Impressionism: Beneath the SurfaceThe art of the Impressionists is beloved of experts and non-experts alike. Paul Smith reexamines this popular group of artists in light of recent scholarship on the social context of late nineteenth-century France. He begins with Edouard Manet, often seen as a forerunner of Impressionism: a sophisticated, detached, ironic observer of the social scene in Paris. He then examines various key artists of the Impressionist movement - Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Cassatt, Monet, Pissarro - to offer a lively reading of such topics as the role of women in Impressionism, the influence of industrialization, the invention of modern color theory, the social position of the artist, and the use of psychoanalytic theory in the understanding of art. The result is to make this very familiar art movement seem fresh and new. To conclude, he proposes Cezanne's art as the culmination of, and heir to, the Impressionist experiment. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION Defining Impressionism | 7 |
ONE Manet Baudelaire and the Artist as Flâneur | 33 |
TWO Impressionist Women and Women Impressionists | 59 |
Copyright | |
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anarchist appear Argenteuil artist attitudes Baudelaire beliefs Bernard BERTHE MORISOT Boulevard bourgeoisie Café CAMILLE PISSARRO Cassatt Charles Gleyre CLAUDE MONET Coll colour patches contrast conventions Courtauld Institute Galleries critic Degas Degas's Durand-Ruel EDGAR DEGAS EDOUARD MANET effects esthetic Etretat example experience express fact flâneur Gallery of Art Gleyre's Grainstacks Grenouillère harmony ideas ideologies of gender implies Impres Impressionism Impressionist exhibition Impressionist paintings Impressionists impressions and sensations instance interpretation Jongkind kind landscape letter light London looking Lucien male gaze male spectator MARY CASSATT masculine Metropolitan Museum Monet's painting motif Musée d'Orsay Museum of Art National Gallery nature Oil on canvas Painter of Modern Paris PAUL CÉZANNE peasant philosopher picture Pissarro's paintings Pontoise produced prostitutes psychoanalytical ragpicker relationship render Renoir represented Rouen Cathedral Salon scene seems seen sexual sionists social spectator's suggest technique things told vision Woman Drying women Impressionists young