Impressionist techniques
Short, thick strokes of paint are used to quickly capture the essence of the subject, rather than its details. The paint is often applied impasto.
Colours are applied side-by-side with as little mixing as possible, creating a vibrant surface. The optical mixing of colours occurs in the eye of the viewer.
Grays and dark tones are produced by mixing complementary colours. In pure Impressionism the use of black paint is avoided.
Wet paint is placed into wet paint without waiting for successive applications to dry, producing softer edges and an intermingling of colour.
Painting during evening to get effets de soir—the shadowy effects of the light in the evening or twilight.
Impressionist paintings do not exploit the transparency of thin paint films (glazes) which earlier artists manipulated carefully to produce effects. The surface of an Impressionist painting is typically opaque.
The play of natural light is emphasized. Close attention is paid to the reflection of colours from object to object.
In paintings made en plein air (outdoors), shadows are boldly painted with the blue of the sky as it is reflected onto surfaces, giving a sense of freshness that was not represented in painting previously. (Blue shadows on snow inspired the technique.)
Painters throughout history had occasionally used these methods, but Impressionists were the first to use all of them together, and with such consistency.
The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France were:
Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870)
Gustave Caillebotte (who, younger than the others, joined forces with them in the mid 1870s) (1848–1894)
Mary Cassatt (American-born, she lived in Paris and participated in four Impressionist exhibitions) (1844–1926)
Paul Cézanne (although he later broke away from the Impressionists) (1839–1906)
Edgar Degas (a realist who despised the term Impressionist, but is considered one, due to his loyalty to the group) (1834–1917)
Armand Guillaumin (1841–1927)
Édouard Manet (who did not regard himself, nor is he generally considered, as an Impressionist, but who supported the Impressionists and was a great influence on them), (1832–1883)
Claude Monet (the most prolific of the Impressionists and the one who embodies their aesthetic most obviously) (1840–1926)
Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)
Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)
A
lfred
Sisley (1839–1899)
Nataliya Gomboeva
Primitivism is a western art movement that borrows visual forms from non-western or pre-historical people. Borrowing from primitive art was important to the development of modern art.
The philosophy. There is a debate since the invention of writing whether we should simplify our lives and ‘get back to basics’ or not. After the exploration of Americas and Pacific Islands it reached a new urgency.
Italian philosopher Gianbattista Vico first argued that the primitive man was closer to poetry and artistic inspiration than civilized man.
In the 19th century new schools of visual art appeared. They used clear outlines, bright colours and paid attention to details.
Paul Gauguin’s and Pablo Picasso’s paintings and Igor Stravinsky’s music are cited as examples of primitivism in art.
From the 18th century onwards, Western thinkers and artists continued to engage in the retrospective tradition, permanent human nature and cultural structure in the contrast to the nascent modern realities.
In the 19th century the artifacts of previously unknown people became more accessible and European-trained artists used the traits of these objects as the attributes of primitive expression: absence of linear perspective, simple outlines, presence of symbolic signs such as hieroglyph and energetic rhythms resulting from the use of repetitive ornamental pattern.
Anastasia Sakovich
Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat and Paul Signac developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works of these artists, and is now used without its earlier mocking connotation. Neo-impressionism and Divisionism are also terms used to describe this technique of painting.
The technique relies on the ability of the eye and mind of the viewer to blend the color spots into a fuller range of tones. It is related to Divisionism, a more technical variant of the method. Divisionism is concerned with color theory, whereas pointillism is more focused on the specific style of brushwork used to apply the paint.[1] It is a technique with few serious practitioners today, and is notably seen in the works of Seurat, Signac and Cross. However, see alsoAndy Warhol's early works, and pop art.
Paul Signac, Femmes au Puits, 1892, showing a detail with constituent colors.
The practice of Pointillism is in sharp contrast to the traditional methods of blending pigments on a palette. Pointillism is analogous to the four-color CMYK printing process used by some color printers and large presses that place dots of Cyan (blue), Magenta (red), Yellow, and Key (black). Televisions and computer monitors use a similar technique to represent image colors using Red, Green, and Blue (RGB) colors.
If red, blue, and green light (the additive primaries) are mixed, the result is something close to white light (see Prism (optics)). Painting is inherently subtractive, but pointillist colors often seem brighter than typical mixed subtractive colors. This may be partly because subtractive mixing of the pigments is avoided, and partly because some of the white canvas may be showing between the applied dots.
The painting technique used for pointillist color mixing is at the expense of the traditional brushwork used to delineatetexture.
The majority of pointillism is done in oil paints. Anything may be used in its place, but oils are preferred for their thickness and tendency not to run or bleed.