Web-Today for 2-11: Impressionism.
Web-Today Destinations
from the University of Oregon in the field of Art History. Though that
diploma didn't lead to a job in the art world proper it did give him a
solid base in the language of visual expression on which to base a
career in graphic design and Web publishing. From time to time we like
to hark back to our roots and present links to art resources on the
Web. Today we explore Impressionism. To modern eyes Impressionist
paintings seem serene and peaceful. The contemplative nature of these
paintings seems miles away from any kind of controversy but when
Impressionism first hit the scene it was considered revolutionary,
shocking and almost incomprehensible. We may not be able to recapture
the gut reaction that critics and art lovers felt when seeing
Impressionism for the first time and we may not want to but we can
appreciate the work on our own terms. Here then are links to some of
the better Impressionism sites on the Web.
The First Impressionist Exhibition, 1874
http://www.artchive.com/74nadar.htm
In April of 1874 a group of French artists, rejected by the Salon (the
official arbiter of artistic taste in Paris), decided to snub the
establishment and put on their show. Critics quickly noted a common
theme across the works that they likened to an attempt to capture
impressions of the real world and thus Impressionism was born. This
site is a partial recreation of that first show with high quality
reproductions of over a dozen paintings, links to contemporary
criticism and a helpful set of notes by the author to help guide you
through the exhibit.
Impressionism
http://www.oir.ucf.edu/wm/paint/glo/impressionism/
To say that Impressionism was revolutionary would be a gross
understatement. Before the Impressionists came along art's central
trend was representational and artists strove to capture images that
mirrored reality. Impressionism opened minds to the subjective,
psychological elements of visual expression and lead to the development
of every major trend in art since. Impressionism, in other words,
marked the beginning of what we now know as modern art. The Web Museum
is one of the best art resources on the Web and their page on
Impressionism gives a good overview of the movement, its artists and
the influence they had on their contemporaries and successors.
Monet in the 20th Century
http://www.boston.com/mfa/monet/
Of all the artists associated with the movement no one is more
recognizable to the public at large than Claude Monet. Monet's water
lily paintings are so ubiquitous as to be almost iconic. Born in 1840,
Monet lived 86 years and produced a vast body of work. Interestingly,
his most famous paintings (the water lily series) were made at the end
of his career. The Boston Museum of Fine Art recently exhibited a
selection of eighty of these paintings; the largest number ever
collected under one roof. The online version of the show presents a
comprehensive survey of Monet's life and work with dozens of high
quality images, authoritative text and links to other Monet related Web
sites.
Georges Seurat
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/ftptoc/seurat_ext.html
Of the many artists labeled Impressionist our personal favorite is
Georges Seurat. Seurat was a man of powerful vision who carved a unique
place in the movement. So unique, in fact, that his work was given it's
own title: pointillism. Seurat used paint to represent images as though
they were composed of little points of glowing light and the result was
some of the most striking artifacts ever created in the field of static
visual arts. The Artchive lets Seurat's paintings speak for themselves
by offering a selection of high-resolution reproductions of his most
famous works. We enjoy these pictures so much that we often use them to
cover our computer's desktop.
--
Chris Hughes
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