There was a second French Revolution in Paris, little more than a half century after the first one. An uprising in the mid-19th Century waged by artists - a stylistic rebellion that forever changed the way the world looked at art. Filmed in high definition, THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS uses the current standard for television's highest visual quality to showcase the glorious color and texture that defined a turning point in art history. The program premieres on PBS stations in December 2001 (check local listings).
The first critical shot in the Impressionist revolution was fired by Claude Monet, whose 1872 painting titled "Impression, Sunrise" turned the word "Impression," a term of derision among the established art critics of the day, into a battle cry. Monet, Camille Pissaro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and those that joined them in the stylistic ranks - Edgar Degas, Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, American Mary Cassatt, Dutch Vincent van Gogh brought art to its most human, emotional, personal level. Coming on the heels of the advent of black and white photography in the late 1800s, these artists had to compete with images even the realistic masters of the period could not render as accurately. With Impressionism whether in paintings or sculptures they sought to achieve something a camera could not create a subjective view, or an impression. As the one-hour program explains, the immediate, tactile experience that the use of palette knives and thick, bristled brushes brought to the creative experience was unheard of in its day, but paved the way for today's boundless freedom of artistic expression.
These are the paintings whose reproductions hang in homes and even dorm rooms across the country, now rediscovered in THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS in the personal stories of the men and women who re-imagined their profession. Joining together officially as The Society of Anonymous Painters, Sculptors and Engravers, the artists referred to themselves as the Impressionists or, in proud defiance of the State-sponsored Salon Exhibition jury's "refusal" to accept their works, Refuses. As the program explains, they mounted eight independent exhibitions from 1874- 1886 that celebrated color, light and everyday life in contemporary Paris art that would never bring them official recognition according to the Louvre's Grand Salon standards. And although most came from fairly well-to-do families, they quickly became the original starving artists.
THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS takes viewers into the trenches of this artistic rebellion to discover the personalities behind it, artists who thought art should capture personal moments of perception rather than perfection. In the program, this concept is demonstrated in Monet's revisiting of a subject at different times of day or season we see four 'impressions' of the Rouen Cathedral shown side by side and his three 'impressions' of poplar trees that show the artist's many moods; and the ways in which the same subject is interpreted by different artists -- the camera dissolves from Monet's painting of his wife Camille and son, to Eduard Manet and August Renoir's renderings of their friend's family. Edgar Degas put a unique spin on the Impressionist ideal, capturing the fleeting spontaneity of an Impressionist moment in his paintings not with the swift painting and emotional brushstrokes used by many "Impressionists" but by careful observation of posed models, painstakingly drawing and redrawing his images of the ballet, Parisian nightlife and horseracing, for an Impressionist effect. Degas openly admitted that "no art was ever less spontaneous" than his. In his story and other examples from the era, THE FRENCH IMPRESSIONISTS gives viewers a new impression of some of the world's most beloved artists and their art.
Executive Producer: Roy Hammond; Producer/Writer: Sam Toperoff; Associate Producer: Theresa Statz. Narrator: Frank Deford. CC: STEREO.
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