Legacies of Impressionism

Impressionism in Sculpture Impressionist sculpture, by definition a figural art of solid form, was more closely related to the Realist current of Degas and Caillebotte than to the plein-air ethos of instantaneity and light. Paul Gaugin, who exhibited several sculptures with the Impressionists was directly inspired by Degas' drawings. Carving directly in the natural material of wood rather than using traditional marble or casting in bronze, he left tool marks on surfaces as references to Impressionist technique and lack of finish. The monumental sculptor Auguste Rodin, is often associated with Impressionism, too. More committed to traditional subject matter than the Impressionists and working in conventional materials, Rodin nonetheless created a style that echoed painting's technical freedom in certain novel aspects. His surfaces often displayed light catching complexity and suggestiveness that evoke rapid sketching in clay or plaster. In 'The Waltz' by artist Camille Claudel (1864 -1943) who had studied with Rodin and became his lover, lack of finish could also imply the emergence of form from matter. It paralleled Monet's late style, where cathedrals or water lilies materialize out of shimmering mist or water.

An early orchestral composition by Claude Debussy, a symphonic suite called Le Printemps ( Springtime) of 1887 was dismissed by his professors as 'vague Impressionism, one of the most dangerous enemies of works of art'. His effects were based on rich, sensuous harmonics and instrumental timbre rather than specific melody, and on fleeting, continuously changing and cyclical fragments rather than clearly structured, separable units. Debussy's music has been described as hypnotic and kaleidoscopic, evoking exotic and narcotic experience through its often oriental-sounding chords and arabesques. But the revelations of the visual arts were crucial to his conceptions. For one of his covers, he used the Hokusai woodcut of The Wave, which had an early influence on Manet and Monet. Debussy's three Nocturnes (Clouds, Feasts, Sirens) of 1898 were said to be inspired by abstract paintings of the 'Thames at Night' by James Abbot McNeill Whistler (1834-1903). Titles such as 'Play of Waves', 'Estampes' (Prints), 'Veils', 'Reflections in Water', 'Fogs' and 'Footprints in Snow' deliberately evoked the visual. Though associated with Impressionism, Debussy himself claimed to be seeking 'realities', as he said, rather than mere impressions: 'Listen to the lessons of the wind passing and telling the history of the world.' Yet he also expressed pleasure when his music gave the feeling 'of not having been written' -- evoking the spontaneity associated with Impressionist Art.

The term is also used to describe a literature characterized by the selection of a few details to convey the sense impressions left by a scene or incident. This style of writing occurs when characters, scenes, or actions are portrayed from an objective point of view of reality. These aspects of the novel appear to the writer at a particular moment. The impressionistic writer's style was named for its great precision in the use of language to illustrate the transitory, vague, complex, and subjective impressions based on experiences. An example would be of using color to give bits and pieces of the scene - in his landmark novel, 'The Red Badge of Courage', Stephen Crane Crane gives us the sense and mood of the battle, without the technical details. He writes, "the blue at the line was crusted with still color." In this quote we get the feeling of the scene of a silent, standing, and stationary front line without a lot of subjective adjectives Virginia Wolf's "Jacob's Room", for instance, the main character is conveyed by a series of short, rapidly changing incidents, scenes and impressions. The novel 'Invisible Man' adopts the ideology of the Impressionists in that it portrays the transitory, vague, complex, and subjective impressions based on experiences of each character in the novel. An actual example of impressionism in the book occurs when the book alludes to the impressionist artist Renoir. Invisible Man comments, " 'what a beautiful room you have here...' looking across the rich cherry glow of furniture to see a life-sized painting of a nude, a pink Renoir"