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Impressionism
A Brief History

French/European
Impressionists

Monet, Claude
Van Gogh,Vincent
Renoir, Pierre Auguste
Degas, Edgar
Cezanne, Paul
Seurat, Georges
Manet, Eduoard
Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri
Sisley, Alfred
Pissarro, Camille Jacob
Morisot, Berthe
Boudin, Eugene
Caillebotte, Gustave
Sorolla, Joaquin
Fantin-Latour, Henri
Bonnard, Pierre
Gauguin, Paul
Vuillard, Edouard
Martin, Henri
Redon, Odilon
Other Impressionists

American
Impressionists

Thompson, Richard Earl
Cassatt, Mary
Sargent, John Singer
Whistler, James McNeill
Hassam, Childe
Benson, Frank Weston
Prendergast, Maurice
Twachtman, John Henry
Chase, William Merritt
Tarbell, Edward
Vonnoh, Robert
Reid, Robert
Metcalf, Willard
Beaux, Cecilia
Potthast, Edward
Chadwick, William
Hale, Philip Leslie
Curran, Charles Courtney
Graves, Abbott Fueller
Frieseke, Frederick
Glackens, William
Maley, Alan
Ruby, Claire
Terelak, John C
Wallis, Kent
Schofield, Michael
Plisson, Henri
Romanello, Diane
Singley, Greg
Title, Christian
Horning, Elizabeth
Hatfield, Don
Aspevig, Clyde
Afsary, Cyrus
Hayslette, Max
Schmid, Richard
Dunlay, Thomas
Ellis, Ray
Gertenbach, Lynn
Zhan, Charles
Duncan, Robert
Hails, Barbara
Wood, Barbara
Behrens, Howard
Other Impressionists

Popular Favorites

Dali, Salvador
Michelangelo
Da Vinci, Leonardo
Picasso, Pablo
Rockwell, Norman
Matisse, Henri E
Klimt, Gustav
Escher, M.C.
Mucha, Alphonse
Potter, Beatrix
Geddes, Anne
Anderson, Kim
Vettriano, Jack
O'Keeffe, Georgia
Parrish, Maxfield
Homer, Winslow
Hopper, Edward
Wyeth, Andrew

 

Edgar Degas, (1834 -1917), reflects a concern for the psychology of movement and expression and the harmony of line and continuity of contour. These characteristics set Degas apart from the other impressionist painters, although he took part in all but one of the 8 impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. Degas was the son of a wealthy banker, and his aristocratic family background instilled into his early art a haughty yet sensitive quality of detachment. As he grew up, his idol was the painter Jean Auguste Ingres, whose example pointed him in the direction of a classical draftsmanship, stressing balance and clarity of outline. After beginning his artistic studies with Louis Lamothes, a pupil of Ingres, he started classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts but left in 1854 and went to Italy. He stayed there for 5 years, studying Italian art, especially Renaissance works. Returning to Paris in 1859, he painted portraits of his family and friends and a number of historical subjects, in which he combined classical and romantic styles. In Paris, Degas came to know Édouard Manet, and in the late 1860s he turned to contemporary themes, painting both theatrical scenes and portraits with a strong emphasis on the social and intellectual implications of props and settings. In the early 1870s the female ballet dancer became his favorite theme. He sketched from a live model in his studio and combined poses into groupings that depicted rehearsal and performance scenes in which dancers on stage, entering the stage, and resting or waiting to perform are shown simultaneously and in counterpoint, often from an oblique angle of vision. On a visit in 1872 to Louisiana, where he had relatives in the cotton business, he painted The Cotton Exchange at New Orleans (finished 1873; Musée Municipal, Pau, France), his only picture to be acquired by a museum in his lifetime. Other subjects from this period include the racetrack, the beach, and cafe interiors. After 1880, Pastel became Degas's preferred medium. He used sharper colors and gave greater attention to surface patterning, depicting milliners, laundresses, and groups of dancers against backgrounds now only sketchily indicated. For the poses, he depended more and more on memory or earlier drawings. Although he became guarded and withdrawn late in life, Degas retained strong friendships with literary people. In 1881 he exhibited a sculpture, Little Dancer (a bronze casting of which is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and as his eyesight failed thereafter he turned increasingly to sculpture, modeling figures and horses in wax over metal armatures. These sculptures remained in his studio in disrepair and were cast in bronze only after his death

 

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