Karl is Impressed

In the first week or so of this class, I decided for myself that art should be considered based on the feelings and thoughts elicited in the viewer. Impressionism as an art form seems to fit that bill. The goal of impressionism is to present to the viewer an experience, whether it be an experience of a landscape or the experience of being looked at. As the article states, "an impression was not just the record of transient effects of light and atmosphere" (9), but rather a capturing of a moment. "They are Impressionists in the sense that they render not the landscape, but the sensation produced by the landscape" (22).

Impressionism as an art form reminds me of photography. The very nature of photography seems to be to capture a single moment, to perfectly record a frame of life. In this manner it would no doubt exceed Impressionist art, which is quickly sketched in order to preserve the moment. However, Impressionist art can do something photography can't do, and that is to warp the image to further emphasize what exactly is going on. For example, in one of his works Manet randomly blurred or focused people in a crowd in order to simulate the sensation of darting your eyes through the crowd. Photography would simply record the scene of the crowd, and would lack the sensation.

At first I felt the Flaneur concept was pretty stupid. I'm still not quite sure what it means, but I think it has something to do with picking up prostitutes. Later in the article however, I found that the works of art described work very well with the Impressionist idea, although in a different way than Monet's work did. For example, the "Nymph Taken by Surprise" painting, which depicted a women seemingly caught naked. The viewer is given the feeling that the woman is looking at him, and is trying to hide from his gaze, giving the viewer a feeling of guilt or discomfort. Another work, "Le Dejeuner sur I'herbe", is similar except that the naked woman is accompanied by other men, and does not seem bothered by your presence. It makes the viewer feel he doesn't belong there, and somewhat uncomfortable. Where the landscape paintings allowed the viewer to feel a moment of time, these people paintings gave the viewers a situation, uncomfortable or otherwise.

Although the photocopied images are almost indecipherable and there's a random 8 page gap in the middle of the article, what I've learned about Impressionism intrigues me. It seems to take a moment, real or not, and translate it into another moment for the viewer to experience. Unlike previous art, the goal of Impressionism is to give the impression, while still maintaining a semblance to reality which may not be present in more modern art. I like the idea of this, and it fulfills my ideas on what art should be.