The Beauty of Impressionist Art

Experience the passion of Impressionist art. Green, violet, flowing pink. In lively, proliferating brushstrokes, light trembling foliage, zigzag reflections on the water, the wake of fishing boats and yawls. A dress, only seemingly green, gliding at the bend of a garden path: a zebra pattern of sunlight on the couples stretched out on the grass. …

Read more

Alfred Sisley

Although Alfred Sisley was born in France, it is curious to find among the Impressionists (the painters who were perhaps the most sensitive to the French scene) two foreigners: Camille Pissarro, a Dane from the Antilles, and Alfred Sisley. The second, it is true, was actually born in Paris – on October 30th 1839 – …

Read more

Camille Pissarro

Camille Pissarro was not treated well by the critics of his time. Some ridiculed his love for green, violet, and blue. Others disliked his radical beliefs.

Read more

Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne is regarded as a member of the French Impressionists, but is also known for his exploration of the relationship between form and color: what he sought was to paint the eternal truths about the forms of nature. “Right now a moment is fleeting by! Capture its reality in paint! To do that we …

Read more

Edouard Manet

Edouard Manet was regarded in his time as the leader of the French Impressionists. He was one of the first to develop the technique of short, expressive brushstrokes and strong lighting, using his painting to portray the fashions and manners of his day in an outgoing, spontaneous way. “There is only one true thing: instantly …

Read more

Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin was a successful broker in Paris – until the day when he took up painting as a hobby. Then at the age of 35 began a transformation that changed a steady, respected member of society into a character so picturesque, so wild and free, that he became a legend. His art became the …

Read more

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was born in Paris on 19 July 1834. He came from a wealthy banking family and had a standard upper-class education at the Lycée Louis le Grand. After briefly studying law, he elected to become an artist, working under approved masters and spending several years in Italy, then regarded as the “finishing school” …

Read more

Vincent Van Gogh

This short Vincent van Gogh biography reveals how he shot himself in 1890, at the age of thirty-seven, and ended one of the shortest, most dramatic and brilliant careers of Impressionist art. In the span of less than ten years he created an unforgettable record, in countless paintings, of the inner drama of his life …

Read more

Pierre Auguste Renoir

When, in 1919, Pierre Auguste Renoir died in the south of France, the critic Elie Faure wrote, “It is as if the sun had gone out of the sky”. No other painter saw life so happily or caught more enchantingly the lyrical mood of Paris at the turn of the century. Renoir’s paintings remain a …

Read more

Claude Monet

In many ways, Claude Monet is the Impressionist. Throughout his long life – his career being longer than any other painter associated with the group – he devoted himself to a few limited principles, but he developed and refined these until he had exhausted their potentialities. His major aim was to render the optical sensations …

Read more