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Impressionism began in Paris during the 1860s, among a small group of artists who departed from the approved style of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. These breakaways–including Manet and Renoir–preferred to paint landscapes and scenes from everyday life rather than historical and classical themes, with emphasis on atmosphere, texture, light, and mood rather than realistic perspective and detail. Slowly and steadily, their tribe expanded and began to garner public attention. The term ‘impressionist’ was coined in the 1870s by an unkind critic, but the name stuck, and eventually applied to a larger group of artists of rather disparate styles.
The term was applied even more loosely among composers, particularly some of the more adventurous French composers of the very late 19th and early 20th centuries, among whom Debussy and Ravel are the best known. Debussy is the composer whose mature style could be most closely identified with that of a painter such as Monet, although Debussy never agreed with being called an Impressionist. In general, it can at least be said that, while Impressionism now means too many things to mean a whole lot of anything at all, it does at least connote groups of post-Romantic artists and musicians, primarily identified with France, whose works represent a significant step away from the historically grounded norms of their predecessors toward a more sensuous, abstract, and yet more immediate mode of expression.
[click pictures to view full versions]
Bazille - Countryside at Chailly
Jean Frédéric Bazille (1841-70) came from a well-to-do French family. In 1862 he came to Paris to study medicine and fell in with colleagues such as Renoir, Monet, Manet and Sisley to form the original core group of Impressionist painters. With these students he honed his landscaping skills at Fontainebleu and in Normandy, but Bazille became best known as a figure painter. He was killed in battle in the Franco-Prussian War, while leading a charge against a German position.
Debussy - Prélude a l’après-midi d’un faune
Achille-Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was perhaps the most famous French composer of the fin de siècle, and certainly the most widely recognized of the so-called Impressionist composers. He entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11, and in 1884 won the prestigious Prix de Rome for composition from the Académie des Beaux-Arts, the same institution from which Manet and his crew had emerged. Debussy frequently disagreed with his elders, who disapproved of his headstrong, avant-garde style. Early Debussy shows the marked influence of Wagner and César Franck. His mature style began to emerge after approximately 1895 and is embodied by the Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, a tone poem for chamber orchestra that earned Debussy momentous notoreity. A brilliant pianist and conductor, mostly of his own works, he endured a turbulent romantic life until his death of cancer.
Sisley - Ferry to the Ile-de-la-Loge
Alfred Sisley (1839-99) was a French painter of English parentage who began painting in Paris in the 1860s chiefly after the model of Courbet. He came to consider himself an Impressionist, although his style is some ways more realist and conservative than his contemporaries. While influential among his peers, Sisley failed to achieve fame and fortune until shortly before his death.
Vaughan Williams - The Lark Ascending
Ralph ({rafe}) Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) was an English composer, the son of a vicar and a great-nephew to Charles Darwin. He took up the violin at a young age, but did not begin seriously composing until after his 3oth year. He was a nationalist composer, inspired largely by English folksong, but his harmonizations and orchestrations are frequently Impressionist in character. Vaughan Williams was a favorite of the young Princess Elizabeth and enjoyed a good deal of popularity in his life; his 6th Symphony received more than 100 performances in its first year.
Renoir - Garden at Fontenay
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was one of the more famous French Impressionist painters. As a boy he worked in a china factory, where he was hired to draw designs on fine porcelain. Like so many of his peers, Renoir emerged from the studio of Charles Gleyre and achieved his first major success with the exhibitions of 1874. Predominately a figure painter, Renoir is known for his bright colors and candid scenes of daily life.
Delius - Irmelin Prelude
Frederick Delius (1862-1934) was an English composer of German parentage who spent most of his life in Florida and France. Delius’ music is preoccuped with natural and philosophical themes. Though little-known during his life and not faring much better today, he was a prolific composer whose music is full of color and drama, and he was a champion mood-setter, as the example above illustrates. Delius died following a struggle with syphilis which consumed much of his later life.
Cassatt - The Banjo Lesson
Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) was an American Impressionist painter and close associate of Edgar Degas who spent most of her career and France. Born into a wealthy family with a busy travel itinerary, Cassatt entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at age fifteen and was exhibiting in Paris soon after. She is chiefly known for portraying intimate moments in the lives of women and children. Late in life Cassatt traveled to Egypt, where the beauty of the native and ancient art stunned her so that she frequently felt incapable of working afterwards.
Ravel - Miroirs: III. Alborada del gracioso
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French composer variously described as an Impressionist and a Neo-classicist. He grew up in extreme southern France, where he was influenced by Basque folk music. A brilliant young pianist, Ravel concentrated almost exclusively on composition after entering the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied with Fauré and befriended avant-garde composer Erik Satie. Ravel quickly became one of the very most popular French composers of his day, along with Debussy. Ravel could be Romantic, but his mature style combines the best of rich, vibrant Impressionist colorism with the formal elegance of the high Classical style. This is not to mention that he was to other orchestrators what Michael Phelps is to other swimmers—a complete master of almost supernatural stature.
Manet - Bar at the Folies-Bergère
Edouard Manet (1832 - 1883) was probably the most important early Impressionist in Paris. His earliest paintings, particularly Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon the Grass), were rallying points for the genesis of the movement. Manet’s parents were minor aristocrats, but Manet grew up to become anti-establishment to the core, especially in artistic matters. He was encouraged not only by fellow painters, but by literary figures such as Emile Zolá and Charles Baudelaire. Manet’s revolutionary brand of realism is sometimes credited with beginning not only the Impressionist movement, but modernism in painting more generally. Though renowned today, Manet was not viewed favorably by most critics in his time.
Debussy - La fille aux cheveux de lin
Monet - Haystacks at Chailly, Sunrise
Claude Monet (1840-1926) is today almost certainly the most famous and widely printed of the Impressionists. Best known for his plein-air landscape painting, Monet was intensely occupied with the subjective effects of lighting and mood, and frequently painted multiple works based on the same natural setting or theme, but each seen in different light, different weather, et cetera (such as the Haystacks Series, from which the above example is taken). As a youth Monet preferred to paint scenes from life rather than copying the works of the masters, as did more traditional students. Later he studied in England, where the landscapes of Constable and Turner were influential to his development. His 1872 work Impressions: Sunrise helped give the name to the Impressionist movement. Monet enjoyed considerable success in his old age, living in a beautiful estate in the Paris suburb of Giverny which provided the subject matter for much of his later work.
Ravel - String Quartet No. 1 in F: II. Assez vif - Très rythmé
For lack of a better way of phrasing the idea, I would suggest that the essence of the blues is primarily a state of mind combined with intimate knowledge of a specific musical style. It is authenticated not by the color of the skin, but by pure musicianship, life experience, world-weariness, and the heartfelt drive for self-expression. Unfortunately, there are a number of individuals who fancy themselves true-blue wailers in the absence of some or all of these qualities.
Many years later, as a mother and widow in South London, Brown went on to produce several hundred compositions, most of them short piano pieces. She claimed the music was dictated to her by the spirits of deceased composers, certainly to include Liszt. Brown’s parents and grandparents were allegedly psychic, and she considered herself to be a spirit medium.
