#4 IMPRESSIONISM PART 2
Impressionism, Part 2
Perhaps you've heard the song lyrics, "a kiss is just a kiss"? That phrase comes from the song "As Time Goes By" from the wonderful movie Casablanca.
But is a kiss just a kiss? Not if you're kissing in hell like the pair of lovers in Rodin's statue, The Kiss. You'll learn more about that in this lesson.
OBJECTIVES
Discuss Degas and his work.
Identify American impressionists, Cassatt and Whistler.
Describe two works of Rodin.
VOCABULARy
FRENCH IMPRESSIONIST EDGAR DEGAS
The paintings of Degas capture a fleeting moment, especially in ballet and horseracing scenes. He was fascinated with patterns of motion and his paintings often appeared asymmetrical. He also uses several techniques to make the observer feel as if he or she is part of the scene.
figures are placed in a random composition rather than in the center
the viewer's eye follows the diagonal line along the directional lines of the dancers
empty space creates the "illusion of a continuous floor" so the viewer seems to be standing on the same surface as the dancers
Look at the painting Ballet Rehearsal and notice how the figures and the staircase are cut by the frame so the image looks more like a snapshot than a composed painting.
Read the Metropolitan Museum's biography of Degas .
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AMERICAN IMPRESSIONISTS
Mary Cassat moved to Paris when she was thirty years old. She exhibited her work with the Impressionists and came to know Degas. Though she was influenced by Degas who painted her a number of times, Cassatt had her own style. She was never a mother herself, but compositions of mothers with their children were among her favorite subjects.
She was also influenced by an exhibition of Japanese styles, and in her later work, she became more confident in herself. Her work took on a clearer and more defined look.
Thanks to Cassatt's influence, American collectors began to appreciate and collect works of the impressionists (which helped many of them survive).
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James A. M. Whistler
James Whistler was an outstanding Impressionist who had to lay the canvas on a floor when he painted because he used such thin layers of paint. He was well known for creating effects in his Nocturnes , a term associated with musical compositions, that included fireworks and shining lights through misty nights.
One art critic of the impressionist period accused Whistler of "flinging a pot of paint in the public's face." But the French impressionists admired his work and the painter Camille Pisarro called him a "great artist."
His most famous painting is Whistler's Mother.
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SCULPTURE
"Life is in the modelling, the soul of the sculpture is in the piece; all of sculpture is there." (quoted by G. Coquiot, Rodin à l'hôtel de Biron et à Meudon, 1917).
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917)
Auguste Rodin
Like the Impressionist painters, another artist who was rejected by The Salon early in his career was the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).
You may remember how the Greeks and Romans often created monumental public sculpture. Rodin took the ideas of classical and Renaissance sculpture and modernized them. Like the Realist painters, he wanted to portray reality as closely as possible. He showed a remarkable ability to:
show movement
convey the inner feelings of the figures
use modeling to capture light
His work was so realistic that he was accused of actually using live figures to create molds. He vehemently denied doing such a thing, and an independent panel of sculptors proved him to be telling the truth.
Rodin worked in bronze, marble, terra cotta and other materials. He is also known for sculpting hands in such numbers that an exhibition was created just to feature them. (Rodin Museum) His most famous work is The Thinker (bronze).
The inspiration for the statue The Kiss (marble, 1888-1889) was the pair of lovers named Paolo and Francesca, damned for all eternity to live in the second circle of hell in Dante's Inferno. Francesca and Paolo were two people who actually lived in Italy around 1275. Paolo was the brother of Francesca's husband, Gianciotto. When Giancotto caught them kissing, he supposedly stabbed them to death. In the fifth canto of Inferno, Paolo and Francesca tell Virgil, who is wandering through hell on a tourist visa: "Love has led us to a unique death."
The artists you have studied in these two lessons had a profound influence on other artists, both those contemporary to them and those following them. Those artists are called the Post-Impressionists.
LET'S REVIEW!
In this lesson, you have covered the following concepts:
Degas is famous for his paintings (and sculpture) of dancers; Cassatt was an American who often painted mothers and their children
Whistler painted nocturnal scenes of London
The sculptor Rodin created realistic works that were influenced by both the classical sculptors of the past and the contemporary Impressionist painters and thus bringing sculpture into the modern era
Take this test before moving on.