Impressionism

"Beauty in art is truth bathed in an impression received from nature. I am struck upon seeing a certain place. While I strive for a conscientious imitation, I yet never for an instant lose the emotion that has taken hold of me. Reality is one part of art; feeling completes it.. .Before any site and any object, abandon yourself to your first impression. If you have really been touched, you will convey to others the sincerity of your emotion."

"I am looking for a truly alpine place, preferably above 1000 meters, a site where one can live discreetly without nuisances, not frequented by tourists and outsiders… and also with the near certainty of being able to have models and possibly costumes."

"I have another painting finished, a view near Rotterdam, and then another in process, and very far along. I made them from nature, that is to say I made watercolors [in open air], after which I made my [oil]-paintings."

"To swim in the open sky. To achieve the tenderness of clouds. To suspend these masses in the distance, very far away in the grey mist, make the blue explode. I feel all this coming, dawning in my intentions. What joy and what torment! If the bottom were still, perhaps I would never reach these depths. Did they do better in the past? Did the Dutch achieve the poetry of clouds I seek? That tenderness of the sky which even extends to admiration, to worship: it is no exaggeration."

"I am settled in France, and as for the rest of my history as a painter, it is bound up with the impressionistic group."

"The whole landscape lies behind the transparent gauze of the fog that now rises, drawn upwards by the sun, and as it rises, reveals the silver-spangled river, the fields, the cottages, the further scene. At last one can discern all that one could only guess at before.. .The sun is up! There is a peasant at the end of the field, with his wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen.. .Everything is bursting into life, sparkling in the full light – light, which as yet is still soft and golden. The background, simple in line and harmonious in colour, melts into the infinite expanse of sky, through the bluish, misty atmosphere. The flowers raise their heads the birds flutter hither and thither.. .The little rounded willows on the bank of the stream look like birds spreading their tails. It's adorable! And one paints! And paints!"

"I heard the voices of the trees; the surprises of their movements. Their varieties of form and even their peculiarity of attraction toward the light had suddenly revealed to me the language of the forest. All that world of flora lived as mutes, whose signs I divined, whose passions I discovered. I wished to converse with them and to be able to say to myself, through that other language, painting, that I had put my finger upon the secret of their grandeur."

"With him [Johan Jongkind] all lies in impression."

"It seems to me, when I see nature, that I see it ready made, completely written — but then, try to do it! All this proves that one must think of nothing but them [impressions]; it is by dint of observation and reflection that one makes discoveries."

"It is beautiful here [in , Normandy], my friend; every day I discover even more beautiful things. It is intoxicating me, and I want to paint it all - my head is bursting.. .I want to fight, scratch it off, start again, because I start to see and understand. I seems to me as if I can see nature and I can catch it all.. ..it is by observation and reflection that I discover how. That is what we are working on, continuously.."

"There at the moment in ... Boudin and Jongkind are here; we get on marvellously. There's lots to be learned and nature begins to grow beautiful.. .I shall tell you I'm sending a flower picture to the exhibition at Rouen; there are very beautiful flowers at present."

"The sun allowed me only four days of work. Today it is beautiful and I am about to go out.. .I have begun three or four landscapes of the area around Aigues-Mortes. In my large canvas 'The Ramparts at Aigues-Mortes', I am going to do the walls of the city, reflected in a pond at sunset. This will be a very simple painting, which should not take long to do. Nevertheless I would need at least eight beautiful days. I hope that everything will be finished by the 12th [of June, 1867]"

"Don't look to closely at Corot's figures.. ..his half-finished manner has at least the merit of producing a harmonious ensemble and a striking impression. Instead of analysing a feature one feels an impression."

"In Paris one is too preoccupied by what one sees and what one hears, however strong one is; what I am doing here has, I think, the merit of not resembling anyone, because it is simply the expression of what I myself have experienced."

