There was so much great stuff at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art I had to make this post on Impressionism and another on “everything else”, and I’m not even sorry.
Monet’s 1872 painting Impression Sunrise gave the Impressionist movement its name when it debuted at an 1874 Paris exhibition. Impressionist painters generally painted ‘en plein air’ (outside) with free brush strokes and a focus on capturing the light.
Snow at Argenteuil, 1874-1875, Claude Monet.
The Lock of Saint–Mammes, 1885, Alfred Sisley.
Monet was famous for having several paintings going at once, each capturing the same scene at different points of daylight (so as the morning progressed, for instance, he would move down the line on his canvases, so to speak). Famous examples are his Water Lillies and Haystacks series, of which he painted 250 and 30, respectively.
When the Impressionist movement began in Paris, Americans generally didn’t think too much of it. However, some artists took it up, including John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, and Theodore Robinson, and by the early 1890s, the movement had taken hold in America, as well.
The cover photo is The Duck Pond, around 1888-1893, Theodore Robinson.
Water Lilies, around 1915-1926, Claude Monet. It turns out this huge piece is one part of a three-piece set – and we’d just seen one of the others at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Gonna have to get ourselves to the Cleveland Art Museum to put it all together, I guess!
I can’t resist a close-up of Monet’s water lilies!
Boats Decorated with Flags in the Port of Deauville,1895, Eugene Boudin.
At the Window, around 1910-1912, Richard Edward Miller.
Portrait of Paul Haviland,1884, Pierre-Auguste Renoir.
The Sonata, 1893, Childe Hassam.
Trouville, Beach Scene, 1874, Eugene Boudin.
The Garden of LesMathurins at Pontoise, 1876, Camille Pissarro.
Marlborough Street, Boston, circa 1889, Childe Hassam.
Banks of the Seine at Port Marly, 1871, Camille Pissarro.
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