Culturally Speaking: Impressions ~ The Arts & Spring

The word impression usually signifies a thought or a feeling that we have about a person, place or something someone said or did. Of course, our memories are often challenged and what we remember is unreliable or too vague to grasp the complete picture. Nevertheless, our pursuit continues as we seek more clues. While we might ask others for help, the search does not always end well. We have to rely on what we have left. Certainly, we hope that the impressions we formed are advantageous and reliable.

Photo by Margery Gordon, "Orchids at the Smithsonian", March 2019

Today people will stand in long lines to see exhibitions by Eduard Manet, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir, among many others who are celebrated as Impressionists.

These artists, who passed away many years ago, are amazingly popular and their works sell for a lot of money at art auctions. When viewing these works, some visitors to art museums want to transpose or imagine their own daily existences into the composition of the paintings which are academic and seldom evoke real emotion. As they experimented with paint and immersed themselves in a kind of scientific pursuit propelled by a devotion to color theory, the Impressionists often painted the same subjects over and over again.

These experiments took on a range of activities that addressed how an object or place looked when subjected to seasonal changes in the atmosphere-- as well as the time of day, etc. Nevertheless, art audiences often find the Impressionists' works visually pleasing, peaceful, simplistic and sometimes lovely.

Photo by Margery Gordon, "Orchids at the Smithsonian", March 2019

It has been many decades since the Impressionist artists took their easels and canvasses out of doors to be inspired by nature or utilized the sunlight to create paintings with brilliant, colorful and decisive brush strokes. Somehow, when we are gifted with a brilliant spring day, we too think of the beauty of nature and perhaps we can appreciate what the Impressionists saw and left us to enjoy.

Now is a good time to visit these works or make your own, if you are so inclined. In the next few months of spring look for opportunities to experience Impressionism, in art galleries and museums. I've included several exhibitions that might be of interest and/or of inspiration to you. I have also listed examples of music which could be experienced as impressionistic in character.

Of course, there are always a lot of other things to do and see in the DMV.

Enjoy! Terri B.

Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash