Impressionist Artists
How to tell them apart.
|
Artist |
Manet |
Monet |
Renoir |
Degas |
| Subjects | Updated Old Masters themes, painted contemporary scenes with hard edges | Landscapes, waterfront scenes, series on filed of poppies, cliffs, haystacks, poplars, Rouen Cathedral; late work: near-abstract water lilies | Voluptuous, peach-skinned female nudes, cafe society, children, flowers | Pastel portraits of human figures in stop-action pose; ballerinas, horse races, cafe society, laundresses, circus; lake work: nudes bathing |
| Colours | Dark patches against light, used black as accent; early: sombre; late: colourful | Sunny hues, pure primary colours dabbed side by side (shadows were complementary colours dabbed side by side) | Rich reds, primary colours, detested black &emdash; used blue instead | Gaudy hues side by side for vibrancy: early soft pastel; late: broad smears of acid coloured pastels |
| Style | Simplified forms with minimal modeling, flat color patches outlined in black | Dissolved form of subject into light and atmosphere, soft edges, classic impressionist look | Early: quick brushstrokes, blurred figures blended into hazy background; late: more Classical style, solidly formed nudes | Offbeat angles with figures cropped at edge of canvas, asymmetrical composition with void at centre |
| Advice | Not much of a theorist but did say artist “simply seek to be himself and no one else” | “Try to forget what objects you have before you, a tree, a house, a filed or whatever. Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you.” | “Paint with joy, with the same joy that you would make love to a woman.” | “Even when working from nature, one has to compose.” |
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