Thinking About Impressionism

There are a lot of Impressionist paintings to be found, if you look for them, but, currently, there are not that many good museum shows on Impressionism. Thankfully, there is a very nice one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, if you can find the time to get up to see it.

Ten years ago, the museum had a world-class extension added, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The extension is now referred to as “The Calatrava” and, as part of the ten-year celebration of its completion, it is home to a very nice Impressionist show that is lasting until early January of next year.

The show is called Impressionism: Masters On Paper and is a very nice representation of the smaller pieces from this loose collection of artists. A lot of the works are done in pastel and are not seen very often. They are very refreshing to see as the pastel sketches offer a unique way of seeing how the artists work and think. Scattered among the pastels are a few oil paintings as well as a few sketches of artists who had not worked in pastel, including a few pen sketches by Van Gogh. If you can find the time for a trip, stop by the museum and see the show.

Seeing the show made me think how Impressionistic work was made and the differences in styles that existed between the artists. Some of them were very realistic while others began to reinterpret how imagery was produced upon their canvases. How and why these things happened is usually forgotten as our culture stumbles down the path of artistic expression.

Everyone knows that the Impressionists came together in Paris but what they may no longer realize is that Paris, France had its official school of art, the Academie des Beaux Arts, a classical art school that has existed since the 1640s and is still in existence today. For over two hundred years, the academy was officially controlled by the French government, usually meaning the king, and taught artistic theory and technique that was based upon the ideas that the classical Greeks had developed in their pursuit of art. At the time, the idea served its purpose well as an official school of art developed in France. Even some of the Impressionists were schooled there. As is obvious by the draftsmanship displayed in the Milwaukee show, Degas was a student of the school. What is not so well known is that Monet attended and quit out of frustration over the repetitive acts of plaster cast drawing that was required of the students.

One of the problems with the school was its reliance on the historic body of artwork that France had assembled. It wasn’t the talent and artwork that was the problem, but the chemical act of what happens to varnish over a few hundred years. Varnish is made of a resin and is applied to paintings to give it physical protection and a beautiful sheen. It can also help give the painting a warm glow to it. But that is in the beginning. Almost all resins and oils yellow and continue to do so over time. What is worse is that there was a tendency among collectors at that time to recoat the painting, making it even yellower and also trapping the interior pollutions of the places these paintings were stored at, including wood smoke, dust, dirt, etc. Overtime, these paintings looked dingy and faded and that look became acceptable.

This problem didn’t go away until the invention of packaging products in airtight cans. At first we packaged foodstuffs, but, with time, art supply companies, like Winsor and Newton, started packaging oil paint in collapsible, airtight tubes. That invention allowed artists to escape the studio and paint outdoors or on location. And as the Milwaukee art show suggests, pastels also helped tremendously in allowing artists to understand the real relationship between what we see and what we paint.

As the Impressionists started along their path of rejecting what the Academy artistically preached, one other invention altered the academic view of art: the camera. The inventions that allow us to capture reality were primarily of Parisian development and the camera was the first. By the 1850s, studios were popping up everywhere, allowing people to have their pictures taken in a formal way and photographers were wandering the city photographing Paris in all of its glory. The body of photography that sprang up and was displayed around town showed a different visual style from the well crafted and arranged paintings of the Academy. This informality of design also became an important feature in the development of Impressionism.

All art is more than a assemblage of pretty pictures or radical ideas. They all have their histories behind them and understanding those histories can show the art and their ideas in a different light.

Other works of Fine Art you may enjoy:

The Connections Of Mary Cassatt

Impressionism