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A History of Painting
    Impressionism: Catching a Fleeting Moment
Content and style of Impressionism was an art of industrialized and urbanized Paris. Impressionism was a continuation of the Realist’s concerns and was definitely an art of its time. Realism as style derived from the time of Industrialization that happened in the late nineteenth century.  Industrialization was the epoch of urbanization that gave re-birth to a faith in science, brought forward the Survival of the Fittest theory by Charles Darwin, and produced Karl Marx’s concept of class struggle.  The Darwinian’s ideas of evolution and Marx’s emphasis on a continuing sequence of class struggle reinforced the awareness of a constantly shifting reality. These economical and societal changes provoked a greater awareness and interest in modernity.  The idea of being modern was developed by the artists who tried to capture the images and sensibilities of their age. 
Realism as a movement mostly focused on the present; however, Impressionism welcomed the idea of catching a fleeting moment. The major characteristic of most Impressionist works is the lack of pristine clarity. This characteristic is historically grounded. The extensive urbanization and industrialization that was happening in France during the latter half of the nineteenth century can be described as a chaotic transformation that made the world seem unstable and insubstantial. Impressionism attempted to capture a fleeting moment that was not absolutely fixed; it conveyed the vagueness and impermanence of images and conditions.  Impressionists loved to capture not only the industrial developments, but also facets of city life. They were interested to record vast transformations in city’s infrastructure especially during the major Parisian renovation that started in 1852. Napoleon III ordered Paris rebuilt due to a rapid growth of the city’s population and unsanitary conditions. The emperor appointed Baron George Haussmann who was a city superintendent to oversee the entire project. The narrow, winding streets of the medieval city – easily barricaded in the 1848 revolution – were destroyed. Approximately 150 kilometers of road were constructed, with long avenues, apartment of a standard height, public gardens, the Paris Opera and other public buildings, new bridges, gas lamps, a new water supply and sewers, reinvented the city.
Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) (FIG. 1) was the Impressionist’s father figure who created panoramic series of paintings dedicated to the streets of Paris. Pissarro was not only interested in Parisian topography; his main concentration was on the changing conditions of the streets themselves. The Boulevard Montmartre was constructed in 1763; and it still remains one of the largest streets in Paris. It served as a favourite subject for Pissarro. In 1897, Pissarro rented a room at the Hotel de Russie located on the corner of the Boulevard des Italiens and the Rue Drouot. From there, he painted the Boulevard Montmartre at various times of the day to capture the different lights, seasons, city movements, and weather conditions. For example, Boulevard Montmartre, Morning, Cloudy Weather, 1897 (FIG. 2) represents the city’s hustle and commotion during gloomy morning. This work of art is an extraordinary energetic painting where vanishing point is higher. This technique gives the scene greater vitality; and it makes the viewers feel as if they are leaning out into the street. The captured moment is purified with palette of great delicacy: greys, browns and whites accented with red and small amounts of green. The artist’s fixed viewpoint captured the ever-shifting configurations of crowds and traffic. Pissarro’s painting is liberated from traditional hierarchy subjects, themes, and motifs. It is concentrated on indigenous figures and landscape of Montmartre. Pissarro’s art escapes neat categorization or chronologies; it is full of poetic imagination where the original mind of the creator is not afraid to use different techniques in strokes and intellectual positions of the scenery.
Another aspect of the new industrialized Paris that drew Impressionists’ attention was the leisure activities of its citizens. Scenes of dining, the ballet, dancing and other forms of enjoyable recreation were pillars of Impressionism. These leisure pastimes seemed to be unrelated to the epoch of Industrial Revolution; however, these activities were facilitated by it. The industrialization gave an opportunity to advent the set working hours; people’s schedules became more regular allowing them to plan their favourite amusements.

Edouard Manet (1832-1883) (FIG. 3) was one of the French artists who enjoyed portraying urban leisure. His masterpiece, A Bar at the Folies-Bergere, 1882 (FIG. 4), represents the new world that was developing in modern France. The Folies-Bergere was one of the most elaborate variety-show in Paris. It showcased entertainment ranging from ballets to circus acts. Another major attraction of the place was the barmaids, who were assumed to be available as clandestine prostitutes. By depicting one of these women and her male customer on an imposing scale, Manet openly introduced a morally questionable and provocative subject into the realm of high art. In addition, the artist’s composition signifies a visual puzzle; the barmaid looks directly at the viewer, while the mirror behind her reveals the large hall and clients of the Folies-Bergere. However, the background of the bar scene is blurred with roughly applied brush strokes; this technique forces the viewers to analyse the work of art to make sense of the scene. While analyzing the scenery, the discrepancies seem to emerge. For instance, it seems that Manet painted the image from a view point directly opposite the barmaid; but the viewpoint is contradicted by the reflection of the objects on the bar and the figures of the barmaid and a client off to the right. With so many paradoxes, Manet does not offer a determinate position to make sense of the whole. Instead the artist insists on calling attention to the symbolic structure of this painting through visual contradictions.
Overall, the Impressionists sought to capture the moment to express the passage of time, changes in weather, and other shifts in the environment in their canvases. Both artists, Camille Pissarro and Edouard Manet, conveyed their works into symbolic, but yet realistic dimension where intellectual positioning of the scenery perplexed with controversy of reality. Their art was an unending search of freedom to invent new rules and to experiment with them.

