Everything you need to know about Impressionism: how a group of rebel artists 'freed painting'

Christie’s latest story Everything you need to know about Impressionism: how a group of rebel artists ‘freed painting’ offered a thorough, concise and informative introduction of the origin of impressionism. Coincidentally, in celebration of the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, the upcoming 20th Century Evening Sale (16, May 2024) features the presentation of Monet’s seminal painting, Moulin de Limetz, from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Heirs of Ethel B. Atha, accompanied by a few other exquisite examples by the artists who paved the way for the birth of 20th Century Art.

In short, the annual impressionism feast is on the way. This year, Moulin de Limetz (1888, Monet) is on the market:

impressionism 101:

Impressionism was almost the first avant-garde art movement. At the beginning, critics were almost harsh on this new-born style, almost being denounced as obscure, said the critic Louis Leroy in his scathing review of the exhibition for the satirical newspaper La Charivari: he wrote that, ‘a wallpaper in its embryonic state is more complete’ than Monet’s seascape.

The first exhibition to feature Impressionist painting took place at the former Paris studio of the famed photographer Nadar, who offered his space at 35 Boulevard des Capucines to a group of artists looking to show their work to the public.

That group, which included Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas and Paul Cezanne, would boldly challenge the tradition of European painting and change the course of art history. On 15 April 1874, they debuted the Première Exposition of the Société Anonyme, presenting paintings that privileged colour, the movement of light, and spontaneous views of contemporary life. It became known as the First Impressionist Exhibition, after the critic Louis Leroy’s notorious indictment of the exhibition as mere ‘impressions’, and is widely seen as the birthplace of modern art.

reject, reject, reject.

Notably, the Salon des Refusés was almost designed for impressionism paintings–or all avant-garde paintings that got rejected by the academy.

Throughout the 1860s and 1870s, the work of the Impressionists and other pathbreaking artists was frequently rejected by the prestigious Salon de Paris, the annual art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts, whose jurors favoured the idealised, ‘finished’ compositions and muted colour palette of academic painting. In 1863 when the Salon refused two thirds of its submissions, Emperor Napoleon III said that the rejected works deserved to be seen by the public and established the Salon des Refusés, where controversial paintings by Manet, Whistler and others made waves.

Btw, this Salon des Refuses reminded me of an episode of Freakonomics How to Succeed at Failing–where the host mentioned an interesting idea of a section in academia people’s CV of unsuccessful projects: failed fundings, rejected manuscripts and even traumatized careers. As well as an idea inspired by my flute teacher, almost be like:

Behind one successful milestone of innovation, like the Debussy’s ephemeral fantasies, there are countless unrecognized efforts. It is somehow vital to tolerate or even appreciate non-perfect, yet-seemingly-absurd avant-garde art works. Otherwise everything just… stays there.

game of the light, and shadows

Impressionism was speaking against the seriousness of the art that came before, refuting their over-emphasize on realistic rendering of scenes.

Through dramatic angles and a focus on light and saturated hues, the Impressionists captured the ethereal drama of fleeting moments and brought French painting into the present tense. Trading traditional linear perspective and modelling for loose brushwork and daubs of colour, their approach offered a provocative invitation to encounter the canvas as a surface.

Émile Zola called Impressionism ’the study of light in its thousands of decompositions and recompositions’. But it’s not only about a new attitude on canvas. Impressionism changed the way of how paintings were made and for whom it shall pay attention to.

The Impressionists’ unique style owes much to their insistence on painting outside of the studio. While previously artists often began a landscape outdoors and completed it later, painters like Monet, Renoir and Alfred Sisley worked on canvases from start to finish without returning to their studios, en plein air, as it was known.

Other factors contributes and constitutes Impressionism’s development and core ethic. Immersed as they were in the rich cultural scene of Paris in the late 19th century, the Impressionists maintained a particularly strong connection to the literary sphere of the time. New techonologies (trains, metal tubes to store paints) changed how and where paintings were made.

jokes on you

During the earliest time (around the late 1800s), challenges then for the Impressionists were lack of fundings. The world doesn’t change much–without the art academy’s endorsement, even Monet and Renoir lived in poverty. In general, the Impressionists mostly rely on individual patrons. But, things changes

Since that intrepid first exhibition 150 years ago, Impressionism remains one of the most influential art movements of all time. The Impressionists shattered the aesthetic norms of the time, while their dealers and supporters dismantled the system that had cast them out.

Impressionism marked the great first step toward pure abstraction, something which was unfathomable prior to them.

And the following story was all familiar. Standing on the shoulder of the braves, Fauvism, Expressionism ventured their way. Later on Surrealism, Dadaism and Abstract Expressioned marched onto claiming the market.

The legacy of the Impressionists continues to make waves, having inspired many early avant-garde movements and subsequent contemporary art styles through to the present. Those rebel artists of 1874 fundamentally changed the premise of art, prompting audiences to consider not just what we see but how we see the world around us.