Saturday, April 26, 2014

Impressionism (pt. 22)

One other such painting is titled La Lecture (Reading).  We see a young girl sitting quietly, reading a book.  Not even this relatively uneventful subject matter receives clear detail, for it, the artist comments, is going to end just as quickly as the other busy scenes did.  Either she is going to get up, or we, the viewers, are going to move on in a matter of seconds.  We only get a flashing glimpse of it as the image which our quickly shifting eyes would gather in the moment.  This approach perhaps more than the others (which we're about to look at) defines how we view Impressionism today—as an image capturing a moment, the impression of something we felt, experienced, and is now gone.  Berthe Morisot's artwork, though largely overlooked until after her death at age 54, effectively marked the consummation of this style.

No comments:

Post a Comment