 

Written by Valeria Pacifica

    • Graham-Dixon, Andrew. “The Bar at the Folies-Bergere by Edouard Manet.”Sunday Telegraph “In the Picture”, The Courtauld Institute Galleries, 2002.
    • Herman, Debra J. “The Boulevard Montmartre on a Winter Morning.” John and Frances Foundation, Chicago, Illinois, 2013.
    • Kleiner, Fred S. “Gardner’s Art through the Ages: the Western Perspective”. Thompson Learning Inc. 2003. 746-752.
    • Pissarro, Joachim. “Camille Pissarro”. Rizzoli Art Series. 1992.
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Sublime of Rational Fantasies by Henri Fuseli (1741-1825)  
Romanticism was a dominant spiritual and political movement in Europe during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The romantic presence was not embraced just by political institutions of Europe; it also included art and literature. Major characteristics of the Romantic movement contained the rejection of some major Renaissance aspects such as reason and rationality. It believed that the concept of reason had its limits where the idea of Romanticism went beyond reasonable borders. Romanticism encompassed an emotional response to imagination of an individual’s inner world. The notion of Renaissance believed in science and classical knowledge that put all human beings above and beyond the natural laws. It rejected intuition and spirituality due to their irrationality. On the contrary, Romanticism welcomed the idea of intuition, because it represented the unexplainable notion of the human nature that connected to the reality of knowing things rather than observing them by empirical approach. Moreover, Romanticism revived the sense of spirituality and adventure of the Middle Ages. Romantic emphasis on the Middle Ages produced the re-birth for the Gothic style in art. For people living in the eighteenth century, the Middle Ages were the “dark ages”, a time of savagery, dark mystery, and miracle. Also, the idea of the “sublime” found its path during the Gothic style revival. The sublime inspired feelings of astonishment mixed with terror. Those were the feelings that people experienced while looking on massive, impassible mountain peaks or great storms at sea.
 
The neo-Gothic imagination stretched beyond real. It tried to discover the worlds of fantasy including the infernal, surreal and vicious imagery that could come out of the chamber of horrors when reason was asleep. The perception of the nightmare was greatly and spectacularly depicted by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825) in his famous series of paintings The Nightmare.  Fuseli specialised in night moods of horror and in neo-Gothic fantasies. The Swiss artist settled in England in 1779 and eventually became a member of the Royal Academy and an instructor there. Largely self-taught, he contrived a unique manner to express the fantasies of his rich imagination. The Nightmare, 1781 (FIG. 1) is one of four versions of this terrifying theme. Fuseli’s Romantic perception leads us to the beautiful young woman who lies asleep.
She is draped across the bed with her limb arm dangling lifelessly over the side. An incubus, a demon believed in medieval times to prey, often sexually, on sleeping women, is weighting down upon the dreaming woman’s abdomen while the head of a horse peeks through the curtains.  Dark and reach colors of the painting give sense of dark terrain if the human subconscious. The image of the horse with the glowing eyes symbolizes woman’s sexual liberation and desire. This work brings forward the idea that the human figure depicted in apparent state of pleasure can also experience pain and violence. Overall, Fuseli discovers the sublime of the nightmare through realistic depiction of the characters.
The Romantic sublime of freedom brought a great sense of fear to the late eighteenth century. Europe was crackling not only with sexual energy, but also with revolutionary politics and ideas with consequent social, religious, artistic, and intellectual commotions. England suffered deeply from fear of revolutionary ideas that came with the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. Fuseli made metaphoric references to those events; however, the subjects which he painted mostly were drawn from the Bible, Shakespeare, John Milton and Dante.
His works were grotesque mixture of literature, art, skepticism, and profanity. In his interpretation of Shakespeare, Fuseli called Shakespeare's poetry into being; he staged the imagery under his own theatrical production and imagination. This is evident in one of his exquisite paintings Falstaff in the Laundry Basket, 1792 (FIG. 2).  To punish Falstaff for his lustful advances, Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford put him in the laundry basket and cover him with filthy linin. The composition is restricted to a few actors and fixes the action in an abstract framework. If one draws in the diagonal lines indicated by the extended limbs of the two women, Falstaff's head will be caught directly below their intersection.
This optical trick intensifies Falstaff’s entrapment. Fuseli victimizes man’s figure by cruel and yet coquettish women, who are dressed in the extravagant finery of London’s fashion. The art work is full of contradictions where comic elements are mixed with moments of distress. Those contradictions are harmoniously embedded together into one theatrical masterpiece.
Despite of his Romantic originality, Fuseli was a rationalist who tried to contradict reality with his own fantasies. Fuseli’s rationally staged romantic fantasies included all the principles of the Enlightenment; they explored the unexplainable through realistic approach. The Nightmare and Falstaff in the Laundry Basket refine and illuminate the great contrast of pleasure and terror crafted masterfully together into one theatrical set-up. Fuseli challenged the viewer with things never seen before and captivated one with the exciting encounter of the sublime and reason.
     
