Discuss the technological improvements, cultural developments, ...

[krzymel]

Discuss the technological improvements, cultural developments, and aesthetic innovations that led to Impressionism and explain how the movement got its name, mentioning specific artists and/or works to support your statements.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Consider Kandinsky's Black Lines and Mir's Carnival of the Harlequin. Identify the movements with which each artist is associated. Discuss each artist's interest in abstraction and/or nonrepresentation within the movement with which each is identified.
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[Expo]

Answer to Question 1

Responses will vary depending on selection of artwork. The painting by Claude Monet, Impressionism: Sunrise, caught the attention of an art critic who used the title to explain what the artists had in common. He titled his review The Impressionists and the name stuck. With Impressionism, art moved outdoors due to the new availability of oil paints in tubes. Artists were able to paint outside and experience the shifting light they wanted to depict. The look of their paintings became more of a recording of optical sensations, as little dabs, slashes, and flicks of paint were employed to represent subject matter. Black was banished and replaced with blues and greens. Landscapes, a favorite of Monet, were popular subject matter and were meant to represent momentary action and capture the fleeting light. Renoir and Morisot found inspiration in depicting the everyday lives of people.

Answer to Question 2

Black Lines by Vasili Kandinsky organized the group Der Blaue Reiter, which sought to eliminate subject matter and employ a nonrepresentational style to communicate a formal language of line, form, and color. Kandinsky's intense arbitrary colors and wavering lines link it to Fauvism, which employed the same bright colors and mystical themes. Mir's painting Carnival of the Harlequin offered a Surrealist view of the famous painting Las Meninas, by Velasquez. Mir created a fantasy world of colorful, nameless abstract forms that participated in a swirling universe of lighthearted play and movement.

[krzymel]

TYSM

[Perkypinki]

Excellent