Impressionism

            Impressionism was born in France when groups of painters wanted to go away from the Salon artistic standards and create their own independent art group. When the independent group held an exhibition of their art, an art critic named Louis Leroy named the exhibition ‘impressionist’ based on the title on Monet’s painting, Impression: Sunrise. Intended to be a negative review, Monet and his colleagues liked the impressionist phrase and utilized it to characterize their art. Impressionism is supposed to evoke the feeling of the moment captured in the art. An example of this impressionist art is in Claude Monet’s On the bank of the Seine, Bennecourt. My reaction to the painting is one of calm and relaxation. Monet conveys these feelings by the use of color and line.

            Monet’s use of color helps the piece exhume the feeling of calmness. The colors in the background are warm. There seems to be a variety of neutral colors and a mix of low and high key colors to create a balanced visual weight. What makes this painting different than the past academic paintings was the use of atmospheric perspective, using cooler colors and blurring figures or objects to project the illusion of depth. Monet though, does not use atmospheric perspective. While the sky is a cool color, Monet is not trying to create depth; there is no difference between the middle and background. I believe that by doing this Monet was trying to engage the viewer to see the painting as a moment in time, to not think about the depth or narrative of the painting. Just to enjoy the scenery and have a sense of relaxation. The cooler colors on the foreground though contrast with the warm colors in the background. Although they contrast, the difference between the backgrounds does not distract the viewer from the overall composition of the piece. In a sense, the use of the cooler colors helps balance the temperature of the painting. Making a well balanced composition of color.

            The use of line that Monet uses also establishes a mood of relaxation. Monet uses light, fast, and open brushstrokes to create line. This action creates a very liberating movement in the piece. If Monet used hard solid lines to create objects, the scene would have been more serious and rigid. Monet’s use of line though creates this feeling as if someone was in a dream or in a faraway place where none of life’s worries take place. Although some of the houses in the background exhibit straight lines, if one where to look closely, one can see that the lines have bumps or curves that make the staccato line into legato. The use of line in the figures is also very indistinct. There are no details to outline the figures in the background, just little blobs of paint here in there. This is to reinforce the idea of relaxation, the figures are not what are important in the painting it is the overall feeling one experiences as they are placed in this space. The woman in the foreground is much more detailed than the figures on the background, but her clothes are made up of very quick strokes that the clothing in front of her is unrecognizable. The use of line in the female figure suggests ambiguity, that anyone could be in her position. Instead of focusing on her looking at the landscape, the viewer can imagine him or herself in the woman’s place.

            In the background, almost all the lines are horizontal. There is no intense use of line to suggest focal points or high interest points. From the shoreline to the hilltop the lines seem to be parallel to each other. Nothing stands out, so there is no need to pinpoint details in the scenery. The viewer is not stressed to find any meaning to the piece. The placements of the trees are vertical to the horizontal seating position of the woman on the grass. This creates a sort of right angle that places the woman right at the vertex. She is the point of interest, the high key hues used to formulate her enforces her as the focal point. Although she is the obvious focal point, again, the idea is not to see her within the space it is to see through her eyes the space. This idea is reinforced by the identity of the woman. You cannot see her face, so you cannot define her, you cannot read her expression, and you cannot tell what the narrative in the painting is. By having the woman be unidentifiable the viewer doesn’t focus all attention to her. Your eyes wander off to the landscape the woman is viewing giving the piece a relaxing and calm feeling.