impressionistic music is probably more like synthetised sound in place
> of the real thing, or, music with every other every other byte chopped
> off.
Well, the term "impressionism" is in quite common use in music, Debussy
being the canonical example. But there are, of course, few literal
parallels to be drawn between Debussy and Monet, but if you use just a
little imagination, you can come up with with some sort of vague
philosophical similarities.
Matthew Fields
Marc Sabatella <ma...@outsideshore.com> wrote:
>> > Yes - in MUSIC for certain.
>>
>> Not quite true. It is impossible to compare the ear to the eyes. An
>> impressionistic music is probably more like synthetised sound in place
>> of the real thing, or, music with every other every other byte chopped
>> off.
>
>Well, the term "impressionism" is in quite common use in music, Debussy
>being the canonical example. But there are, of course, few literal
>parallels to be drawn between Debussy and Monet, but if you use just a
>little imagination, you can come up with with some sort of vague
>philosophical similarities.
I'm convinced that if they hadn't been contemporaries from the same
country, the comparison wouldn't have been made.
Marc Sabatella
news:418AB5EA...@oco.net...
Those statements aren't in contradiction. Yes, the term was originally
applied in a negative way. And yes, the artists in question (for the
most part) eventhually came to embrace it and use it in marketing
themselves. And in any case, it remains the case that the term itself
doesn't really have any specific technical meaning in visual art,
although it certainly has some commonly accepted connotations. And the
same is true in music.
Erik A. Mattila
Marc Sabatella wrote:
> "Erik A. Mattila" <emat...@oco.net> wrote in message
> news:418AB5EA...@oco.net...
>
>>Matthew Fields wrote:
>>
>>>Seems to me that "impressionism" was neither a visual technique nor
>>
> a
>
>>>musical technique but a marketing label. Debussy himself aligned
>>
> himself
>
>>>variously with the Symbolist [? same problem!] poets, the
>>
> neoclassicist
>
>>>movement, etc.
>>
>>Well, the name came about by a critic, Louis Leroy, who hated the
>>exhibit of a group of "anti-salon" painters. He used "Impressionists"
>>as an intended perjorative, after a Monet's "Impression Sunrise" which
>>was in the 1874 exhibit. I don't think your idea of a "marketing
>
> label"
>
>>would stand firm against historical knowledge.
>
>
> Those statements aren't in contradiction. Yes, the term was originally
> applied in a negative way. And yes, the artists in question (for the
> most part) eventhually came to embrace it and use it in marketing
> themselves. And in any case, it remains the case that the term itself
> doesn't really have any specific technical meaning in visual art,
> although it certainly has some commonly accepted connotations. And the
> same is true in music.
I'm all ears if you can provide some historical evidence of the artists
using this as an advertising label, Marc. I don't really know, but I've
never heard of this. But labels aren't usually the provennance of
artists anyway. Wayne Thiebaud, for example, insists that he never was
a "Pop" artist, but history has other ideas.
The "Surrealists" might be an exception. But it's well to note that it
was conceived as a political movement among various artists.
Phil Warton
If your agruements were logical, the logical conclusion would be that
all of us should be living in houses designed in, what is it, 1850's?
Or is that too recent? Is WH Turner too modern, a "scoundrel"? What
music is the very latest we can listen to? IS Beethoven too modern?
I seek guidance from a wise sage.
Seriously though, there are quite a few great anti-depressive meds out
there. Your paintings and your life will change for the better by
opening yourself up to positive truths.
-PW
pigsm...@hotmail.com (John Ng) wrote in message news:<d1bb492a.04110...@posting.google.com>...
Marc Sabatella
artists
> using this as an advertising label, Marc.
Well, Degas generally vetoed any suggestions to actually put that term
in the catalog or posters for the group exhibits. But in the Taschen
text "Impressionism", there are many mentions of other artists in the
group encouraging use of the term, as in Renoir's backing of the journal
"L'Impressionniste" during the third exhibit. And also using it in
letters. It seems clear enough to me that for the most part, they
accepted the label.
Lew Fah
>in the Taschen
>text "Impressionism", there are many mentions of other artists in the
>group encouraging use of the term, as in Renoir's backing of the journal
>"L'Impressionniste" during the third exhibit. And also using it in
>letters. It seems clear enough to me that for the most part, they
>accepted the label.
I've always thought of "impressionism" as being about
as specious a term as "realism." While the actual
"movement" was short-lived, the style of painting has
become a genre standard, readily distinguishable from
the other visual arts genres. For example: it's easy
to become bored with an entire gallery filled with an
exhibit of paintings by the "California Impressionists."
Erik A. Mattila
Great idea for an art book, Lew:
"How to become bored with California Impressionists."
You should write it.
>
>
Lew Fah
>"How to become bored with California Impressionists."
>
>You should write it.
Ah yes...and become the quintessential bore!
Lew Fah
>>"How to become bored with California Impressionists."
>>
>>You should write it.
>
>Ah yes...and become the quintessential bore!
I visited the Site Santa Fe "2004 Biennial"
this past weekend, and it was definitely not
a "snore." I was impressed by the fact that
a number of the big names, Bruce Nauman, Sigmar
Polke, Anselm Keifer, Cindy Sherman and others
presented work that I failed to recognize as
by them at first. And that was neither bad
nor boring, IMO.
Click on the link to the "2004 Biennial" on the
home page.
Dow
> >photography, and cinema?
Impressionism can be all kinds of things. I discovered
techno-impressionism in my own way. I use Computers to aid my painting
process. I allows me to paint in just hours instead of months. That
keeps the fine art prices down and increases the quality at the same
time.