The Impressionists
August Renoir: Portrait of Monet, 1875. Louvre, Paris.

The following phrase was said of the impressionists after one of their admirers, Castagnary, saw the first impressionist art show:

The common view that brings these artists together in a group and makes of them a collective force within our disintegrating age is their determination not to aim for perfection, but to be satisfied with a certain general aspect. Once the impression is captured, they declare their role finished. The term Japanese, which was given to them first, made no sense. If one wishes to characterize and explain them with a single word, then one would have to coin the term impressionist. They are impressionist in that they do not render a landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape...Thus they take leave of reality and enter the realms of idealism. 4

(Jules-Antoine) Castagnary, Le Siecle, 29 April 1874

All of the impressionist paintings had one common landscape: that was modern Europe. The impressionists therefore were painting the impressions they had on society and the world in general. Impressionism is a form of art that had rebellious beginnings. The artists themselves, the impressionists, who created these paintings pushed the boundaries of everything that was considered acceptable art and everything that was not. Their methods were extremely abstract compared to the romantic methods which were the status-quo in the early nineteenth century. But even though the art itself was progressive, this did not bind the artist into having radical views on society and it's structure. Therefore, even though it may seem that speaking of impressionists as conformists in the psychological sense (by abiding by the socially constricting rules of society) seems contradictory, it is not.

The art the impressionists made and the topics of the art itself were two completely different spheres that should not be confused with one another. And even though their art was at the edge of society, they were not completely immune to the "normal" social placement and one of the beliefs of the society which was that males were superior to women. However, not all impressionists had the same views on the world. And while some of the paintings reflect modernity in a positive light, others reflect it in a negative one. Although the original intent that the artist had behind each painting can never be exactly found, that is what the artist wanted the viewer to see. This can be seen in the ways in which the images of different places and people of the modern city appears.

4 www.artchive.com/galleries/1874/74cmt089.htm

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