Impressionism & Post-Impressionism

What is Impressionism?

Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement started in France.

•The Impressionists wanted to capture a moment in time.

•They were more concerned with the light and colour of a certain moment than with the details of objects they were painting.

•They often painted outdoors and worked quickly using rapid brush strokes to capture the light before it changed.

•They usually paint common everyday subjects and nature.

The shades are produced by using the complementary colour of that of the light zone.

Here you have another video to understand it.

What happened before, during and after Impressionism and Post-Impressionism?

In this period:

  • Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species" where he introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.

  • We are in the Industrial Revolution.

  • Inventions

    • The telephone (Antonio Meucci)

    • The Coca-Cola (John Pemberton)

    • The electric generator, the Electrical transfer system, Fluorescent lamp, the radio, the radio control, the Alternating electric current ACDC, the X-Ray generator, the turbine and the Tesla coil (Nikola Tesla)

    • The praxinoscope (Émile Reynaud)

  • Rodin sculpts The Thinker

  • Claude Monet was a French painter and one of the creators of the impressionism. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise).

  • Gustave Eiffel built the Eiffel Tower

  • Karl Marx writes the Communist Manifesto.

  • Thomas Alva Edison DID NOT invent the light bulb, he just improved and patented it a few years later. He hadn't the idea. Humphry Davy invented it! Nobody knows him but he had more merit than Edison.

  • Alexander Graham Bell DID NOT invent the phone, he just got the patent! Antonio Meucci invented it 16 years before! But he couldn't pay for the patent... During the rest of his life he tried to demonstrate that he was the real inventor and he died in 1889 very depressed and poor.

In conclusion: It doesn't matter who invents something, but who gets it to be functional and who patents it first!

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was a French painter and sculptor. He was born in 1834 and died in 1917

He was one of the founders of the Impressionism.

Degas was one of the great artists of history for his masterful capture of the sensations of life and movement, especially in his works of dancers, horse races and nudes. His portraits are very appreciated for the psychological complexity and sensation of truth that they transmit.

Some of his bests artworks are:

Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh was a Dutch impressionist painter. He was born on the 30th of March 1853 and died the 29th of July 1890.

Between his artworks we can find landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, that are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. His suicide at 37 followed years of mental illness and poverty.

Some of his artworks are:

Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin was a French artist. He was born in 1848 and died in 1903.

He was a very well-known post-Impressionist after his death for his particular use of color and his synthetic style.

His most famous artworks are:

George Seurat

George Seurat was born the 2nd December 1859 and died the 29th March 1891.

He was a French post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is very known for his painting techniques known as chromoluminarism and pointillism.

Some of his most important artworks are:

In class

ACTIVITIES:

  1. Brush Strokes: draw a landscape and provide it with movement with your strokes.

  2. Million points or dots: Watch Mati & Dada's video and make a drawing in an A5 paper just with dots or points with the primary and secondary colours.

Copia de Brush Strokes
Million Points or Dots

MATERIALS:

  • Thick paper

  • Acrylic paint

  • Magazines or coloured papers

  • Glue stick

  • Markers

Voluntary work

If you consider yourself as an artist and you love paper architecture here you have two awesome modernist mockups.

You need not build them during class time. Just at home or during your breaks (playground)

If you finish one of them:

  • You will receive a special certificate

  • We will exhibit your mockup in the hall of the school

  • We will take a photo of you and your mockup and it will be uploaded to Mirasur's Facebook page and to the MirArt webpage.

Who knows! Maybe you become a famous paper artist one day!