Capturing Color and Light: Impressionism in Art and Music

Details

When: Wednesdays, Feb 21 – March 13 10:00 am - noon

Where: The Hampton Inn

Cost: $139.00 for 4 session(s)

Type: In Person

Category:

• Art History
• Humanities Courses

Instructor: Kevin Justus
Kevin Justus

Monet and Debussy, Renoir and Ravel

Taken from the title of a Monet painting, the term Impressionism was first applied to all the visual arts, but not long after, the musical arts as well.  Examine this cultural cross-fertilization with a focus on painters, Monet and Renoir along with composers, Debussy and Ravel, all contemporaries of one another, who knew each other’s work, and frequently commented on the works of the other.  (Debussy and Ravel hated the term Impressionism.)  Our investigation of the term “Impressionism” will include an examination of the social and political environment of the Third Republic, using the works of these cultural giants.

Week 1: Introduction.  The artistic world during the French Third Republic.  Looking at Europe with Impressionistic rose-colored glasses.

Week 2:  Monet and Debussy.  Impressionism in Painting:  Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), 1872 and Impressionism in Music:  Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faune (Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, 1894.

Week 3: Renoir and Ravel.  What to do about Impressionism? Renoir’s Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette (Bal du moulin de la Galette), 1876 and Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé, 1912.

Week 4: From scorn to acceptance, Impressionism comes into its own and then it becomes the old-fashioned in the quest for Modernism.