A group of enthusiastic French artists — known today as Impressionists — stirred up the art world in the early 1870s and initiated a revolution regarding conventional painting techniques and approaches.
The Group of Impressionists
Impressionism was initiated in the 1870s by a group of French painters who shared related techniques and approaches. Principal members included, among others, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. These artists painted and exhibited together, pursuing one common goal: to capture and convey the atmosphere they felt before their subjects rather than to strictly create a depiction of reality.
The Impressionists’ Motivation
The Impressionists had become unsatisfied with conventional academic teaching guidelines and they likewise rejected the idealizing of academic painting. They were convinced they could capture the effects of sunlight and the atmosphere of nature in the best possible way by working outside, directly in front of their subjects (en plein air) rather than in a studio (as was common practice at that time). The forms of the objects in their paintings lost their clear outlines; instead, they vibrated, reflecting actual outdoor conditions. The Impressionists applied their new techniques to illustrate landscapes, plants, people, and urban scenery.
The Term “Impressionists”
The first group exhibition took place in Paris in 1874. It had been initiated by the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs (Anonymous and Cooperative Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers), and it included works by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cézanne. Art critic Louis Leroy subsequently referred to the group as “Impressionists” in a satiric article published in the French magazine Le Charivari. Leroy had been inspired by Monet’s canvas “Impression, Sunrise,” which depicts the sunrise at the port of Le Havre. The piece attracted visitors’ attention because of its blurriness and the unconventional painting technique used.
Criticism
Leroy claimed in his satire that Monet’s painting “Impression, Sunrise” was even more raw in its texture than a “wallpaper in its embryonic state.” Art critics reacted to the fact that by showing “unfinished” sketches publicly, the Impressionists were violating the prevailing exhibition practice according to which only “finished” works of art were considered worthy of display.
The sketchiness to which the critics were referring can be traced back to the open-air painting practiced by the Impressionists. As mentioned above, the Impressionists did not want to precisely capture the object of their perception in their works of art but the visual impression they received from it.
Just four days after the publication of Leroy’s satiric article, journalist Jules-Antoine Castagnary adopted the term “Impressionists” in an exhibition review published in the French newspaper Le Siècle. However, in contrast to Leroy, Castagnary defined it in a positive way: “These artists are Impressionists in the sense that they do not depict the landscape, but the sensory impressions it conveys.”
