The French Impressionists (1860-1900)Mauclair, Camille
Philosophy
The French Impressionists (1860-1900)
Mauclair, Camille
Impressionism (Art); Painters -- France; Painting -- France -- History
It would be evidently unreasonable to attach to Impressionism all that
is ante-academical, and between the two extremes there is room for a
crowd of interesting artists. We shall not succumb to the prejudice of
the School by declaring, in our turn, that there is no salvation outside
Impressionism, and we have been careful to state repeatedly that, if
Impressionism has a certain number of principles as kernel, its
applications and its influence have a radiation which it is difficult to
limit. What can be absolutely demonstrated is, that this movement has
had the greatest influence on modern illustration, sometimes through its
colouring, sometimes simply through the great freedom of its ideas. Some
have found in it a direct lesson, others an example to be followed.
Some have met in it technical methods which pleased them, others have
only taken some suggestions from it. That is the case, for instance,
with Legrand, with Steinlen, and with Renouard; and it is also the case
with the lithographer Odilon Redon, who applies the values of Manet and,
in his strange pastels, the harmonies of Degas and Renoir, placing them
at the service of dreams and hallucinations and of a symbolism which is
absolutely removed from the realism of these painters. It is, finally,
the case with the water-colour painter Henri Rivière, who is misjudged
as to his merit, and who is one of the most perfect of those who have
applied Impressionist ideas to decorative engraving. He has realised
images in colours destined to decorate inexpensively the rooms of the
people and recalling the grand aspects of landscapes with a broad
simplification which is derived, curiously enough, from Puvis de
Chavannes's large decorative landscapes and from the small and precise
colour prints of Japan. Rivière, who is a skilful and personal poetic
landscapist, is not exactly an Impressionist, in so far as he does not
divide the tones, but rather blends them in subtle mixtures in the
manner of the Japanese. Yet, seeing his work, one cannot help thinking
of all the surprise and freedom introduced into modern art by
Impressionism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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