Realism and Impressionism

The realism painting I chose for comparison is The "Young Lady in 1866 (Manet). This painting is typical of the realism period with a portrait of a young lady standing in a vacant room with exception to a parrot on a stand. The painting is very realistic with no embellishments to the woman, parrot or surroundings. The strokes are tight and non evident and the detailing is superb. The attention to the young lady's pendant, as well as the detailing of the parrot's feathers is amazing. Due to the detailing and painting style, this painting is hyper-realistic, and resembles a photograph.

The impressionist painting I chose for comparison is the "Julie Manet and Her Greyhound Laerte" (Morisot). Like the "Young Lady" painting this painting is a portrait of a woman with her dog. Again, typical to its period, this painting's impressionist side comes through with the obvious brush strokes, the unique color scheme and odd lighting of the room. The details in this painting are vague and mute due to the loose strokes but what really stands out is the color scheme. The impressionist period encouraged odd lighting and this painting delivered. The shading is mucky and uses the surrounding colors as it's base, there is no real "white", even on the walls because of the technique of the impressionist period. The walls instead are a mixture of the surrounding elements and their colors. This painting appears to me as if painted in the afternoon light.

I chose to compare these two paintings because of their similarities in subject. While these both include imagery of a young woman and her companion, the technique of the paintings is vastly different. The realism painting (Manet) is tight, reflective of reality, non-exaggerated, and utilizes the natural beauty of the subjects and surroundings. The impressionist painting (Morisot) is loose, shows the brush strokes of the artist and utilizes color to add interest and to give emphasis to the lighting in the painting.

Works Cited:

Manet, Edouard. "The Young Lady 1866." http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mane/ho_89.21.3.htm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dec. 2008. Web. 30 Aug. 2009

Morisot, Berthe. "Julie Manet and Her Greyhound Laerte." http://www.speedmuseum.org/morisot_artist.htmlSpeed Art Museum, 2001. Web. 30 Aug. 2009