Nochlin, Linda. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism 1874 - 1904. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1966.
This book is from a series of books used by H. W. Janson in his writing of The History of Art. It is a compilation of notes on the Impressionists collected by Linda Nochlin. This was another inspiring book for me to read. From the letters and interviews of the Impressionists to the French critics articles, this book was packed with great and exciting material to read. The book is divided into four sections that are: Impressionism: Critical Views, Impressionism: Major Masters, After Impressionism: Cezzanne and the Neo-Impressionist, After Impressionism: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Symbolists, and Synthetists.
Out of these four chapters, I referred to the first and second chapters entirely. I briefly read parts of the last two chapters and decided they occurred too late for my study. Within the first chapter, Impressionism: Critical Views, there are five essays written by critics during the time of the Impressionists. These five writers are: Edmond Duranty, Theodore Duret, Louis Leroy, Jules Laforgue, and Diego Martelli.
Of these five, I believe Edmond Duranty's article, The New Painting: Concerning the Group of Artists Exhibiting at the Durand-Ruel Galleries (1876), defended the Impressionists the most. He describes their cause as a quest for the truth. A truth that the public fails to see. He compares and contrasts the Impressionist's art to many different periods in art history.
The following is Duranty's description (attack?) of the Romantic artist:
The Romantic artist, in his studies of light, was only familiar with the orange colored strip of sun setting beneath dark hills, or the white impasto, tinged with either chrome yellow or rose lake, which he threw over the bituminous opacities of his forest floors. No light without bitumen, without ivory black, without Prussian blue, without contrasts, which, it is said, make the tone appear warmer, more heightened. He believed that light added color and animation to the tone and he was persuaded that it [light] only existed on the condition that it was surrounded by shadows.
The basement with a ray of light coming through a narrow air hole - such was the governing idea of the romantic artist. Even today, in every country, the landscape is treated like the depths of a fireplace or the interior of the back of a shop. And yet everyone has gone through some thirty leagues of countryside in the summer and has been able to see how the hillocks, meadow, and field vanished, so to speak, in a single light-filled reflection which they receive from the sky and give back to it. . . Now indeed, for the first time, painters have understood and reproduced, or tried to reproduce, these phenomena. In some of their canvases we can feel the light and the heat vibrate and palpitate. We feel an intoxication of light, which, for painters educated outside of and in opposition to nature, is a thing without merit, without importance, much too bright, too clear, too crude, and too explicit.... (p. 4)
There are also many quotes and writings I found inspiring in the second chapter, Impressionism: Major Masters. The following are notes from Renior's notebook that I found odd. He writes,
Go and see what others have produced, but never copy anything except nature. You would be trying to enter into a temperament that is not yours and nothing that you would do would have any character. (p. 51)
The above quotation seems odd because Renior, like many Impressionists early in their careers, studied at the Louvre by copying paintings. This is an example an artist creating a myth about himself. Maybe an artist's mind changes as their attitudes and theories change. I can see Renior, as a young artist, copying at the Louvre. But, I can also see Renior, as a fully mature artist, expressing his idea for the above quotation. Again, this is an example of sifting through the myths, trying to find the truth. I believe the only truth is what lies within your own heart. Take all the quotes and letters for what they are, opinions, and come to your own conclusions.
This book was enjoyable for me to read. It gave me a lot to think about, in terms of art, on a deeper, more expressive, level. It let me know that it is acceptable (and encouraged) to experiment with new ideas in my art. Reading the letters, theories, and critiques of the Impressionists helped bring me to a new level in my art and thinking.