Impressions on Impressionism

Impressionism is probably the go-to of the art world when it is defined as something that appeals to the senses and the emotions. Smith breaks down Impressionism into its analysis and its components, which includes the "Impression," "Sensation," "Vision and Sketchiness." He writes that there are four new perspectives on Impressionism: "social-historical, feminist, psychoanalytical, and ... anthropological." As evidenced by the many ways to analyze Impressionist art, it's very hard to interpret and analyze something that was described by its own creators as "personal and subjective." It was the artists' reaction to the strict classical training at Ecole des Beaux-Arts and their here's-what's-good-and-here's-what's-bad standards.

The concept of "flaneur" is interesting in the sense that it goes one step forward in (the theoretical portion) of Cartesian perspectivalism. In the latter, the viewer is inherently seen as an eyeball (disregarding the human differences) through the use of the painting itself, but with Impressionism, you are basically asked to look at the painting as the "casual, male urban observer." Whereas in Cartesian perspectivalism you are basically asked to look at it one way, in Impressionism, you are asked to view the painting from a specific viewpoint.

I believe it's important to note that the modernization of Paris under Baron Haussmann began right around the time Impressionists began to emerge. The "Haussmannization" of Paris included the construction of the large tree-lined boulevards that are seen in many Impressionist paintings (i.e. Pissarro's Boulevard Montmarte and Boulevard des Capucines, along with Renoir's Les grands boulevards). I've had the chance to look at this time period from three (somewhat) different perspectives... from architecture, global poverty, and art history. Last week, we had a reading that included "The Eyes of the Poor" by Baudelaire and it deals with the unforeseen consequence of the modernization of Paris and how it exposed poverty not only to the wealthy residents of Paris, but also to the impoverished by showing them "the other side of life." I don't know if Impressionists depicted this or not, but it would be interesting to see if they also painted "the other side of life."