"The tall fellow Bazille has done something I find quite fine: a young girl in a very light dress in the shadow of a tree beyond which one sees a town. There is a good deal of light, sunlight, He is trying to do what we [Berthe and her sister Edma [Morisot] both painted, then] have so often tried to bring off: to paint a figure in the open air. This time I think he has succeed."

"You can do plain-air painting indoors, [remark to his pupil then, Berthe Morisot ] by painting white in the morning, lilac during the day and orange tones in the evening."

"Corot spoiled the 'étude' [sketch] we admired so much when we saw it at his home, by redoing it in the studio."

"I have a dream a picture of the bathing spot at the Grenouillere, for which I've made a few poor sketches, but it is a dream. Renoir, who has just spent two months here, also wants to do this painting."

"I have almost finished a large landscape [painting 'Landscape by the Lez River' - [around Montpellier].. ..I am completely alone on the country; my cousins and my brother are at the resort. My father and mother are living in town; this solitude pleases me enormously; it makes me work a lot and read a lot."

"Lighten your palette.. [remark to the younger [ Paul Cezanne circa 1873, to encourage him to start using bright colors], ..paint only with the three primary colours and their derivatives."

"I do not like this place [ Saint-Jean-de-Luz, a small fishing-village on the Spanish border]. I find it arid and dried up. The sea here is ugly. It is either all blue - I hate it like that - or dark and dull. ...There is constant sun, good weather all the time, the ocean like a slab of slate - there is nothing less picturesque than this combination."

"A group of painters assembled in my home, read with pleasure the article you published in 'L'Avenir national'. We are all very pleased to see you defend ideas which are also ours, and we hope that, as you say, 'L'Avenir national' will kindly lend us its support when the Society we are in the process of forming is finally established."

"The common view that brings these artists together in a group and makes of them a collective force within our disintegrating age is their determination not to aim for perfection, but to be satisfied with a certain general aspect. Once the impression is captured, they declare their role finished. The term Japanese, which was given them first, made no sense. If one wishes to characterize and explain them with a single word, then one would have to coin the word impressionists. They are impressionists in the sense that they paint not landscapes but rather the sensation produced by the landscape. The word itself [impression] has entered their vocabulary; it is not a landscape but instead an impression that one calls the 'Sunrise' by Mr. Monet. Thus they take leave of reality and enter the realms of idealism."

"What are we supposed to do [reacting furiously on art-critic J. Castagnary who proclaimed the so-called new School of Impressionism, 1874] about these stupid literary people who will never understand that painting is a craft! You make it with materials, not ideas! The ideas come afterwards, when the painting is finished."

"..the glimpse of the dome of St. Paul's through the forest of yellow masts, the whole thing bathed in a golden haze."

"My work is going badly.. ..it is always the same story: I don't know where to start. I made an attempt in a field, but the moment I had set up my easel more than fifty boys and girls were swarming about me, shouting and gesticulating. On a boat one has another kind of difficulty. Everything sways, there is an infernal lap of water; one has the sun and the wind to cope with; the boats change position every minute, etc.. .The view from my window is pretty to look at, but not to paint. Views from above are almost always incomprehensible; as a result of all this I am not doing much.."

"If possible, come and take care of the placing [for the first Impressionist painting show of Spring 1876, in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, with nineteen pictures of Berthe Morisot]. We are planning to hang the works of each painter in the group together, separating them from any others as much as possible.. ..please, do come and direct this."

"If you read some of the Parisian newspapers, among others the 'Figaro', so beloved of the right-thinking public, you must have learned that I am part of a group of artists [The Impressionists!] who opened a private exhibition [in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, April 1876]. You must also have seen what favour this exhibition enjoys in the eyes of these gentlemen [Berthe refers to the critical articles in Paris with all their mockery about her works]. On the other hand, we have been praised in the radical newspaper, but you don't read those [her aunts]! Well, at least we are getting attention, and we have enough self-esteem not to care. My brother-in-law Edouard Manet is not with us [Manet didn't participate in this first Impressionist show, initiated by Degas ]. Speaking of success, he [Manet] has just been rejected by the Salon; he, too, is perfectly good-humored about his failure."

