Impressionistic Art: Seeing with the Naked Eye

Impressionism emerged in 1863 at the French "Salon des Refuses", but it wasn't until 1874 upon the appearance of Monet's painting "Impressionism: The Sunset" that this style would be labeled as such. Camille Carrot is said to be the pioneer of impressionism. His influence touched many legendary French artists including Monet, Sisley, Renoir, Pissaro, Degas, Caillebotte, Manet, and Cassatt. These painters were criticized for their rebellion against the restrictions that were growing in the world of artistic academia. Ironically this class of nineteenth century outcasts created perhaps the most well-known and recognized artistic movement of all time.

While photographic realism focuses on the subject being rendered, impressionism focuses on how light and movement present the subject to the eye. "Optical realism" is an alternate and, what I believe to be, a more suitable name for "impressionism"- because it's purpose is to truly attempt to capture what is perceived by the naked-eye, before it can be analyzed and affected by any learned ideas that the brain shall offer. The subject of an impressionist painting is not always at first recognized, just as real objects are not always at first clear to the naked-eye. This sort-of scientific reasoning for the existence of the impressionistic movement is often ignored when defined to the public.

Those who look at a piece by any impressionist artist are forced to see as though there existed no brain to interpret their perceptions into familiar objects-they are forced, in a sense, to see as though they are seeing for the first time, with only different shades of light as a reference of differentiation and identification of objects. Our perception of the world is rarely in perfect focus- because rarely is it still and consistently lit in relation to our eyes. It is the brain and not the eye that creates a photographic and comprehensible image of what is seen. This is why impressionism is what I consider to be true artistic realism. It captures the beauty that is seen by a naive child--one that has no particular reason for aesthetic appreciation because none is needed. Every subject, whatever it may be, is beautiful, not for what it is, but simply because we are able to see it.