DTS & C: Impressionism and Creativity

Impressionism was a movement in French painting, sometimes called optical realism because of its almost scientific interest in the actual visual experience and effect of light and movement on appearance of objects.

Impressionist motto establishes human eye is a marvelous instrument. Impact worldwide was lasting and huge. The name 'Impressionists' came as artists embraced the nickname a conservative critic used to ridicule the whole movement.

Sunrise' by Claude Monet (I posted it above :D) fathered derogatory referral. Impressionist fascination with light and movement was at the core of their art. Exposure to light and/or movement was enough to create a justifiable and fit artistic subject out of literally anything. Impressionists learned how to transcribe directly their visual sensations of nature, unconcerned with the actual depiction of physical objects in front of them.

Two ideas of Impressionists are expressed here. One is that a quickly painted oil sketch most accurately records a landscape's general appearance. The second idea that art benefits from a naïve vision untainted by intellectual preconceptions was a part of both the naturalist and the realist traditions, from which their work evolved.

The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France, listed alphabetically, were:

Frédéric Bazille (1841–1870)

Gustave Caillebotte (who, younger than the others, joined forces with them in the mid 1870s) (1848–1894)

Mary Cassatt (American-born, she lived in Paris and participated in four Impressionist exhibitions) (1844–1926)

Paul Cézanne (although he later broke away from the Impressionists) (1839–1906)

Edgar Degas (a realist who despised the term Impressionist, but is considered one, due to his loyalty to the group) (1834–1917)

Armand Guillaumin (1841–1927)

Édouard Manet (who did not regard himself, nor is generally seen, as an Impressionist, but who exhibited his work with theirs and was a great influence on them), (1832–1883)

Claude Monet (the most prolific of the Impressionists and the one who most clearly embodies their aesthetic) (1840–1926)

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895)

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919)

Alfred Sisley (1839–1899)

Although my favorite Impressionist Painters are Alfred Sisley and Camille Pissarro, I'm going to post a very special pic to me, it's called "Rue de la Bavolle Honfleur", by Claude Monet (1864).

I chose this particular Painting because it reminds me of just how beautiful France can be in any circumstance or scenario, France is a gorgeous country, and its countryside town here is very well represented. If I saw this every morning, I'd have dreams of me leaving this country and going to live til my death in France, it's my impossible desire... :C

In fact, speaking of France, it just happens to have all the best stuff in the world!

Like fashion designers, food, wine, Historical characters, monuments...

Above: A small sample of French Awesomeness :)

And having the best stuff in the world requires you to store it in certain place isn't it?

Well, that's why there are museums, and France, by the way, also happens to have the best museums in the world.

Above: Another small taste of why France is the best. :D

But the museum i like the most would have to be "Musée D'orsay" in Paris.

The museum building was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay; constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of the architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939.

By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles, and as a haven for the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt.

The station's hotel closed on 1 January 1973 and inn 1977 the French Government decided to convert the station to a museum. ACT Architecture were the designers and the construction work was carried by Bouygues. The Italian architect Gae Aulenti oversaw the design of the conversion from 1980 to 1986.

The new museum was opened by President François Mitterrand on 1 December 1986.

The square of the museum displays six bronze allegorical sculptural groups in a row, originally produced for the Exposition Universelle (1878)

Of all of the sculptures found in the museum, i must admit that my favorite one is "La porte de L'enfer", by Auguste Rodin.

I like this sculpture because it depicts the gates to which Virgil guides Dante in "Inferno", the first part of three in the epic poem "Divina Commedia", by Dante Alighieri. I think Auguste Rodin figured those imposing doors perfectly according to what Alighieri would have thought, and that capacity for textual abstraction and eventual carving is truly remarkable. For me there's no doubt about who was the best sculptor in the world, I'd bluntly say Rodin.

But come to think of it, the fact that i liked that sculpture and that maybe other guy won't like it resides only in the subjectivity of the art, that also can explain several things like how does an artist transforms his reality into art. As art is as subjective as one thing gets, an artist can feel, touch, hear or see something and be inspired in a very specific way; thus, taking him to express what he experienced in another yet very specifical way. So summarizing, artists transform their realities by associating what they experienced with other memories in order to express a new desire in a way that may attract certain people and may not attract some others.

Above: This may be great for you, but for me this is worthless, i.e.

So when I think about creativity, for what i said earlier in this post, I think about: