SREETAMA GHOSH
1024118
CIA2
MEL 132
WESTERN AESTHETICS
JULY 15, 2010.
Map of Stephen F.Eisenman’s “The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists got their name”
Paragraph 1: Routes how the movement Impressionism got its name-exhibition in Paris studio on 15 April 1874-Claude Monet’s painting titled Impression-‘impression’, ‘effect of an impression’; used by press to refer to the paintings-‘Le Charivari’ by Louis Leroy, speaks of a school of Impressionists-Jules Castagnary explains Impressionism for readers of ‘Le siècle’- The Sociѐtѐ itself accepted the name, voting to title its third exhibition the ‘exhibition of Impressionists’.
Paragraph 2: Arguments concerning the origin of the name- accuracy of the account-popularity of the term Impressionism in period between April 1874 and February 1877-why did the Sociѐtѐ anonyme adopt a name that had been used in mockery?-the necessity to name the new art- why did the artists and their critics regard the term significant?-impressionism constitute a single moment of the ongoing debate over modernism itself.
Paragraph 3: Inclusion of the word Impression in the vocabulary of art criticism and what it implied-the term entered the vocabulary at about the same time that the French positivists were pursuing their studies of Perception- Charles Baudelaire described the “Impression produced by things on the spirit of M.G(uys)”-Studies of Richard Shiff and Charles Stuckey provide base for generalization of the meaning of the term- art based on impressions or sensory experience must resemble, what Ruskin had earlier called,’ innocence of the eye’-Theodore Duret said of Manet that his paintings reflects his impression of things ‘in a variant coloration’.
Paragraph 4: The dual nature of Impressionism-individuality and juxtaposition of colour ‘notes’ with their adjacent tone- Castagnary cites that “Impressionists leave reality and enter into full idealism”-idealism signifies the individualism of the artists, determined by the reflection of the macrocosmic world on his senses.
Paragraph 5: Connotations of the term Impressionism in 1874-technique of painting and an attitude of individualism shared by a group of artists unofficially led by Manet-political and radical connotations of the term-“does it constitute a revolution?” asked Castagnary of Impressionism- Impressionism deemed individualism as an necessary instrument for the freedom of citizens from political, economical and religious dogma-reconstructing France after disastrous Franco- Prussian war and commune.
Paragraph 6: Debate on the sanguinity about the political moderation of the new art and appearance of the word Intransigent-the word Intransigent popular until the Impressionists self-naming in1877.
Paragraph 7: Derivation and meaning of the word intransigent- derived from Spanish neologism los intransigentes-designation for the anarchist wing of the Spanish federalist party of 1872-the intransigents were opposed to the compromises offered by the Federalist benevolent-intransigents claimed for cantonal independence against benevolent Republicans-dispute resulted in war.
Paragraph 8: Political unrest in Spain due to the dispute between the intransigents and Benevolent Republic-attempted intransigent coup in July 1873 fuelled civil war-rebels routed-last Intransigent stronghold, Cartagena, submitted to the Republic-end of 1874,the Republic defeated and the Spanish bourbons restored to power.
Parahgraph9: Support of the assertion that Impressionists had joined hands with the Intransigents in politics-preface to the catalogue for an auction of Impressionist paintings, Philippe Burty described the paintings of the new group, “who are here called Impressionists, elsewhere the Intransigents.”-in the review of second Impressionist exhibition, Albert Wolff wrote, “The self- proclaimed artists call themselves the Intransigents, the Impressionists Intransigents in politics had alliance with Impressionists were further stated by Emile Blemont and Louis Eaul.
Paragraph 10: A critic for La Gazzette, Marius Chaumelin take on politics of Intransigent Art and the appropriateness of its name-Chaumelin claims that the fundamentals of the new art were derived from the principles of the political Intransigents- but little help offered to readers in determining as how political turned in to artistic intransigence.
Paragraph 11: Stѐphane Mallarmѐ clarifies the link between radical, or intransigent, art and politics-Mallarmѐ perceived the new art as an expression of working -class vision and ideology- argument justified in Mallarmѐ’s essay ‘The Art Monthly Review’.
Paragraph 12: Mallarmѐ argues that new Impressionist art marked a significant new stage in social evolution-Impressionism was a movement with a radical co-operative programme.
Paragraph 13:Set of homologies offered by Mallarmѐ between Impressionist art and working class, or radical vision-he suggested that this radical erasure was positive, akin to the popular art usually indigenous to the working class-key term in his dialectic was ‘the theory of the open air’.
Paragraph 14: The function of the open-air painting; what makes Impressionist painting appealing to the rising class of workers and petit bourgeois and Mallarmѐ’s view of the ideal Impressionist painter-Open-air painting justifies for the discarding of academic traditions or individualist whim-Impressionists’ stripping away results in a pictorial clarity and flatness that imitates the look of the simple- thus favored by the rising class of workers and petit bourgeois.
Paragraph 15: The essence of the new art, that emerged between 1874 and 1877, occupies the position between the polarities Impressionist/Intransigent- new art as an single instance of Modernist dialectics-works exploring their own physical origins are Intransigent rebukes to a society-on the other hand, the apolitical self-regard of Modernist art creates an environment suitable to industrial appropriation of the works-‘free space desired by Modernism significant to culture industry.
Paragraph 16: Intransigent the alter ego of Impressionism-opposition between Impressionist and Intransigent art unresolved in the criticism of Claretie, Chesneau, Burty, Wolff, Enault, Chaumelin, and Mallarmѐ.
Paragraph 17: Ambiguities of the new art-assumption that it was deliberate steps by the artists to create a zone of aesthetic freedom that could remain autonomous from political polarizations-new art embodied a ‘theory of open air’, so did its criticism based on ideological unease-critics on the left no more confident than those on the right-Renoir’s rejection of the name further fuelled critical uncertainty over the new art- prolonged ideological antinomies to prevent painting absorbed into ‘cheap tinsel.’
Paragraph 18: Success of the new art apparently owing to the manner of style adopted by Manet and refusal of a proper name by Renoir-Manet chose to expose the Enlightment fissure between subject and object or word and thing through an art that called attention to its status as fiction-he refused Romantic symbolism and Jacobian tradition.
Paragraph 19: Impressionist followers of Manet succeeded in eliding ideological oppositions still offering scope for knowledge-evidence of knowledge in pictures-Manet’s art rhetoric of binaries-new art provides free space between Impressionist and Intransigent.
Work cited:
Eisenmam, Stephen F. “The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists Got their Name.”
Art in Modern Culture: An Anthology of Critical texts. Eds. Francis Franscina, and
Jonathan Harris. London/New York: Phaidon, 1992.Print.
No comments:
Post a Comment