Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective
Interpretive Essay and Museum Visit Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective
Irvine Valley College Art History 4 – Art Theory 4, Summer 2012 Christina Acosta July 28, 2012
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Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective
Museum visited: Getty Center Date of visit: July 14, 2012 Name of work: Impression: Sunrise by Claude Monet, created in1873. Approximate size: 24 13/16” w x 18 7/8” h. Materials used: Oil on canvas. Overview of Impressionism: Sunrise Impression: Sunrise was painted by Claude Monet in 1873. It depicts the northern French harbor of Le Havre in 1873. This painting marked the birth of Impressionism in popular culture. It showed the true elements of what was to become the Impressionist movement, even though previously other artists broke the conventional rules of the Salon and painted controversial subject matter or in a controversial way. This painting can only truly be enjoyed from a far. Up close, it is too sketchy and you can see obvious brush strokes. From afar, the brush strokes blend to create a delightful depiction of the northern harbor of Le Havre. In person, this painting is remarkably vivid and the use of the complementary color scheme of blues and oranges. It is especially effective in how the painting effectively captures the feeling of the scene through the use of short brush strokes of different colors. This painting is about the play of light from the sun at the beginning of an exquisite sunrise. It is both captivating and memorable for the serene spirit evoked by the painting. It successfully captures the effect of morning light, diffused by fog, shimmering on the water. The use of complementary colors next to one another makes them vibrate for the viewer. Monet mostly uses different shades of blue and then highlights of an orangish yellow. He uses brisk brush strokes of different colors that look like light playing on the water. Viewers might find the time of day depicted in Impression: Sunrise ambiguous. It could depict the effect of a sunrise or sunset’s light hitting the water. It is curious whether or not Monet intentionally kept the painting ambiguous although its title reveals the painting is indeed about a sunrise. However, it is unclear why he would make the time of day ambiguous. When observing this painting, the viewer can feel the serenity Monet intended for the viewer. It shows shadows of the people in the boats and the boats themselves. Monet filled the sky with dramatic clouds, and Monet’s brush strokes depict slight ripples in the water and the play of light from the emerging day’s sun through the early morning fog onto the water. Unblended brush strokes become careful representations of light. In Sunrise, Monet uses an interesting combination of yellows and corals to show the sun peaking through the early morning fog and just beginning to hit the boats on the water. The light of the rising sun is reflected in the water, and the three small boats only dimly appear. Because the boats are arranged diagonally, there is am impression of spatial distance. 2 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective (arthistory.about.com) The aim of Sunrise was to reproduce the impression of the scene and its resulting mood. The atmospheric effect dominates the painting and the shapes of the objects become less important. Monet painted small, short brush strokes to capture the constant change of light in the water. (Kleiner) When Sunrise was originally viewed because of its sketchy quality and obvious brush strokes, a journalist for La Caricature, a humorous weekly, unimpressed with Monet’s painting, sarcastically headed his article on the exhibition, “Messieures les Impressioninstes.” In total, there were eight exhibitions, and by the third exhibition, the group displaying at the exhibitions outside the Salon accepted the term “Impressionism” to describe their movement. Photography’s Role in Art History One year before Monet was born, in 1939, daguerreotype, photography’s first successful process, was introduced. Throughout Monet’s lifetime, he was aware of the features, benefits, and limitations of photography. Photographic technologies continued to improve in the later part of the 19th century, with new processes like the wet collodion process that appeared to solve many of photography’s problems. During the later half of the 19th century, photographers sought to create photographs that were technically and artistically sound by paying attention to poses, expression, and lighting. (Photography) Due to the development of photography, which could accurately record a scene and painters like Monet were encouraged to deviate realism, which was predominant during the period and move toward a more abstract style. (Photography) Photography essentially began in 1839 during the simultaneous announcements of discoveries of photographic technologies in England and France. During the late 19 th century, the continuing development of Photography satisfied the public’s taste for accurate representation and could depict images more true to reality than could paintings, artists were free to explore other areas of artistic expression. During the second half of the 19th century, in 1863 painters had to follow the rules of the day in order to be accepted by the Salon to have their paintings exhibited at the annual event. The Redevelopment of Paris Industrialization in France took place between 1850 and 1900. A redevelopment of Paris was going on in Paris in the 1860s. During this time the railways there expanded significantly, from1,850 to 8,000 miles. This development enabled easier means of travel for artists than