The artists who would become dubbed the Impressionists knew each other in the 1860s as young students. One of the most charismatic and innovative artists, Frederic Bazille (1841-1870) was a proponent of capturing the particular qualities of outdoor light and painting en plein air (outdoors). Unfortunately, he died in the Franco-Prussian war and never got to see his comrades band together as the Societé Anonyme, what we eventually have come to call the Impressionists. In this second session, we will focus primarily on this idea of painting en plein air as the Impressionists captured the new sights of leisure of the suburban countryside. They took the train from the Saint-Lazare train station out to towns along the Seine where they boated and ate at outdoor cafés. To explore this theme, we will take a close look at the early work of Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). We will consider not only their biography, but also their particular brushstrokes, individual compositions and different palettes. Click on the image below to preview some of the images that we will look at more closely.
,_oil_on_canvas,_54_x_65.7_cm,_Museum_of_Fine_Arts,_Budapest.jpg)
