Brushstrokes (Part 2 of 3) - The 19th Century

By the mid-1800s, after the American and French revolutions, societies began to focus on the needs and rights of everyday people. This change influenced artists as well, bringing on the realist movement, which focused on painting unidealized real life. One of the artists in this period, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, developed a fresh approach to brushwork in order to better capture what he saw in nature. His goal was immediacy, to enable the viewer to experience what he experienced in that exact moment. His strokes were wispy and his touch very light. In fact, if you look very closely, you can see that he sweeps or feathers a fairly dry brush across the surface, giving his forms a fresh artistic appearance. He also dabbed small highlights of paint or used freely painted independent strokes to enhance the breezy feeling. In order to get as close to reality as possible, Corot would often work outside and add white to all of his paints, and that way he could better communicate the true colors of nature. He also strove to capture natural light, and for all these reasons, Corot is often considered the first Impressionist. Edward Manet was a contemporary of Corot's and represents a giant leap in a new artistic direction. He's said to bridge the gap between realism and Impressionism. Manet didn't want his work to just be a window to the world. He wanted it to be a piece of art in and of itself, and so he was more willing to experiment. Like many of the artists of his day, Manet was highly influenced by Asian art when trade opened with Japan in 1853. The artistic innovations in these prints caused a sensation in Western art. Artists, and Manet in particular, began to implement into their own work some of what they saw, and this includes the idea of patches of color rather than gradual gradients. His brushwork looks a lot like what we see with the Impressionists, strokes that are individual, directional, fairly short, and also repetitive. He sometimes includes a harsh outlining of forms, and he doesn't use much shadowing, giving his figures a flat appearance. Manet also made popular the idea of painting a la prima, where the artist lays down in a single layer impasto paint, capturing the desired colors in a single effort. Manet's revolutionary style was inspirational to many of the Impressionists to come, and in fact he often painted alongside Manet. But he was never really considered an Impressionist due to his continued use of black and his unwillingness to exhibit in the group's exhibitions. In addition to societal changes and the influence of Japanese prints, technology was an integral part of the development of Impressionism. One such innovation was the development of the camera. Because society could now record images of scenes and loved ones, artists were free to veer away from painting realistic representations of life. Another event that was influential was the advancement of painting materials. Paint tubes were developed, meaning artists didn't have to make it themselves, and the paint was transportable. And ready-made canvases were now available. These two innovations meant that artists could now take their supplies outside and even complete a finished painting on location. But now that they were trying to paint it in one sitting, time was limited, so they had to develop a quicker way to paint. And this is what led to Impressionism. Claude Manet is probably the most recognizable name when it comes to the Impressionists, and alongside Renoir is one of its foundational members. His style was initially influenced by the work of Manet, but the abbreviated strokes of color picked up from Manet became small dashes of color in the hands of Manet. By the 1870s, Manet had fully developed his style. He was really the first artist to develop a system of shorter, quicker brushstrokes, and this was due to the time restrictions of the changing light while painting outside. Like Corot, Manet added white to all of his colors in order to better reflect the light in nature. He and Renoir would work finished paintings on location rather than just studies, which was a common practice at the time. They often had to return to a scene repeatedly in order to complete a painting. Manet's brushstrokes were vigorous and generally didn't change in size to convey depth. His style went from typical Impressionism with the broken expressive lines and dabs, to a very impasto, kind of a smeared look, to a much thinner style later in his career with a focus on lines and patches of color that reflect what is seen post-Impressionist movement. Pierre-Auguste Renoir was one of the original Impressionist painters, working alongside Manet as they developed what is known as the Impressionist style. Renoir painted with much thinner paint than his colleagues. His translucent layers were almost like washes of color seen in watercolor painting, and notice the distinct feathering effect with the strong bristle lines of a hog hair brush. They were applied with painterly strokes, or he might rub the paint on in order to provide a slight layer of color. Renoir preferred to apply his colors directly to the canvas wet and wet, and then he would slur them together with incredibly free brushwork. He also allowed his colored grounds to show through his translucent layers and spots. In the 1880s, Renoir also painted next to Cezanne and incorporated some of Cezanne's repetitive directional brushstrokes into his own work, and this pushed his style closer to that of the post-Impressionists later in his career. Paul Cezanne is an artist that crosses multiple stylistic categories. His aim was to reflect nature according to his sensations. He painted his forms very simply, with dark outlines and incorrect perspective. His style was very flat and very unique, but he's also known for the use of repetitive flat planes of color and rhythmic directional brushstrokes in almost parallel diagonal lines. Cezanne was very particular about the color of every brushstroke, feeling that each stroke was important. Now Cezanne is often listed as a post-Impressionist, but he really adhered to the naturalistic ideals of the Impressionists throughout his career. It's said that he actually bridges the gap between Impressionism and Cubism, and today he's actually considered the father of modern art. In the late 1800s, a group of artists began seeking a more orderly way to apply their brushwork. These artists strove for unification, painting all the strokes relatively the same size. They wanted brushwork to be impersonal, and these orderly impersonal brushstrokes are what led to what is known as Neo-Impressionism. Neo-Impressionists had an affinity for laying down pure color next to each other with very little mixing, letting the viewer's eye optically mix the colors upon sight. George Seurat was the inventor of this new method of painting. Seurat was looking for a scientific, methodical way to convey natural light and atmosphere, and in the summer of 1885, he developed his dot method of applying paint that would eventually be called pointillism. His theory is that patches of complementary color placed next to each other would enhance each of the individual colors and therefore produce a kind of shimmering light when seen at a distance. So like Leonardo da Vinci, Neo-Impressionists used scientific analysis to influence their art. The Post-Impressionists focused on emotions rather than recording what they saw. Their colors were more simplified and forms were more harshly defined. There was even a hint of abstraction. But Post-Impressionists were not anti-Impressionists. They just wanted to push beyond it. The primary artists in this movement were Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin. Vincent Van Gogh felt that Impressionism didn't allow for enough artistic expression. He's said to have confessed to a friend that he intentionally painted with such expressive force that viewers would say he had no technique. Van Gogh was the king of rhythmic directional brush strokes, combining them with his bold complementary color schemes and a very heavy impasto paint in order to express his feelings rather than just what he saw. Notice in this sketch that he did for his painting The Harvest, he's planned out the direction of his various brush strokes. And now here's the finished painting. Van Gogh felt that this was one of his best paintings, even commenting to his brother that the canvas absolutely kills all the rest. And his innovative style had an important impact on future generations. All this is even more impressive when you consider that his career only lasted for 10 years. Another Post-Impressionist who showed great innovation was Paul Gauguin. Like Manet and Cézanne before him, he paints patches of color. But Gauguin takes the concept a step farther, painting large, flat areas of almost single color without much form and very distinct outlines. His style is often referred to as cloisonnism because of its similarity to cloisonné, an artistic form of metalwork. As you can see, like Gauguin, cloisonné features isolated segments of color and highly outlined forms. His application of paint is very flat and his brush strokes generic, almost indistinguishable. In fact, he seems to show a complete lack of attention to brushwork. His style is actually reminiscent of the pre-Renaissance tempra paintings because of the flatness of the appearance, the nondescript brush strokes, as well as the masses of color. And it's also something that we see a lot of in the century to come, when art tends to focus more on shape, color, and line.