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Impressionism: Paint and Politics
A new perspective on Impressionist art that offers revealing, fresh interpretations of familiar paintings
In this handsome book, a leading authority on Impressionist painting offers a new view of this admired and immensely popular art form. John House examines the style and technique, subject matter and imagery, exhibiting and marketing strategies, and social, political, and ideological contexts of Impressionism in light of the perspectives that have been brought to it in the last twenty years. When all of these diverse approaches are taken into account, he argues, Impressionism can be seen as a movement that challenged both artistic and political authority with its uncompromisingly modern subject matter and its determinedly secular worldview.
Moving from the late 1860s to the early 1880s, House analyzes the paintings and career strategies of the leading Impressionist artists, pointing out the ways in which they countered the dominant conventions of the contemporary art world and evolved their distinctive and immediately recognizable manner of painting. Focusing closely on the technique, composition, and imagery of the paintings themselves and combining this fresh appraisal with recent historical studies of Impressionism, House explores how pictorial style could generate social and political meanings and opens new ways of looking at this luminous art.
In this handsome book, a leading authority on Impressionist painting offers a new view of this admired and immensely popular art form. John House examines the style and technique, subject matter and imagery, exhibiting and marketing strategies, and social, political, and ideological contexts of Impressionism in light of the perspectives that have been brought to it in the last twenty years. When all of these diverse approaches are taken into account, he argues, Impressionism can be seen as a movement that challenged both artistic and political authority with its uncompromisingly modern subject matter and its determinedly secular worldview.
Moving from the late 1860s to the early 1880s, House analyzes the paintings and career strategies of the leading Impressionist artists, pointing out the ways in which they countered the dominant conventions of the contemporary art world and evolved their distinctive and immediately recognizable manner of painting. Focusing closely on the technique, composition, and imagery of the paintings themselves and combining this fresh appraisal with recent historical studies of Impressionism, House explores how pictorial style could generate social and political meanings and opens new ways of looking at this luminous art.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published August 11, 2004
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About the author
John House
50 books9 followersJohn Peter Humphrey House was a British art historian and lecturer.
You may be looking for John C. House, American poet and novelist
John House was the doyen of historians of impressionism. Far from being lightweight or ingratiating, the impressionists were revealed in House's writings as sharp observers of social change; instead of being a self-contained movement, they were shown to be clever negotiators of artistic conventions and institutions. As well as playing an essential role in transforming the academic study of this period, House presided over the development of its public appreciation through the spectacular exhibitions that he curated.
You may be looking for John C. House, American poet and novelist
John House was the doyen of historians of impressionism. Far from being lightweight or ingratiating, the impressionists were revealed in House's writings as sharp observers of social change; instead of being a self-contained movement, they were shown to be clever negotiators of artistic conventions and institutions. As well as playing an essential role in transforming the academic study of this period, House presided over the development of its public appreciation through the spectacular exhibitions that he curated.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 10, 2023
--- "The virtual absence of male figures in genre paintings raises wider questions about the depiction of contemporary life in fine art painting. The fact that they regularly appeared along with female figures in illustrations such as La Vie parisine shows that this absence was not primarily a question of moral propriety but rather a matter of artistic decorum. Many critics attributed it to the un-picturesqueness of modern male dress. However, it seems likely that there was more at issue than this. In contemporary social theory, the bourgeois man was regarded as the quintessence of individuality; conventional genre painting, by contrast, depended on typecasting." (House: 18)
--- "by 1882 the subject itself was no longer alien in a fine art context. It seems no coincidence that the members of the Impressionist group who had focused with such critical attention on the imagery of Paris throughout the 1870s all turned their backs on such scenes after the early 1880s" (House: 200)
--- "If the more elaborated paintings evoke the equivocality and uncertainties of the modern gaze, Before the Mirror, in its technique as well as its subject, hints at a different type of looking, the rapid glance that it is impossible (or inappropriate) for the viewer to hold for longer than a moment." (House: 158)
This book is about Impressionism painting and it is more than just a description of the painters or their brushtroke. By making use of the political and artistic context the book tries to give a meaning to their technique or explain why the movement changed and ended. Little attention is given to biographical details of the artists, which is nice.
I found the coda very informative about how Impressionism has been studied over the years. And Chapter 5 was my least favourite chapter from the book as it was too much descriptive of artworks, whose illustrations were not always included or had already appeared. I think the book should have kicked off with this chapter.
This book is definitely a new way of looking at Impressionism, although Mary Cassatt is almost absent. I think she could have given the author very good examples to support his ideas. But I enjoyed the book very much as it shows that Impressionism is more than just a technique or the artist's impression.
--- "by 1882 the subject itself was no longer alien in a fine art context. It seems no coincidence that the members of the Impressionist group who had focused with such critical attention on the imagery of Paris throughout the 1870s all turned their backs on such scenes after the early 1880s" (House: 200)
--- "If the more elaborated paintings evoke the equivocality and uncertainties of the modern gaze, Before the Mirror, in its technique as well as its subject, hints at a different type of looking, the rapid glance that it is impossible (or inappropriate) for the viewer to hold for longer than a moment." (House: 158)
This book is about Impressionism painting and it is more than just a description of the painters or their brushtroke. By making use of the political and artistic context the book tries to give a meaning to their technique or explain why the movement changed and ended. Little attention is given to biographical details of the artists, which is nice.
I found the coda very informative about how Impressionism has been studied over the years. And Chapter 5 was my least favourite chapter from the book as it was too much descriptive of artworks, whose illustrations were not always included or had already appeared. I think the book should have kicked off with this chapter.
This book is definitely a new way of looking at Impressionism, although Mary Cassatt is almost absent. I think she could have given the author very good examples to support his ideas. But I enjoyed the book very much as it shows that Impressionism is more than just a technique or the artist's impression.
Displaying 1 of 1 review