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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appear artist attempt attention attitudes Baudelaire beliefs called CAMILLE PISSARRO Cassatt Cézanne Cézanne's character CLAUDE MONET Coll Collection colour complete contains contrast conventions critic Degas developed drawing early effects example exhibited exist experience explain express face fact feelings flâneur give harmony ideas ideologies imaginatively implies impression Impressionism Impressionists individual instance Institute interested interpretation involved kind known landscape late later less letter light London looking male Manet masculine means meant Monet motif Musée d'Orsay Museum of Art National Gallery nature objects Oil on canvas painter painting Paris particular PAUL peasant perhaps picture Pissarro position possible present produced record reflections relationship render represented result scene seems seen sensations sense similar social sometimes spectator suggest technique things told vision wanted woman women wrote young