What kind of image do you have when you see the word "Impressionist"?

For those who live in Tokyo, the Kojiro Matsukata collection, the permanent exhibition of the National Museum of Western Art in Ueno, may be familiar.

There are also other exhibitions on various impressions, and you may be synonymous with art movements in the 19th century.

So why does this impression of the Impressionist continue to attract people?

Impressionist writers burned into the canvas in the IMPRESSION in my heart, that is, the phenomena and impression of the author's eyes.

The drawn "impression" is still over the time, so we can't help but attract our eyes.

For example, let's look at this work.

《Stacks of Wheat (END OF SUMMER)》 Claude Monet, 1890-91, The Art Institute of Chicago

There are no stories and greats of the gods, which were once a monument in European paintings, and only the countryside scenery in stunned colors and brush handling.

It is, as if we kept the objective elements of the motif from the viewer, the outline and detailed depictions are discarded. And he skillfully expresses the gradual light as if he was too dazzling and narrowed his eyes and looked at the outside world.

Claude Monet aimed to be a "light painting" depicting these natural phenomena.

So why did he explore the light in painting?

One of the reasons for this is that there was a thorough exploration of the vision. For example, he has many works depicting the same motifs, such as "straw straw", "poplar trees", "Louin Cathedral's facade", and "water lilies".

They do not mass -produce different colored pallets, such as "Campbell Soup Can" drawn by Warhol, but are drawn with different time, season, and weather.

The 17th -century critic, Lessing, said in "Limit Limits of Rao COON -Painting and Literature," the painter only from one point of perspective, after saying, "Materials of art and material linking all imitation". He says that being unable to draw is to take care of the perspective of capturing this time.

Yes, the light in nature shows us a different scenery depending on the day.

He focused on these material constraints and described the phenomena created by nature during the moving season.

The expression of light is enabled not only in the skillful expression of Monet, but also in the materials used by Impressionist writers.

Let's observe the above works a little closer.

《Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)》 (Detail) Claude MONET, 1890-91, The Art Institute of Chicago

It is drawn with a powerful touch so that the moment is hitting the straw, so that the moment is engraved in the drawing cloth.

In order to enable such outdoors, paint with tubes was indispensable.

This is because every time I made paint in the classic painting workshop, I crushed the required amount of pigments and kneaded with oil. Of course, it was not possible to make a work with only one color, so it took a huge amount of people to make painting.

Also, when producing works outdoors like Monet, you must take out the art supplies out. If you try to make outdoor production with just a hand -kneaded paint, you will surely go out with marble and pigments, and the sun will go down.

From Pigment Features "Let's make oil paint with oil color medium"

Oil paint with tubes that appeared in the middle of the 19th century to the middle, making painters can easily produce outdoors.

Also, as the name suggests, it is necessary to store paint with tubes in a container, so if the viscosity of the paint is low, leaks will occur during moving. Therefore, if you want to fill the original oil paint to the empty tube, it is still necessary to adjust the viscosity a little hard using a constitution pigment.

Monet's thick oil paint stroke may have been born because of these expressions unique to tube paint.

The second is a minimal prescription canvas.

Many paintings, regardless of the West and Orientals, are drawn after the groundwork is processed to the base material.

It has a variety of purposes, such as bleeding and improving medium retention, but at least to increase the durability of the work, it can be said that the groundwork is almost essential.

See photos of the lime panel used for frescoes, one of the classic techniques. The drawing surface is coated with limestone and lime using donated sand, and you can check the sized flax on the side.

Before and after the ground painting, you can see how the painting cloth changes.

However, such processes are minimized in Monet's work.

Let's take a look at another part of the same work.

《Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)》 (Detail) Claude MONET, 1890-91, The Art Institute of Chicago

In the corner of the canvas, the bottom layer canvas can be seen through.

Because the texture is visible and brown, it can be seen that the ground is not applied using white components such as gypsum.

By using these materials, the oil paint soaks into the painting cloth, enabling a gradual painting expression. In addition, the unevenness of the canvas's wake -up became stronger, and the paint was firmly established on the screen, so I was able to draw with a powerful stroke.

The fact that the optical phenomena is established on the canvas without being trapped in the traditional description theory is not only his aesthetic eyes and skills, but also the materials used. 。

Pigment TOKYO offers a number of workshops that approach the root of paintings, such as making traditional paint and using foil.

The art experience from a material scientific perspective, which cannot be experienced only by the art history of writing in letters, will surely deepen your understanding of art.

Please see the workshop page of this lab.

Reference material

・ Lutzeller H "Abstract Painting Meaning and Limit" Hideho Nishida translation (art publisher. 1973)

・ Lessing "Limit Limits of Rao Oon Painting and Literature" Eiji Saito (Iwanami Shoten. 1970)

・ Makoto Miyashita "Different painting (20th century art science lecture)" (Legal Culture. 2002)

・ National Western Art Museum Matsukata Collection (Viewed November 16, 2021)

https://www.nmwa.go.jp/jp/about/matsukata.html

・ History of Sakura Crepass Co., Ltd. "Column" paint tube(Viewed November 16, 2020)

https://www.craypas.co.jp/press/feature/009/sa_pre_0016.html