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THE PRESENCE OF IMPRESSIONISM IN ART AS A PURE STATE OF CREATION

G. Kovats

Abstract

The currents before, as well as those after the Impressionism are attempting an intellectualization of painting. Impressionism comes as a pause in theory, a sort of “resetting” of the history of painting and esthetics, which capsizes the concepts that preceded it. “This liberation started with the Impressionists. \ldots They were the ones who realized that there is art for art, that the true beauty can be found in the simplest things. Above all, they realized that the colour of an object is more important than the object in itself\ldots They have liberated the colour, the instinct and the form.” we read in Francois Mathey in “The Impressionists”[1]. Though it is the time of great discoveries related to light and colour, the impressionists' approach is a much more empirical one. As a matter of fact, during that era, they were accused both of empiricism as well as of inconsistence, as the painting practice would put on a methodical and consistent character only with the neoimpressionists. From the perspective of this liberating character in regard to constraints and rationalization, it seems important to me to draw a parallel between the state of meditation and Impressionism, as there can be found a series of similarities. Impressionism in itself was, we might say, a period of meditation in the history of art – through the fact that it was disinhibitory, an artistic current devoid of theoretical overloads and which reinvented the perception on painting. It has been, for that matter, difficult to understand by the critics and intellectuals, being an approach too little concerned with ideas, but rather with experiences. We can mention as an example the fact that Monet was not accepted within the circles of intellectuals and that it was difficult for the writers of that period who used to meet at the “Cafe Volpini” (the center of the symbolist movement) to understand a painting that could not be transposed into words, as it was based on techniques that the painter had reached intuitively, through painting explorations, as we can read in the study by Phoebe Pool, “Impressionism”, ([3], chapter “The late works of Monet, Renoir and Pissaro”). In following I will analyze and develop those characteristics, for which I have drawn a parallel between a state of meditation or any other state in which we are receptive of higher energies and the state of impressionist creation. Impressionist painters are connected by the joy of painting and the joy of fully living the present moment. If we take the mind out of the equation, it will only leave us with the joy of living the present moment, for the very fact that the impressionists give man (the painter) the freedom to enjoy the painting. In the Impressionism, themes are very much different from one another, since this complete experience of the present moment, where borders are erased between our exterior and our inner world, we discover beauty in anything. The landscapes are preferred, as the direct contact with the nature facilitates this liberating state of joy and mergence, but the impressionist painter or man in general, who lives that moment of maximum joy of the present moment, can unexpectedly discover it anywhere.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgemsocial2015/b41/s12.006

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