was available to their predecessors. It was these railways that enabled France and nearby countries easily accessible, so the artists could travel to other locations and become influenced by other artists from other areas. (ArtHistory.about.com ) 3 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective The acquisition of paintings provided the upwardly mobile visible symbols of their social standing. It was the bourgeoisie and professional classes who showed their artistic taste during this period. The main patrons of Impressionism paintings were members of the bourgeois like doctors, teachers, musicians, and civil servants, and businessmen. (The Chronicle of Impressionism) The Period Leading Up to Impressionism Napoleon III reigned from 1852 to 1870. Due to the growing dissatisfaction with the French Academy’s jurors’ art decisions, Napoleon III established the Salon des Refuses to show the Salon’s rejected works. Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass was among them. However, the exhibition was greeted with derision among the public. In 1867, outside the Paris World’s Fair, Manet established a private exhibition of 50 of his paintings. The Beginnings of the Impressionist Movement According to Denvir, the following excerpt colorfully describes the Impressionist movement and how it was achieved by a group of familiar artists who lived during the mid-19th century and embraced the elements of Impressionism. He indicates that rarely has a single movement had such a profound impact on society as Impressionism. The Impressionists liberated art from its dependence on rules and attempted to paint not what they thought they saw, nor what they thought they ought to see, but what they did see. From this emancipation, 20th century art would reveal many varied manifestations. The Impressionist movement was particularly remarkable in that is was achieved by some twenty artists, all of them familiar with each other, all based in one city, Paris, and all children of their time, the product of a new cultural environment, which molded them as much as they influenced it.” (Denvir) During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) Monet lived in England with Pissarro. Then in 1871 to 1874, he lived near Paris in Argenteuil, a village on the Seine. Some of the most famous works of the Impressionist movement were painted here by Monet, as well as Manet, Renoir, and Sisley. (Kleiner) However, since Manet wanted to remain in favor with the Salon, he did not participate with the group of painters who had embraced the Impressionist philosophy and style and began their own exhibitions. (Kleiner) Description of Impressionism Initially, the public did not accept Impressionism since it was considered “pathetically inept.” It featured short, visible strokes dots, commas, smears and blobs.” According to arthistory.about.com, Impressionism Art History 101 Basics:
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Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective “Impressionism is about the nature of fugitive light falling on surfaces. This play of moving light, as opposed to stationary light, expresses the ephemeral qualities of modernity. Impressionism is about the temporary, the here and now, and not about the timeless, the forever.” (arthistory.about.com) Arthistory.about.com states, “Impressionism is about life lived in bursts of brief encounters in the city. It’s about faster speeds, quickly moving clouds, sunshine reflected on water, and the shimmer of satin ribbons dangling from a baby’s cradle. The key characteristics and elements of Impressionism are, it: • • • • • •
Incorporates quickly painted surfaces or the appearance of them. Uses short, visible strokes, dots, dashes, commas, and other short brush strokes. Focuses on light and its reflection. Separates colors and lets the eye mix them. Uses modern life as the subject matter. Eliminates black from the painter’s palette. (Kleiner)
During the later half of the 19th century, both Monet and his close associate, Edouard Manet, helped move art away from Realism. Essentially, Manet’s defiance of the standard artistic rules of the time period with his unconventional subject matter and painting style, started moving art toward Impressionism with paintings like Luncheon on the Grass (1863) and Olympia (1863). His A Bar at the Folies-Bergere (1982) continued in the same vein. Beginnings of the Impressionist Movement Being accepted by the Salon was crucial for most artists during the last half of the 19 th century since exhibiting at the Salon offered many benefits to artists like the opportunities to win recognition, Salon prizes, and future work projects. Also, their work had a chance of selling due to the potential recognition that they may receive at the Salon. (Kleiner) Few artists were as fortunate as Manet because he was born to a wealthy family and did not need to sell his paintings in order to live. Since he could deviate from the norm, he often broke the rules and conventions of the day and created paintings of prostitutes, used suggestive imagery and iconography, and images that were shocking and unaccepted in its time period. Sketchy works like Sunrise shocked critics of the time who considered them unfinished “impressions” rather than completed compositions. During the fourth Impressionist Exhibition in 1879, the French critic Henry Ward wrote about Monet’s Sunrise in the L’exposiiton des Artistes Independants, Le Siecle, on April 27, 1879: “I confess humbly, I do not see nature as they do, never having seen these skies fluffy with pink cotton, these opaque and moiré waters, this multi-colored foliage. Maybe they do exist. I do not know them.” Impressionism created a new way of seeing the world. It was a way of seeing the city, 5 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective the suburbs, and the countryside as the modernization that each of these artists perceived and wanted to record from his or her point of view. One of Monet’s students, Lia Cabot Perry (1848-1933) said of Monet’s artistic approach, “I remember him once saying to me: ‘When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you—a tree, a house, a field, or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naïve impression of the scene before you.’ The Impressionist Exhibitions The French Royal Academy, which was subsidized by the French government, “supported a limited range of artistic expression, focusing on traditional subjects and highly polished technique. Because of the challenges modernist art presented to established artistic conventions, the juries for the Salons and other exhibitions often rejected the works of more adventurous artists wished to display. In 1874, a group of artists calling themselves the Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, engravers, etc. They rented photographer Nadar’s studio and exhibited their work. At the time, this concept was radical since the French art world revolved around the annual Salon, an official exhibition sponsored by the French government. The group included Claude Monet, Pierre-August Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Eugene Boudin, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Cailebotte, and Armand Guillaumin, among others. The group, later called the Impressionists, mounted eight shows from 1874 to 1886, in one to two year intervals. Few Impressionists showed at all eight shows. After 1886, the gallery dealers organized solo exhibitions or small group shows, and each artist concentrated on his or her own career. (Kliener) By the time that Monet painted Impression: Sunrise, because photography had already been in the mainstream of French society, artists were aware of its existence and often used it to study scenes. However, the invention of photography freed the artist to explore new artistic expression. It is interesting to note that Monet knew many of his contemporaries like Manet, Degas, Pissarro, and others and he was influenced by them as well as likely influenced their works. A hostile critic used the term “Impressionism” to derogatorily describe Monet’s Impression: Sunrise due to its sketchy quality and evident brush strokes. Impressionism indeed applies the qualities of sketches, which includes abbreviation, speed, and spontaneity. In Impression: Sunrise, Monet makes no attempt to disguise his heavyhanded brush strokes and to make smooth tonal gradations and an optically accurate scene. At this first exhibition, some visitors saw the painting as being unrecognizable. According to Denvir, “The Impressionists carried the process one step further, liberating 6 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective art from its dependence on dogma and attempting to paint not what they through they saw, nor what they thought they ought to see, but what they did see. From this emancipation was to come the art of the twentieth century, in all its varied manifestations. The Impressionist movement was remarkable since it was achieved by some twenty artists, all of whom were familiar with each other and were based in one city, Paris. A Brief Description of Monet’s Career Claude Monet was born on November 14, 1840 and died on December 5, 1926. Monet started as a caricaturist, but then moved on to landscape painting due to Boudin, a mentor he had early in his career. In 1859, Monet studied in Paris at the Atelier Suisse and became friends with Pissarro. In 1862, Monet met Renoir, Sisley, and Bazille in the Paris studio of Gleyre. These four men would later form the nucleus of the Impressionist group. According to Denvir, Monet “is regarded as the archetypal Impressionist in that his devotion to the ideals of the movement was unwavering throughout his long career, and it is fitting that one of his pictures—Impressionism: Sunrise—gave the group his name.” During the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) Monet lived in England with Pissarro. In 1871 to 1874 he lived at Argenteuil, a village on the Seine near Paris. Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Sisley produced many famous works of the Impressionist movement here. Monet painted outdoors where he could carry out his investigation of light and color further than any other Impressionist. The Impressionists understood “the importance of carefully observing and understanding how light and color operate.” The images of the Impressionists truly conveyed a sense of the momentary and transitory. The Industrialization of France According to Denvir, “Between the birth of Pissarro in 1830 and the death of Monet in 1926, France experienced a variety of governments and constitutions. It was involved in two major wars, several minor ones, and a brief civil war. The industrialization that was going on between 1850 and 1900 improved the railways in France expanding from 1,850 miles to 8,000 miles, opening up travel opportunities for the Impressionists on a scale unknown to their predecessors. France and nearby countries were now easily accessible by the railways. A redevelopment of Paris was going on in Paris in the 1860s. Napoleon III’s new economic project reduced unemployment and increased the middle class. The Impressionists received their patronage from the bourgeois. The acquisition of a collection of paintings gave the upwardly mobile visible symbols of their social standing. The main patrons of Impressionism paintings were doctors, teachers, musicians, and civil servants, and businessmen since they came to accept Impressionism.
