Wayne VanDyke, age 15, of Orlando, Fla., for his question:
CAN YOU EXPLAIN IMPRESSIONISM?
Impressionism is a style of art that presents an immediate impression of an object or event. Impressionist painters try to show what the eye sees at a glance, rather than what they know or feel about the object or incident.
Impressionist painters try to reproduce light as it appears to the eye when reflected from the surface of things. For this reason, many impressionistic paintings have an effect of vibrating brilliance.
Some impressionist painters achieve the production of light by using the divided color technique. They apply paint in small individual spots of pure color, instead of mixing it on the palette.
There are impressionistic works of music, literature and sculpture, but impressionism is most important in the art of painting.
Painters and other artists have created impressionistic works of art in several periods of history. But the term "impressionism" is most commonly applied to the work of a group of French artists who revolutionized painting with shimmering, colorful pictures. They did their major work from about 1870 to about 1910. The term impressionism was first used to describe a Paris exhibition of their works in 1874.
The French impressionists were influenced by a realistic movement in painting that took place during the mid 1800s and by the scientific study of light and color, which gained importance at the same time. Some of the impressionists may have been influenced by the then new science of photography.
The impressionists favored composition that seemed informal and spontaneous. They painted rapidly, rather than developing their composition from studies and sketches. They preferred to work out of doors, in the natural light.
Sometimes impressionists painted the same subject several times in different atmospheric situations to show several times how colors and surface effects change at various times of day.
Included in the most important French impressionists were Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet and Pierre Auguste Renoir.
Manet was a realistic painter who influenced the development of impressionism. He departed from the symbolic and story telling qualities of earlier art and dealt with pure, often everyday visual experiences.
Pissarro and Sisley painted the French countryside and river scenes. Monet was especially interested in subtle changes in atmosphere. Degas did not use the divided color technique, but his compositions were spontaneous and immediate. He enjoyed painting ballet dancers and horse races.
Renoir loved to show the effect of sunlight on figures and flowers.