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It began with an appreciation of the natural setting.
Impressionism in architecture started with an artistic appreciation of the way a building could look as though it was a part of the woods and trees it was built among. -
Ruth by Giovannt Baptista Lombardi
He uses classic white marble to add to the elegance of Ruth's lifelike lines. -
Madame Monet and Her Son by Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Renoir was one of the earliest founders of Impressionism along with his very close friend, Claude Monet. One of the most influential and long standing artists of all time, Renoir was a master of the portrait. The soft brush strokes of Impressionist painting lent a dreamy, introspective quality to his human subjects as they reveled in the soft beauty of tranquil, lush parks and gardens. -
Little Girl in a Blue Arm Chair by Mary Cassatt
And we must not forget the female Impressionists. American Mary Cassatt, at a time when women in the new world were fighting to get the right to vote on laws that affected them too, Cassatt's work celebrates women and children together, and apart, with a simple authenticity and an elegant pallet of color. -
The Stroller by Claude Monet
Monet did a beautiful job with the human form. He too, hints at a deeper place of self, than his usual works, in this lone woman who stares out at the viewer (or the artist) with a very unamused countenance. She is Suzanne Hosched, who was to become Monet's stepdaughter in 1892. She was his favorite model after his wife died in 1879. -
Haarzuilens Utrecht, Netherlands
All over Europe a concept of Neo-Renaissance swept the architecture of the very wealthy. Everyone who was tired of the dark Victorian style of art and design were also tired of the narrow windows and rooms of Victorian construction. Casting a Romantic eye back to the days of fairies and princes and dragons and knights, the late 19th century saw a revival of the Renaissance Castle, improved upon with the Impressionists love of Nature. Intricate gardenscaping became the fad. -
Young Woman at the Mirror by Berthe Morisot
The Impressionists were in France as a body and Berthe Morisot became one of them. She exhibited skill and talent equal to any of them. Her brush stroke was as fine as silk strands and her color pallet is elegant, with a subdued tint. -
"Giverny" Claude Monet's House in Giverny, France
Claude Monet purchased this house in Giverny in 1890 and immediately began construction of the immortalized gardens and water lily ponds of his masterpieces of Impressionism. The Impressionist required a natural environment to feed his soul. The tiny feathery brushstrokes mimic the intricate delicacy of the late 19th century blooming gardens. -
Starry Night Over the Rhone by Leonardo da Vinci
Van Gogh painted this amazing work to capture the flickering gaslights off of the deep blue of the nighttime Rhone. He is considered a Post Impressionist, although many impressionists were still painting and writing in the first two decades of the 20th century, and Van Gogh's work shares many characteristics with the Impressionists. -
A Bridge of Flowers
This bridge in a small French village is deliberately landscaped to be a bridge made of Nature between two dwellings. It is the epitome of the Impressionist thought to combine the utility of human comfort with the aesthetic beauty of natural flora. -
Monet's Garden Pathway at Giverny
The Garden Path was one of the Impressionist Master's living masterpieces. -
Inside Claude Monet's House at Giverny.
This is the sitting room at Giverny. The bright and bold color of his interior design displays a very marked departure from the typical dark, almost Puritan color schemes of most Victorian Era interior design. Monet very obviously loved bright colors in all aspects of his life. -
Banjo Players by Henry Ossawa Tanner
American Modernism is what was happening as the European Art World slid down a slope into Cubism and Fauvism and other bizarre forms of Expressionism. Henry Tanner, who was born into newly abolished slave attitude in the United States, post Civil War, became the first African American to gain international acclaim as an artist. He moved to France where the attitude about african Americans was not the hostile environment born in the American South. -
Garden Pond at Giverny
This is the famous bridge over the water lily pond. -
Young Girl with Daisies by Renoir
She bears a striking resemblance to the subject of one of younger nude bathers. One wonders if she is more than a model for the much older man. Regardless of any moral implication this portrait is a thing of soft, slightly sad beauty. The soulful expression on this girl's face hints at a slide toward the introspective school of Expressionism, which is a both a descendant and a contemporary of the Impressionists. -
Bridge over a Pond of Water Lilies
This is Claude Monet's Impression of the Garden Pond at his home in Giverny, France. -
Expressionism in Architecture
Expressionism looks a lot better in architecture than it does in oil on a canvas. Uniquely shaped building and strangely decorated buildings are the contributions of expressionism to architecture. Some of it goes to an extreme and the design becomes bizarre. The art work that begins under the Expressionism flag starts out too abstract for my taste, but its not so bad in buildings. The music is discordant to an off putting point. -
The Thinker by Auguste Rodin
Impressionism saturated every of art , even as it mixed and became Expressionism, or an indistinguishable bastardization of the two, with clear elements of both. There also existed at that same time the Post Impressionists. Van Gogh was considered Post Impressionist. This monochrome bronze sculpture is what three dimensional art looked like at the turn of the last past century. -
"Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad
People were reading Joseph Conrad and Henry James , James Joyce a little later. The stream of consciousness reflection of everything was an element of literary Impressionism. It is also a reflection of Expressionism. -
Water Lilies
One of approximately 250 different paintings of Monet's Water Lilies -
Clair de Lune (Moonsong) by Claude Debussey
He took his inspiration from the sounds of water in nature. It is the impression of a rushing stream with the sweet drops of rain. -
Controversial Second Act by Renoir
During the final chapter of this brilliant painter's life and career, he shifted gears. He stopped painting his beautiful Impressions of life "en plein aire" and got a studio where he focused on the female body in all of its sizes and shapes. His lines got bolder and his nymphs got bawdier, sexier. His settings were indoors, colors more rich and jewel toned. I think it is some of his best work.
