Priya Kapoor
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that emerged in France and was characterised by visible brush strokes, open composition, and an emphasis on the accurate depiction of light and its changing qualities. The Impressionist movement in painting was paralleled by a literary movement known as Symbolism. Symbolism, which emerged in the 1880s as a reaction to the rationalism and materialism of Western European culture, focused on the subjective representation of ideas and emotions rather than the objective depiction of the natural world. Symbolist painters and writers, including Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine, used symbols, tone colour, and metaphor to convey meaning in their works. Impressionism in literature is characterised by the use of select details to convey the sensory impressions of a scene, focusing on describing the impressions, sensations, and emotions that constitute a character's mental life.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Literary movement | Symbolism |
| Impressionist literature is closely related to | Symbolism |
| Major exemplars | Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine |
| Authors with impressionistic works | Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad |
| Literary Impressionism is defined by | Its philosophical stance |
| Impressionism emerged | Late 1800s and early 1900s |
| Impressionist style focuses on | Emotions and beauty |
| Post-Impressionist style focuses on | Realism |
| Impressionist painters | Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Armand Guillaumin, and Frdric Bazille |
| Impressionism is characterized by | Visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and inclusion of movement |
| Impressionism | Liberated art from a focus on subject toward personal expression and the study of creating |
| Impressionists | Rejected official exhibitions and painting competitions set up by the French government |
| Impressionists | Used lighter colours and looser brushwork |
| Impressionists | Abandoned traditional three-dimensional perspective |
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What You'll Learn
Impressionism in literature
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that emerged in France in the 1860s and gained prominence in the 1870s and 1880s. It was characterized by an emphasis on capturing the artist's impressions of a subject, often using light and bright colours, short and loose brushstrokes, and an emphasis on movement and the effects of light. The Impressionists were less interested in historical, biblical, or mythological subjects and instead focused on landscapes, people, and scenes from everyday life. They also rejected traditional exhibitions and competitions, organizing their own group shows.
The term "Impressionism" has also been used to describe works of literature that convey the sensory impressions of a scene or incident through selective details, focusing on impressions, sensations, and emotions. Literary Impressionism is closely related to Symbolism, with major exemplars including Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. Some authors whose works have been described as Impressionistic include Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad.
Symbolism, as a literary movement, emerged in the 1880s as a reaction against the rationalism and materialism of Western European culture. Symbolist writers and artists believed in the subjective representation of ideas and emotions rather than objective depictions of the natural world. They often used suggestive imagery and symbols to explore themes such as love, fear, death, and sexual awakening. Symbolism spread internationally, influencing movements such as German Expressionism and Art Nouveau.
While Impressionism in literature may share some similarities with its artistic counterpart, some scholars argue that literary Impressionism is better defined by its philosophical stance than any relationship with Impressionist painting. The Impressionist movement in literature and art emerged as a reaction against the Romantic movement, which emphasized emotion, imagination, and individualism. Impressionism, in contrast, focused on personal expression, the study of creating, and the use of light and colour to convey movement and emotion.
In conclusion, Impressionism in literature and art shared a focus on capturing impressions, sensations, and emotions. They also emerged as reactions against traditional subjects and styles, prioritizing personal expression and new techniques. However, literary Impressionism's relationship with its artistic counterpart is complex and has been influenced by various philosophical and aesthetic movements of the time.
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Symbolism
Symbolist artists sought to express individual emotional experiences through the subtle and suggestive use of highly symbolized language and metaphorical images. They reacted against broader cultural tendencies related to scientific and literary positivism, such as Realism and Naturalism, and the language of the popular press. Symbolist poets were influenced by hermeticism, allowing freer versification and rejecting Parnassian clarity and objectivity. They retained Parnassianism's love of wordplay and concern for the musical qualities of verse.
The Symbolist movement in poetry reached its peak around 1890 and began to decline in popularity around 1900. Some of the principal Symbolist poets include Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Jules Laforgue, Henri de Régnier, René Ghil, and Gustave Kahn. Symbolism also extended to novelists like Joris-Karl Huysmans, Edouard Dujardin, and Émile Zola.
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Musical Impressionism
The term "Impressionism" in music is somewhat vague, and was introduced by analogy with contemporaneous French painting. The French composer Claude Debussy is regarded as the initiator of this style, with his work Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune considered a seminal piece of musical Impressionism. Debussy himself rejected the label, believing it to be inaccurate and inappropriate, especially when applied to artists such as Turner, whom he considered "the finest creator of mystery in the whole of art". Nonetheless, Debussy's work exhibits many Impressionistic elements, including static harmony, emphasis on instrumental timbres, melodies that lack directed motion, and an avoidance of traditional musical form.
Other composers linked to Impressionism include Maurice Ravel, Lili Boulanger, Isaac Albéniz, Frederick Delius, Paul Dukas, Alexander Scriabin, Manuel de Falla, John Alden Carpenter, Ottorino Respighi, Albert Roussel, Karol Szymanowski, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Federico Mompou, and Jean Sibelius. Ravel also expressed discomfort with the Impressionist label, claiming that it could not be adequately applied to music. Nonetheless, Ravel, like Debussy, is known for his use of Impressionistic elements such as ambiguous tonality, extended harmonies, and evocative titles.
Impressionist literature is closely related to Symbolism, with its major exemplars being Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. Authors such as Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad have written works that are Impressionistic in their descriptive, rather than interpretive, approach to the impressions, sensations, and emotions that constitute a character's mental life.
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French Impressionist Cinema
The term Impressionism has been used to describe works of literature and art that convey the sensory impressions of an incident or scene. Literary Impressionism is closely related to Symbolism, with its major exemplars being Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud, and Verlaine.
French Impressionism is considered a defamiliarization of the spectator with what appears on screen. It explores the perception of reality through two main concepts: subjectivity and photogénie. Filmmakers explored an unattainable understanding that can only be reached for. The movement was inspired by the increasing dominance of American cinema released in France after World War I, challenging conventions with undeniably French techniques.
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Romanticism
In literature, Romanticism strayed from the formal diction of the Neoclassical period, instead using everyday language to express human emotion. Notable works of English Romantic literature include Lyrical Ballads (1798) by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and the poetry of William Blake, such as Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794). Other key figures of the Romantic movement in English literature include Robert Burns, James Hogg, Allan Cunningham, and John Galt.
The French Romantic movement included works such as Victor Hugo's The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831) and Prosper Mérimée's novella Carmen (1845). George Sand was also a central figure of the Parisian literary scene. In Germany, the first phase of Romanticism was marked by innovations in content and literary style, with a focus on the mystical, the subconscious, and the supernatural. Important figures of this period include Friedrich Hölderlin, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Jean Paul, Novalis, and Friedrich Schelling.
While Impressionism emerged in the late 19th century as a reaction to Romanticism's emotional excesses in music, it also influenced literature. Impressionist literature, closely related to Symbolism, includes works by authors such as Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, Henry James, and Joseph Conrad. These writers describe the impressions, sensations, and emotions that constitute a character's mental life.
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Frequently asked questions
Symbolism is considered the literary movement that paralleled Impressionism. Symbolism, which emerged in the 1880s, focused on the subjective representation of an idea or emotion rather than the objective representation of the natural world.
Impressionist painters aimed to capture an "impression" of how a landscape, person, or object appeared to them at a particular moment in time. This was often achieved through the use of light and bright colours, loose brushwork, and an emphasis on movement.
Some of the most famous Impressionist painters include Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro.
Impressionism influenced a range of other art forms, including music (Musical Impressionism), photography (Impressionist Photography), and cinema (French Impressionist Cinema).