"The innocent passer-by attracted by the bunting outside [of Durand Ruel's exhibition (in Rue Le Peletier in Paris) of the 'Impressionists: Exposition de Peinture', 1876] goes in to have a look. But what cruel spectacle meets his terrified gaze! Here, five or six lunatics deranged by ambition – one of them a woman [ Berthe Morisot ] – have put together an exhibition of their work.. .These self-styled artists call themselves 'intransigents' [= uncompromising people]. They take canvas, paint and brushes, splash on a few daubs of color here and there at random, then sign the result. The inmates of the Ville-Evrard Asylum behave in much the same way.. .Try telling M. Pissarro that trees are not purple, or the sky the colour of butter; that the things he paints cannot actually be seen anywhere in nature.. ..try to explain to M. Renoir that a woman’s torso is not a rotten mass of flesh, with violet-toned green spots all over it, indicating a corpse in the final stage of decay."

"..the beautiful [to the Impressionists] is what the supernatural is to the Positivists – a metaphysical notion which can only get one into a muddle, and is to be severely let alone. Let it alone, they say, and it will come at its own pleasure; the painter's proper field is the actual, an to give a vivid impression of how a thing happens to look, at a particular moment, is the essence of this vision."

"I imagine that you [Camille Pissarro] would be delighted with the country where I am now.. ..in , by the sea. I haven't been in Aix for a month. I've started two little motifs of the sea, for Monsieur [Victor] Chocquet [one of them became his later painting 'The Sea at ', who had talked to me about it. It's like a playing card. Red roofs against the blue sea. If the weather turns favorable perhaps I'll be able to finish them off."

"But there are motifs [in the landscape] that would need three or four months' work, which could be done, as the vegetation doesn't change here. There are the olive trees and the pines that always keep their leaves. The sun is so fierce that objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the very opposite of 'modeling'. How happy the gentle landscapists of Auvers would be here, and that [con, or 'bastard'?] Guillemet."

"I've got it.. ..the Saint Lazare [station in Paris, then]. I'll show it just as the trains are starting, with smoke from the engines so thick you can hardly see a thing. It's a fascinating sight, a real dream. I'll get them [the station office] to delay the train for Rouen for half an hour. The light will be better then."

"..the ever-present light blends with and vivifies all things. The idea was that 'nothing should be absolutely fixed'.. ..so that the bright gleam which lights the picture, or the diaphanous shadow which veils it, are only seen in passing, in the actual moment during which the viewer looks at the scene, which, composed at it is of reflected and ever-changing lights, palpitates with movement, light and life."

"You are invited to attend the funeral service, procession and interment of the Impressionists, This painful decision is tendered to you by the Independents. Neither false tears nor false rejoicing. Let there be calm. Only a word has died.. .These artists have decided, after serious conference, that the term which the public adopted to indicate them signified absolutely nothing and [they] have invented another [= Independent]."

"..we [Impressionists] are carrying on a despairing fight & need all our forces."

"You haven't time to think about the composition. In working directly from nature, the painter ends up by simply aiming at an effect, and not composing the picture at all; and he soon becomes monotonous."

"They [the Impressionists] are not merely concerned with that fine flexible play of colors, which results from the observation of the most delicate value in tone which contrast with or penetrate one another. Their discovery actually exists in having recognized that full-light decolors [bleaches] tones that the [sun]light reflected by objects tends (because of its brightness) to bring them back to that luminous unity which fuses its seven prismatic rays into a single colorless radiance: Light!"

"Frankly, this is my position: I have been painting for two years, and my only models have been your [ Monet's ] own works; I have been following the wonderful path you broke for us. I have always worked regularly and conscientiously, but without advice or help, for I do not know any impressionist painter who would be able to guide me, living as I am in an environment more or less hostile to what I am doing. And so I fear I may lose my way, and I beg you to let me see you, if only for a short visit. I should be happy to show you five or six studies; perhaps you would tell me what you think of them and give me the advice I need so badly, for the fact is that I have the most horrible doubts, having always worked by myself, without teacher, encouragement, or criticism."