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Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective Overview of the Impressionist Movement According to Denvir, “Seldom in the history of European painting has a single movement had so profound an impact as Impressionism. The Impressionists carried the process one step further, liberating art from its dependence on dogma and attempting to paint not what they thought they saw, nor what they thought they ought to see, but what they did see. From this emancipation was to come the art of the twentieth century, in all its varied manifestations. The Impressionist movement was particularly remarkable since they were achieved by some twenty artists, All of them were familiar with each other and all were based in one city, Paris. The children of their era, were the product of a new cultural environment, which molded them as much as they influenced it. According to Kleiner, as art expanded, new venues for exhibiting art emerged. They were sponsored by art circles and societies, which allowed both amateurs and professionals to participate. The art dealers also became more aggressive in their promotion of the artists they represented by mounting a wide variety of exhibitions. Due to these many opportunities for exhibition, artists of the period would have alternatives to the Salon and they were no longer tied to the Salon’s constraints. The prolific opportunities for exhibition that abounded at the time provided a “fertile breeding ground for the development of radically new art forms and styles.” According to Kleiner, “beyond this connection to the sketch, Impressionism operated at the intersection of what the artist saw and what they felt. “The Impressions these artists recorded in their paintings were neither purely objective descriptions of the exterior world nor solely subjective responses by the interaction between the two. They were sensations—the artists’ subjective and personal responses to nature.” The Impressionists strove to capture fleeting moments and transient effects of light in their paintings. After Impression: Sunrise, Monet later went on to paint the Rouen Cathedral and haystacks at different times of day in painting series. “Impressionism is about the nature of fugitive light falling on surfaces. This play of moving light, as opposed to stationary light, expresses the ephemeral quality of modernity. Impressionism is about the temporary, the here and now, and not about the timeless, the forever.” “Impressionism is about life lived in bursts of brief encounters in the city. It's about faster speeds, quickly moving clouds, sunshine reflected on water, and the shimmer of satin ribbons dangling from a baby's cradle. Above all, Impressionism is about modernity: its faster pace and various improvements in the quality of daily life. It is about middle class activities: shopping, vacationing, rushing, strolling, lingering, waiting, working and taking time off to flirt in a Montmartre dance hall or a restaurant on the Seine. At the time that Impressionism came about, “serious” artists minimized the appearance of their brushstrokes and blended their colors. The short, visible strokes used by Impressionists were basically smears and blobs on the canvas. At the time of the Exhibition, Impressionist was synonymous with unfinished 8 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective The Impressionist Exhibitions Various artists that embraced the Impressionist style and characteristics who initially called themselves “the Anonymous Society of painters, Sculptors, Engravers, etc., banded together and established their own non-Salon approved art exhibit in April 1874 after they were rejected by the Paris Salon. Monet exhibited Sunrise, along with several other landscape paintings with Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Auguste Renoir, Eugene Boudin, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, and about thirty other artists. According to artHistory.net, Monet “consistently explored how the human eye sees landscapes or scenes in the outdoors. Monet wanted to capture real events and watch how they related to light. In 1871, Monet and Camille Pissarro became interested in English landscape. Due to the disastrous end of the Franco-Prussian War and ensuing German occupation, they left France for England. In 1871 while living in England with Monet, Camille Pissarro painted The Crystal Palace. Monet and Pissarro retuned to Paris in the summer of 1871 and brought with them Impressionist works they had painted there. After the Impressionist Exhibitions By the end of the 1880s, Monet changed his work greatly and moved onto serial works including the Haystacks and Poplars series. According to Hamilton, Monet made an “exhaustive research into the nature of color and light. Objects were presented only through the light reflected from them, and the surface of Monet’s picture became a screen upon which he registered the arrival of the wave lengths of light reaching it from the objects within the picture space.” In Monet’s later Haystack series and Rouen Cathedral views, which were painted around 1892 and exhibited in Paris in 1895, Monet revolutionized Impressionism. (Hamilton) Post-impressionism is not a unified style. It refers to the later 19th century artists that followed the Impressionists and took painting into new directions.
Bibliography: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
The Chronicle of Impressionism by Bernard Denvir, retrieved on July 25, 2012. Photography, II: History and Influence in Oxford Art Online – oxfordartonline.com, Retrieved July 25, 2012. ArtHistory.about.com: Impressionism - Art History 101 Basics, 1869 to the Present, ; Retrieved July 25, 2012 Barrett, Terry, Interpreting Art: Reflecting, Wondering, and Responding, New York, McGraw-Hill 2003. Hamilton, George, 19th and 20th Century Art, 20, Prentice-Hall, 2000. Kleiner, Fred, Gardner’s Art through the Ages: A Global History. Enhanced 13th edition, New York, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. 9 - Christina Acosta
Running head: Analysis of Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise from a Historical Perspective 7.
Claude-Monet.com/impression-sunrise.jsp.
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