Written by Valeria Pacifica
  • ·          Feingold, Lawrence. “Fuseli, Another Nightmare: the Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 17, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984. 88-91.

  • ·          Kagan, Donald. “The Western Heritage Volume B: 1300-1815.” Upper Saddle River, New Jersey University, 2004. 705-707.

    ·          Maisak, Petra. “Henry Fuseli – “Shakespeare’s Painter.”” The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, Bottrop, Essen: Verlag Peter Pomp, 1996.

  • ·          Weston, Neville. “Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination.” Craft Arts International No.67, 2006. 49-61.

 

 
   
The Art of Printmaking: Albrecht Durer (1471-1528)  
The art of printmaking is widely present today in books, magazines, newspapers, and of course arts. But have you ever thought how it all began? Let’s travel back in time and stop in the epoch of a Rebirth in the Northern Europe. This period is widely known as the Renaissance. The meaning of the Renaissance comes from the Italian word rinascita which means “rebirth”. The Renaissance was regarded as the period of a revival of the old Roman and Greek civilizations. Most scholars agree that the Renaissance was a time of transition from medieval to the modern world not only in the economics, religion, and political structure of Europe, but also in the art movement. The medieval/gothic art tended to be abstract and formulaic, whereas the Renaissance art re-created rational order. Symmetry and proportionality were highly depicted through picturesque reflection and observation of the natural world and the communication of human emotions. The Northern Renaissance evolved more around religious questions. The Northerners wanted to expand their Christian beliefs and understandings. With the invention of printing press during the Renaissance period it became easier to popularize religious point of views. Print media provided a prime opportunity to educate the masses.  It also gave birth to the new art medium of printmaking that brought forward a supremely gifted and versatile artist, Albrecht Durer. 
Albrecht Durer was born in the Franconian city of Nuremberg, one of the strongest artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was an excellent painter, draftsman, writer, and printmaker. Durer was trained with his father, who was a goldsmith, and with the local painter Michael Wolgemut, whose workshop produced woodcut illustrations for major books and publications. Durer reformed printmaking, uplifting it to the level of an independent art form. He expanded its tonal and dramatic range, and provided the imagery with a new conceptual foundation. Durer was fascinated with classical ideas transmitted through Italian Renaissance artists.
He was one of the first northern artists who traveled to Italy to study Italian art and its theories. Fascinated with classical ideas as transmitted through Italian Renaissance artists, Durer integrated many Italian Renaissance developments into his art.
For instance, an engraving, The Fall of Man (Adam and Eve), 1504(FIG. 1), depicts the beginning of Durer’s use of the theory of human proportions that was based on arithmetic ratios. Also, the artist demonstrated his outstanding observational skills in his rendering of the background flora and animals. Symbolism and proportionality were mixed wisely by Durer. Every animal, tree, and posture of Adam and Eve highlighted an allegory of religious virtue combined with human nature.
Furthermore, the artist’s life-long interest in idealization and naturalization strongly reappeared in Knight, Death, and the Devil, 1513 (FIG. 2). This art work carried the art of engraving to the finest level of brilliance. Durer used his burin to condense differences in texture and tonal principles that would be difficult to match even in the much more flexible medium such as corroding a design into metal (etching technique). Knight, Death, and the Devil depicted a mounted armored knight who rode courageously through an ominous landscape. The knight signified a soldier of God who was armed with faith. His faith in God was so strong that it could resist the threats of Death. The allegory of knight’s armor imbedded the meaning of God’s help to stand against the charms of the devil.
Overall, Durer’s technical ability to reveal a feeling for the form-creating possibilities of line permitted him to produce a body of graphic work in woodcut and engraving. In addition to book illustrations, the artist spread and sold prints in single sheets. Woodcuts were among the least expensive of all art forms making them accessible to a wider audience than traditionally commissioned art, such as paintings and sculptures. As the result, art of printmaking helped to expand religious views with educational enlightenment to the crowds. Even today printing press still plays a major role in our day-to-day living.
     
Written by Valeria Pacifica
  • Kagan, Donald. “The Western Heritage Volume B: 1300-1815.” Upper Saddle River, New Jersey University, 2004. 337-339.
  • Kleiner, Fred S. “Gardner’s Art through the Ages: the Western Perspective”. Thompson Learning Inc. 2003. 578-589.
  • Wisse, Jacob. “Albrecht Durer 1471-1528”. Stern College for Women, Yeshiva University. 2002.