Impressionism Class Reaction

Last class we got to see a lot of painting from several painters of the Salon des Refuses, the Barbizon School and Impressionism. We got to see some of the Gods of painting: Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas. I think that the one that I enjoyed the most was the last one. Degas' work can be described in one word: challenging. The angle of vision and the cropping of the images he portrays make his work something really special. He isn't afraid of challenging the public with unexpected angles of vision, or by representing unimportant parts of the scene (people is looking at something that is important, but we can't see it!), or even presenting death spaces at the center of the painting (which is really important in most paintings)

Place de la Concorde

Impressionism in Music: Charles Tomlinson Griffes and Frederick Delius

Griffes' 'The White Peacock' and Delius' 'A Song of Summer' are a couple of melancholic pieces of music. I think that if they could be used on a film, characters will be suffering or living some serious drama. Personally, I got rather sad and lonely while listening the mentioned melodies.

'The White Peacock' featured a quite particular of piano that I completely enjoyed -even when I was getting melancholic-.

I could feel I was in a scenery like this while listening to these Impressionists

Impressionism in Literature: The Tachtigers: Jacques Perk and Albert Verwey

When I was reading Jacques Perk's and Albert Verwey's poems all I could think about is that those pieces could have been written by the young Werther to his confident Wilhem on Goethe's masterpiece 'The Sorrows of Young Werther'. Maybe I'm wrong, but these authors sort of reminded to the romanticist nature and beauty lovers. It seems that both authors are narrating a beautiful painting. I think anyone who reads 'Evensong' or 'Moonlight' will like to be in there and see with his or her own eyes what the poets are talking about.

Werther

Impressionist Sculpture: Medardo Rosso

I have one word for Rosso's sculptures: overwhelming. I had never seen such pieces of art and, in fact, I had never imagine that such abstract and grotesque figures could exist. Both 'Maternity' and 'The Golden Age' are astonishing, confusing, and alarming. Are those babies suffering or just being like any other crying baby? Are their mothers loving them? These sculpture leave a lot of unanswered questions.

Here are other two astonishing, confusing, and alarming sculptures of Medardo Rosso:

Sick Old Man

Book maker

Impressionism in Music: Maurice Ravel

As I have already said, I don't know a lot about music, but I have always found violins, violas and cellos as the perfect combination for music. Ravel's 'String Quartet, 2nd movement' seems to me to have a perfect balance between calm and soft music and some crazy sequence of notes (somehow like Debussy's 'Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune'); it is a really enjoyable piece of music. I think Ravel was a great composer and I am amazed that his few works are still played nowadays. 

String instruments are my favourite. A violin or a cello can make me happy forever; so, I'm going to share a couple of videos of 2CELLOS making a cover of 'Smooth Criminal' and 'Viva la Vida'

James Abbot McNeill Whistler

Whistler is contrasting. His 'Nocturnes' are a couple of ugly paintings! There are some paintings that aren't really pretty or beautiful, but that are still great works (the best example for me would be Goya's 'Saturn Devouring His Son'), but Whistler's 'Nocturnes' are just ugly for me. However, his 'Peacock Room' is REALLY impressive, almost perfect, precise details. It seems that we're actually standing in there! 

Gustave Caillebotte

Rainy Day, Paris

Caillebotte's paintings have become part of my favourites so far in this course. His work is simply fantastic and hypnotic. 

Personally, I could stare at 'Rainy Day, Paris' for hours and never get tired. When I first took a look at 'Rainy Day, Paris' I could actually feel that I was at Paris once again; it portrays the exact same atmosphere that I have hold in my memory. This painting looks so natural to me: people there are just doing what normal people are supposed to do, there's nothing special going on in there, but somehow the panorama amazes me. Maybe is the mystery of what is that couple looking at, maybe is that building in the back or maybe is that death sky. Anyway, this painting is simply marvellous!

'Young man at the Window" and "Interior" are two pieces of pure mystery in different ways. Both portray people from behind looking out of the window. In my opinion, the first painting expresses powerfulness.. that man is satisfied with his life and looks dominantly at the window. The second one gives a rather reclusive atmosphere; it seems to me that that woman is melancholic, waiting for something to happen, something that will thrill her life with that man reading the newspaper... 

Impressionism in Music: Claude Debussy

I think that the most difficult art to review is music. It is hard for me to criticize music because I don't really know a lot about it; however, I can affirm that Debussy's 'Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune' has enchanted me. At first, I just though 'well if this is impressionist music, I'm not quite impressed by this calm and pretty much familiar music', but then there's this magical drastic change in the music and a bunch of exalted sounds combining that just amazed me. In fact, I end up liking how this piece mixes some calm music intervals with some crazy music intervals. I think 'Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune' could be a perfect piece for a silent film.

As an extra, I found another piece of Claude Debussy that enchanted me as much as 'Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune': 'Clair de Lune'