PainTips: your best way to spread french culture at a family dinner: The Impressionism.

Last time we met Mr Doré, and now -in order to be polite, and because they are awesome too- we will discover his “classmates” -so okay they are not his real classmates because they were just living at the same period but there is no proof of their friendship- This article will deal with -drum roll- the Impressionism.

First of all it is important to understand what is this -strange- word- “Impressionism” -let's begin…with the beginning…-

The Impressionism is a painting movement which was born in 1872 in France -French power !! French style…- The name of the movement comes from a painting of a young man -at this time he was young, he was in his thirties, so relatively young- this painting is called : Impression soleil levant, (Impression sunrise)

Impression Sunrise, Claude Monet (Impression soleil levant)

This movement aims at rapresenting things, landscapes in the most realistic way. Painters use little flat tints of color – you have to be away from the painting to see it greater, if you are too close it only looks like a stain canvas, less amazing…-.

If nowadays the painters have a great repuation and their paintings are expensive, during their lives unfortunately the situation was not the same.

For Mr Monet as for his colleagues like Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Vincent Van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, or Pierre-Auguste Renoir -you can take a tissue ! Sad story really-.

Indeed their style is opposed to « classical art » - like religious paintings- so they are pushed appart from the rest of the painters and by the art sellers or by the artistic committees that are majors actors on the art market (they are defining artistic trends), so Monet and other impressionist decided to join a committee called “ Salon des Indépendants “ (Committee of the independent) in Paris -It was the most importance place for misunderstood painters-.

Young girls at the Piano, Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Jeunes filles au piano)

Their art will only be appreciated after their death -a loooong time after their death, they had not the possibility to be rich and live a wealthy life- only one of them Pierre-Auguste Renoir had the opportunity to enjoy a rich life at the end of his life, because his painting Les jeunes

filles au piano was the first impressionist painting bought by a museum – It was first bought by the Luxembourg museum, now it is still at Orsay museum in Paris-