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The exhibiting collective avoided choosing a title that would imply a unified movement or school, although some of them subsequently adopted the name by which they would eventually be known, the Impressionists. Their work is recognized today for its modernity, embodied in its rejection of established styles, its incorporation of new technology and ideas, and its depiction of modern life. It demonstrates the techniques many of the independent artists adopted: Rather than neutral white, grays, and blacks, Impressionists often rendered shadows and highlights in color.
This seemingly casual style became widely accepted, even in the official Salon, as the new language with which to depict modern life. In addition to their radical technique, the bright colors of Impressionist canvases were shocking for eyes accustomed to the more sober colors of Academic painting. Many of the independent artists chose not to apply the thick golden varnish that painters customarily used to tone down their works.
The paints themselves were more vivid as well. The nineteenth century saw the development of synthetic pigments for artists' paints, providing vibrant shades of blue, green, and yellow that painters had never used before. Depicted in a radically cropped, Japanese-inspired composition, the fashionable boater and his companion embody modernity in their form, their subject matter, and the very materials used to paint them. Such images of suburban and rural leisure outside of Paris were a popular subject for the Impressionists, notably Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
Several of them lived in the country for part or all of the year.
New railway lines radiating out from the city made travel so convenient that Parisians virtually flooded into the countryside every weekend. While some of the Impressionists, such as Pissarro , focused on the daily life of local villagers in Pontoise, most preferred to depict the vacationers' rural pastimes. The boating and bathing establishments that flourished in these regions became favorite motifs. Landscapes, which figure prominently in Impressionist art, were also brought up to date with innovative compositions, light effects, and use of color. Monet in particular emphasized the modernization of the landscape by including railways and factories, signs of encroaching industrialization that would have seemed inappropriate to the Barbizon artists of the previous generation.
To further narrow the possible dates, Olson then looked at the tides.
Since the large sailing ships could only enter and exit the shallow outer harbor during a few hours near the time of high tide, he used computer algorithms to calculate the tides of that era. The result was 19 possible dates in late January and mid-November of and when the sun and tides corresponded with the painting.
Six dates remained after eliminating those with stormy, rainy or windy weather and heavy seas. To narrow the field even further, Olson examined the smoke columns rising over the harbor on the left side of the painting. The smoke appears to be blowing to the right, which would indicate a wind from the east. Two remaining dates record an east wind: Search Terms Start Search. His article "The Impressionist Exhibition" is written as a dialogue from the imaginary perspective of an old-fashioned painter, shocked at the works of Monet and his associates:.
This is it, this is it!: What is this a painting of? Look in the catalogue. I was just saying to myself, if I'm impressed, there must be an impression in there… And what freedom, what ease in the brushwork! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more labored than this seascape!
Leroy's review is a covert backhand at the progressiveness of Impression, Sunrise , and is often attributed with the using the term impressionism for the first time. He claimed that "The very word has entered their language: From this point of view, they have left reality behind for a realm of pure idealism", typified by Monet's Impression, Sunrise. Considering Impression, Sunrise and Monet's work following the exhibition, Duret wrote "it is certainly the peculiar qualities of Claude Monet's paintings which first suggested [the term impressionism]".
Claiming that "Monet is the Impressionist painter par excellence", Duret argued that Monet inspired a new way of seeing and painting, that Monet was "no longer painting merely the immobile and permanent aspect of a landscape, but also the fleeting appearances which the accidents of atmosphere present to him, Monet transmits a singularly lively and striking sensation of the observed scene. Following and the rise of the Impressionist movement, Monet recalled Impression, Sunrise by naming other works with similar titles. The subtitles recalled Impression, Sunrise in style and influence, though their subjects varied.
These works then seemed as a continuation of his Le Havre scene, "one of the sequence of canvases in which he was seeking to capture the most fleeting natural effects, as a display of his painterly virtuosity. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Readings in nineteenth-century art. Upper Saddle River, N. Retrieved 16 November The New York Times.