The French Impressionists

Who are your favorite artists?

Renoir, Pissaro, Degas, Monet, Manet…. And many more artists. The beginning of a modern French movement, that started to move away from classical art towards a more emotional, abstracted style of art.

The French Impressionists held a ‘salon des refuses’ in 1863 of paintings that had been refused by the official Salon. It was organised because so many paintings had been refused and the Emperor Napoleon III arranged it.

Many of the upcoming French Impressionists were part of this exhibition.

My favourite artist is Monet, from his repetitive paintings of haystacks, to his paintings of the facade of Rouen Cathedral in the 1890s in different light conditions and colours fascinated me. Then his later huge paintings of waterlilies when he lived at Giverny. This was as he got older and his sight was affected by cataracts. I think I remember reading that he was one of the first people to have a cataract operation?

Of course the Impressionists were only the start of changing artistic styles. Post Impressionists, fauvists, expressionism, pointellism, then cubists and so many other schools of art.

Basically there are too many things to talk about. I have books about the Impressionists somewhere? I don’t know where.

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14 thoughts on “The French Impressionists”

      1. They were breakaways, from fine arts… The Impressionists, that is. They must’ve broken rules, even stumbled onto new texture in their color -journeys. Renoir had his route, away from miniatures, but Van Gogh ! 💜 so yes, amazed

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  6. For my taste , which requires a relatively high degree of accuracy , Renoir did the best impressionism work . I do admire a range of the other artists’ works but more so depending on how precise the rendition is . What I don’t prefer is that which gets to the abstract or seriously distorted side of the scale : )

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