Week 3

 

Here is an article from the NYT on Renoir and faded-colors due to the chemical breakdown of his paints.

RENOIR SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS

One of things that I am quite fascinated by is the material and technological bases for art-making. As we talked about last week- industrially manufactured paint in tubes made "en plein air" painting a lot more convenient. It also seems to have contributed to the growth of rich impasto bush-strokes, thick daubs of paint right out of the tube were placed directly on to the canvas by people like Van Gogh who sought to communicate the energy of their feelings through the force of the placement of the paints (at least that's how we often understand these works).

This week the umbrella topics will be LIGHT/ COLOR/ PHOTOGRAPHY and their relationship to the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters.

Here is the link to GOOGLE CULTURAL INSTITUTE where you can look up thousands of paintings or painters and ZOOM IN on the details of their work. It's a truly exciting resource.

Here is a short article and video on a recent exhibit in Michigan of a number of Impressionist painters and the photographs that either influenced or inspired them, or were simply a part of the popular visual world in which they were living.

Reexamining Link between Rise of Photography and Impressionism

The following are the videos we watched in class as well as a three part French made documentary on Pointilism and Seurat

Consider how the Impressionists and the artists after them working in Paris were fascinated by urban life and the modern elements of speed, crowds and luminosity! This energy is certainly captured by the use of time-lapse.

As we discussed in class- LOIE FULLER was an American expatriate dancer who took Paris by storm using new technologies of stage lighting, many of which she pioneered and patented. Here is Jody Sperling of Time Lapse Dance performing as Loie Fuller.

Claude Monet was constantly striving to understand how light changed the experience of material reality. His studies of Rouen Cathedral are a prime example of this life-long fascination with the play of light on the surfaces of the natural and human-made world.

This charming French film uses LIGHT as its major theme to explore the world of Seurat and the Pointilists. The intergenerational differences between Seurat and the older gents of the Impressionist movement are also shown.

Week 2

Renoir, "Ball at the Moulin de la Galette", 1876

WEEK 2: Impressionist Visions: New Worlds, New Subjects, New Effects/Affects

This week we'll explore the remaking/rebuilding of Paris through the destructive brilliance of Baron Haussmann and the Imperial ego of Napoleon III-- sample new modes of living, consuming, looking and loving from cafés-concert and les maisons closes (brothels) to the Hippodrome and les expositions universelles (world's fairs)-- and finally we'll listen in to the response of critics and collectors alike as they declaim on this radical new way of ENVISIONING THE MODERN METROPOLE!

Also- last week I mentioned a website that shows the paintings in each of the eight annual Impressionist exhibitions-- that site is here

If you scroll down to the bottom of the page found at the link above,  you will see a link to each of the exhibitions!

Learn more about the painter Caillbotte and the rebuilding of Paris with Prof. Kenney Mencher (check out his many wonderful art history videos on Youtube)

Learn more about Belle Epoque Paris from Yale professor John Merriman, a world authority on France in the 19th century.

Week 1:

Georges Seurat, "Circus Side Show" 1887

I am very much looking forward to meeting you all today and beginning our adventure into the rich world of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

Teaching at OLLI will be a new experience for me. I am excited about working with all of you to create a mutually rewarding and enriching atmosphere where we can learn from one another.

Although we'll have no official textbook I want to share a few recommendations for texts that I've used to prepare my lectures and that I think you'll find helpful. All of them are quite inexpensive and can be easily purchased either used or new on Amazon.com

1.) Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society by Robert L. Herbert

2.) Impressionism edited by Ingo F. Walther (this can be bought in two volumes or in one small
volume- be aware the print is small in the one volume set- although its compactness makes it fairly easy to carry around.)

3.) The Impressionists at First Hand edited by Bernard Denvir

I am also very big on using new media resources and will certainly be sending you links and websites that I find helpful as we go along.

Please be aware of the Kahn Academy's Smart History Videos. These are mini-lectures on artworks from across history- with short articles to flesh out basic ideas or give helpful overviews of particular movements.

Smarthistory Impressionism page

Here are two articles that will (I hope) illuminate today's lecture and also help us think about the important concept of modernity as we go through the class. One is from Baudelaire's essays on modern art the other is a short essay on the history of the terms "Intransigents" and "Impressionists"- two terms used to describe the artists we now call Impressionist. The author shows us how both of these words were entangled with ideas concerning "Revolution" which was certainly much on the mind of Parisians in the 19th century.

1.) Baudelaire's The Painter of Modern Life

2.) Intransigents -- article on the origin of the word "Impressionism"

3.) Click here to find an article discussing the Baudelaire essay in detail

For those of you eager to dig more deeply into the topic check out this rather exhaustive website for a course on Impressionism at Michigan State University.

Not all of the links work- but there are many that do and you can easily download PDFs of articles that you find interesting or of help regarding this rather inexhaustible subject.