"Huysmans, the naturalist author, has just sent me his book 'L'Art Moderne', - it is a collection of his pieces on the [[w:Salon (Paris)|[official] Salon]] and our exhibitions [of the Impressionists] between 1879 and 1882. I read his book with extreme interest. He has a real feeling for our [the impressionistic] approach. Except for a few points of disagreement, which I mentioned to him in a letter, I share his view. For a while he considered us sick, touched with the disease that attacks painters, "Daltonism." Little by little he has come to take the position that we are cured, and he calls us the only painters of the moment, convinced that we represent the regeneration of French art which had reached its last gasp. - M. Huysmans is exceedingly kind to me in particular."

"I am hard at work, at least I work as much as the weather permits. - I began a work the motif of which is the river bank in the direction of St. Paul's Church. Looking towards Rouen I have before me all the houses on the quays lighted by the morning sun, in the background the stone bridge, to the left the island with its houses, factories, boats, launches, to the right a mass of pinnacles of all colors.. .Yesterday, not having the sun, I began another work on the same motif in grey weather, only I looked more to the right. I must leave you for my motif. I have a room on the street. I shall start on a view of the street in fog for it has been foggy every morning until eleven o'clock—noon. It should be interesting, the square in the fog, the tramways, the goings and comings.."

"The day after your departure I started a new painting at Le Cours-la-Reine, in the afternoon in a glow of sun, and another in the morning by the water below St. Paul's Church. These two canvases are fairly well advanced, but I still need one session in fine weather without too much mist to give them a little firmness. Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog.. .Until now I have not been able to find the effect I want, I have even been forced to change the effect a bit, which is always dangerous. I have also an effect of fog, another, same effect, from my window, the same motif in the rain, several sketches in oils, done on the quays near the boats; the next day it was impossible to go on, everything was confused, the motifs no longer existed ; one has to realize them in a single session."

"I insist upon 'doing it alone'.. .I have always worked better alone and from my own impressions."

"I saw Monet and Renoir at about the end of December; they had been on holiday in Genoa, in Italy."

"I always urged my contemporaries [the Impressionist painters in Paris, circa 1885] to look for interest and inspiration to the development and study of drawing, but they would not listen. They thought the road to salvation lay by the way of colour."

"If you saw the first painted color-studies that I made when I came here to Nuenen [1883] — and the present canvas [1885] — side by side — I think you’d see that as far as colour is concerned — things have livened up. I think that the question of the breaking of colours in the relationships of the colours will occupy you too one day. For as an art expert and critic, one must also, it seems to me — be sure of one's ground and have certain convictions. At least for one's own pleasure and to be able to give reasons, and at the same time one must be able to explain it in a few words to others, who sometimes turn to someone like you for enlightenment when they want to know something more about art."

"On Pissarro's advice I'm abandoning the emerald green.."

"I am weary, having worked without a break all day; how beautiful it is here, to be sure, but how difficult to paint! I can see what I want to do quite clearly but I'm not there yet. It's so clear and pure in its pink and blues that the slightest misjudged stroke looks like a smudge of dirt.. .I have fourteen canvases underway."

"A great change is taking place in art at this moment [start of Neo-Impressionism ]; it gives me pleasure to note the symptoms of this change. I have met a number of painters and critics who seem to understand that the old impressionists have fallen behind. Then, for example, I saw Astruc yesterday, he fulminated against the backsliding of Renoir and Monet, and Sisley's lack of progress."

"Nature is richer than I represent it.. .Nature is so beautiful that when I am not tortured by poverty I am tortured by her splendor. How fortunate we are to be able to see and admire the glories of the sky and earth; if only I could be content just to admire them. But there is always the torment of struggling to reproduce them, the impossibility of creating anything within the narrow limits of painting."