| It's safe to say that for many of us, when we | | | | calculated clarity, Pissarro's more fluid depictions of |
| think of the centuries of art that have served to | | | | Parisian gardens and Montmartre's wide boulevard, |
| fix Paris as the cultural capital of Europe, what | | | | rendered in feathery brushstrokes and riotous |
| comes to mind above all else, perhaps even the | | | | color, have become nearly synonymous with our |
| soaring towers of Notre Dame and the Place de | | | | notion of Impressionism. |
| la Concorde's gold capped obelisk, is the work of | | | | Whereas Pissarro and Sisley favored broad |
| the French Impressionists. Manifesting a sense of | | | | vantages and vistas, the work of Pierre-Auguste |
| urban bustle that is unexpectedly punctuated by | | | | Renoir (1841-1919) and Edgar Degas (1834-1917) |
| moments of aesthetic sublimity, it is no wonder | | | | reflects a more embedded perspective. Renoir's |
| that these painters of light have come to define a | | | | sun-dappled parks and outdoor cafes often |
| collective and indelible visual representation of the | | | | appear to overflow with joyful crowds of |
| City of Light's true vibrancy. | | | | Parisians, successfully conveying the tension |
| The term impressionism began as a critical slight | | | | between observation and inherent participation |
| leveled at artists such as William Turner and John | | | | that is unique to life in the city. Degas, as well, is |
| Constable, whose atmospheric compositions were | | | | often preoccupied with crowds, but uses their |
| often dismissed by academicians as unrefined | | | | energy to explore movement and gesture. Even |
| daubing. In 1872, however, Claude Monet | | | | his more stoic portraits, exemplified by the iconic |
| (1840-1926) attempted reclamation of the insult | | | | L'absinthe, tend to be filtered through idiosyncratic |
| by titling his seminal portrayal of the English | | | | perspectives (a technique undoubtedly influenced |
| Channel at sunrise Impression, Soleil Levant. While | | | | by the advent of photography) that force the |
| the designation remained, it is interesting to note | | | | viewer into the scene. |
| that the artists we now group together as the | | | | As the effects of light, atmosphere and |
| Impressionists did not emerge in the later | | | | movement became increasingly dominant in the |
| decades of the nineteenth century as a | | | | work of these artists, the subject, for the first |
| movement united by a singular manifesto. Rather, | | | | time in the history of Western art, began to |
| they became aligned by the influence of Edouard | | | | approach irrelevancy, an idea that would become |
| Manet (1832-1883), whose stark rejection of | | | | the dominating agenda of Modernist practice for |
| Romanticism's nostalgic tendencies became the | | | | years to come. Of all the Impressionists, it was |
| wellspring of modern painting. Through highly | | | | Claude Monet (1840-1926) who was most willing |
| individualized approaches the Impressionists sought | | | | to explore the subjugation of the object for the |
| to convey a reflection of the truly contemporary, | | | | sake of visual perception. In 1877 he began a |
| achieved by embracing their immediate | | | | series of paintings depicting the Gare Saint-Lazare, |
| surroundings and emphasizing visual resonance | | | | one of Paris' busiest railway stations. What sets |
| over intellectual inference. | | | | these works apart from his earlier paintings, and |
| Often credited as the fathers of what has | | | | perhaps those canvases produced during his later |
| become characteristic Impressionist technique, | | | | years at Giverny, is Monet's increased attention to |
| Camille Pissarro (1831-1903) and Alfred Sisley | | | | the light as refracted through both the station's |
| (1839-1899) began experimenting with plein-air | | | | glass ceiling and the billowing steam from the |
| painting, forgoing endless studio revision for | | | | locomotives, thereby transforming the very |
| on-the-spot interpretations of the transient | | | | symbol of the industrialized age, the engine, into |
| effects of sunlight on the landscape. While Sisley's | | | | pure color. |
| paintings often capture light with a masterfully | | | | |