monet and the impressionists

Monet and the Impressionists

Learning Objective: To explore what Impressionism is and where and when it began.

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Have you heard the term ‘Impressionism’ before?

Do you know anything about it?




Fashions and trends come and go in art, just like clothing fashions change over time. When a new style of art is developed by a group

of artists, it is known as a movement. Impressionism is an art movement that began in France in the mid-19th century.

Over the next few lessons, we will be

exploring Impressionism through

one of the most famous Impressionist artists,

Claude Monet. Claude Monet, 1898




Monet was born in Paris on 14th November 1840. At this time, Paris was the art capital of Europe. Nowhere has as many places to study art as France. However, art schools had strict rules about what should and shouldn’t be

painted. Academic art (the art taught by the academies) favoured traditional subjects, such as historical or religious scenes, portraits of wealthy people and royalty, landscapes and still life. These paintings were very technical and were almost never based on what the artist saw but rather what the artist imagined.

Let’s have a look at some examples of French

Academic art...




Tristan and Isolde is a medieval story about the love between a knight and a princess.

‘Tristan and Isolde’ by Hugues Merle, 1870

What do you think of this painting?

What words would you use to describe it?




“The Death of Caesar” by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1867Julius Caesar was a Roman emperor who was murdered.

What do you think of this

painting?

What words

would you use to

describe it?




“Song of the Angels” by Adolphe-William Bouguereau, 1881

This painting shows three angels singing to baby Jesus and his mother, Mary.

What do you think of this painting?

What words would you use to describe it?




The art establishment at the time controlled what was taught but also what was exhibited. The Salon was the major art exhibit but you could

only have your painting displayed if a panel of judges agreed that it was good enough. Anything that was a different style was not accepted.

However, artists like Monet were starting to paint in a

different way. They wanted to start painting scenes showing snapshots of what everyday life was like. They wanted to

capture a real moment instead of painting historical

or romanticised scenes.

Have a look at the painting on the next

slide. How is this painting different in

style to the Academic paintings we have just seen?




“Boulevard des Capucines” by Claude Monet, 1873




Impressionists like Monet wanted to paint aspects of the modern world. They wanted to capture fleeting moments in their paintings. To do this, they

painted in a way that was quick, using dabs of paint instead of the fine brushstrokes of the Academics. They didn’t paint scenes from history or

imagined landscapes. They painted what they saw when they saw it. Light was very important to

Impressionists. They spent a lot of time exploring how light

itself affected the landscape. In many Impressionist paintings, the atmosphere created by the light itself was more important

than what the painting was actually showing. Their aim

was to capture this light.

“Field of Tulips in Holland” Claude Monet, 1886




There were lots of reasons for this change in artistic style. One of the major factors was the invention of paints in tubes. In the past, artists

had had to mix pigments themselves to create paints, which made painting out of doors very difficult. The invention of paint tubes meant

that artists could easily paint outside and paint what they saw instead of having to rely on memory and painting inside a studio.

The Impressionists loved to paint out of doors. Outside, they could

observe the sunlight and its effect on the scene.




The nineteenth century was a time of great change. The Industrial Revolution was taking place and life in cities was booming like never before.

The Impressionists liked to record these changes and paint pictures of modern life. The art establishment at the time thought cities, factories, trains

and indeed ordinary people were not appropriate subjects for fine art. “Train in the Snow” Claude Monet, 1875

What do you think the art establishment would

have thought of this painting? Why?



This photo shows a cafe in Paris. It

was taken sometime before 1900. What can

you see?


Another influence on the Impressionists was the invention of photography. Photos could now capture a fleeting moment in time and show aspects of everyday life that artists had never recorded before.

The Impressionists wanted to mimic this in their artwork.




None of the judges would let any of the Impressionists show their work at the Salon so they decided to hold their own exhibition instead. It was at their first

exhibition in 1874 that the Impressionist movement was given its name. Many critics and members of the public scorned the exhibition. One critic, Louis Leroy, said of Monet’s painting ‘Impression, Sunrise’ that “a preliminary

drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.” “Impression, Sunrise” Claude Monet, 1872 Leroy entitled his article ‘The

Exhibition of the Impressionists’. It was meant as an insult but Monet

and his friends rather liked it so they started calling themselves the

Impressionists!




Despite not being accepted to begin with, the Impressionists became very popular and produced some of the most famous and beloved paintings in the world. Have you heard of any of these other famous Impressionist artists?

Edgar Degas Pierre-Auguste Renoir Camille Pissarro

Alfred Sisley Paul Cézanne Berthe Morisot



monet and the impressionists

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