Hey Friends!
Do you know what Impressionism is? This is an art movement from the 1800s. It focused on light and the colors that artist can use to show people how it reflects off of different surfaces.
Do you know what Impressionism is? This is an art movement from the 1800s. It focused on light and the colors that artist can use to show people how it reflects off of different surfaces.
Sometimes when light touches objects, it can create more colors than we think we are seeing. When painters made scenes, they would make these colors bolder and easier to see and people loved this kind of work. They also didn’t work so hard to make their brush strokes too smooth. When you look at most Impressionist work you can see the brush strokes more clearly! But enough talking about it. Let’s see some examples of Impressionism!
This painting is called “Impression Sunrise.” What colors do you see here? I see lots of blue and orange. Claude Monet is a famous painter from this movement, and he made this painting. Can you see the colors he used? The orange is really bright, and even the tiny sun in the sky is a bright red. What are some other colors you see?
Artists used to paint portraits of wealthy families for money right before the Impressionist movement happened. After the camera was invented, people didn’t really need to paint portraits of themselves anymore. Artists needed to find another way to make paintings that people would want to buy. This is part of the reason the Impressionist movement was invented. Cameras back then were only black and white. And they couldn’t capture bold colors.
Here are some more paintings by Claude Monet!
Haystack
Waterlillies
Let’s do a quick activity. Find someone at home like a sibling, or mom or dad. Talk to them about this piece. What do you see? What time of day do you think it is? How can you tell? Do you think it’s a sad or a happy painting?
We even show similar work here at the Albany Museum of Art. What you see here is a mixed media art pierce by Katie Bacon. It looks a lot like Impressionist paintings, don’t you think? There are many bold colors that are created by the reflection of the sun's light. She makes them even more dramatic and bold.
