THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: THE IMPRESSIONISTS PT2

 Let's talk about Impressionism…

Shop Girls, c. 1912 by Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones. 🤍

I love the rapid, open brushwork, especially when you can see the things that have no detail but it's just our own eyes who create this, also the effects of light and atmosphere it's so beautiful.

In the Sea, 1883 by Arnold Böcklin. 🧜‍♀️ I interpret themes from Classical mythology in an idiosyncratic, I love the combination of earthy and fantastical realism. Mermaids and tritons frolic in the water with a lusty energy and abandon verging on coarseness. I really hope to see more paintings from this artist because they are haunting.

Pardon in Brittany, 1896 by Gaston La Touche. 🕯️

The canvas, depicting people gathered in a religious ceremony, a pilgrimage of penance, under a blush-colored sky. The lights of candles flicker among their white bonnets, like stars twinkling over a blanket of snow. This piece took my attention because the lights, I feel like if I were the painter I would feel so uncomfortable by not finding sense to the figures, but as a viewer, I can totally understand it.

Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890–91 by Claude Monet ✨

The monumental stacks that Claude Monet depicted in his series Stacks of Wheat rose fifteen to twenty feet and stood just outside the artist's farmhouse at Giverny. Through 1890 and 1891, he worked on this series both in the field, painting simultaneously at several easels, and in the studio, refining pictorial harmonies during winter time and I love despite being almost the same image, each time because the light of the day, they all look different. watching his painting it's really emotional, there is some kind of halo or glow that seems to go out of the painting. The colors look absolutely amazing, almost like pastel neons.

Charing Cross Bridge, London, 1901 🇬🇧

Beginning in September 1899, Claude Monet made almost one hundred paintings of the river Thames in London. These works show only three different views—Charing Cross Bridge and Waterloo Bridge, both painted from the Savoy Hotel; and the Houses of Parliament, painted from Saint Thomas's Hospital. In the smoggy, industrial city, Monet challenged himself to capture effects of light seen through a dense atmospheric screen.

THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: THE IMPRESSIONISTS.

 HELLO AND WELCOME!

Has been a month full of art, SO MUCH ART! and I want to keep sharing this time my favorite paintings from the Institute of Art in Chicago.

Another haul, now with the Impressionists. 🖼️ 🎨

Fruits of the Midi, 1881 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir. 🍆

Renoir’s style in this piece is described as an attempt to balance the fleeting luminosity of Impressionism with classical pictorial structure. He emphasizes the three-dimensional shape of the objects through strong contours and diagonal brushstrokes. Personally I like the eggplant and the visible direction of the brushstrokes from the tablecloth.

The Basket of Apples, c. 1893 by Paul Cezanne. 🍏 🍎

Paul Cézanne once claimed, is “a harmony running parallel to nature,” not an imitation of nature. In his quest for underlying structure and composition, he recognized that the artist is not bound to represent real objects in real space. Thus, The Basket of Apples contains one of his signature tilted tables, an impossible rectangle with no right angles.

Then a painting from 1877, The lozenge-shaped pattern of the wallpaper identifies the setting for this still life as the Paris apartment where Paul Cezanne and his family lived.

Grapes, Lemons, Pears, and Apples, 1887 by Van Gogh. 🍇 🍋 🍐 🍎

Here I have explored the use of complementary colors—yellow and purple, blue and orange, and red and green—in the service of chromatic intensity and I love the brushwork which as part of his signature it’s hard not to identify.

Apples and Grapes, 1880 by Claude Monet 🍎 🍇

We can see the play of light on the horizontal brushstrokes that folds in the tablecloth. I like how the light follows the direction of the texture for the tablecloth.

Chrysanthemums, 1881–82 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir 🌼

“I just let my brain rest when I paint flowers,” Pierre-Auguste Renoir remarked. "I don't experience the same tension as I do when confronted by the model. When I am painting flowers, I establish the tones, I study the values carefully without worrying about losing the picture. I don't dare do this with a figure piece for fear of ruining it."

I think it looks so messy like if every brushstroke were a petal, even the background or the table, but that's the magic of this work.