Impressionism is definetely my favourite art period of all time; together with the more recent hyper-realism. In most cases, when you think impressionism, you think Monet. It is crazy how just a single letter can make such a huge difference. I might agree in the sense that Monet really did set the bases of the style and characteristics of the period, but I personally don't find his work as appealling as Manet's. With that being said, I would like to show you my top picks of this artist's work, with my own interpretation of each one, and give you a breif introduction so that you can find how talented he was, he is.
Monet working on his boat in Argenteuil 1874
I have picked this painting as the main example, since it is one of my personal favourites. As you can see, in it we find all of the representative characteristics of the impressionist style: abundant use of colour, short and quick brush strokes, undefined edges in the different elements, and, in all, a great explosion of magnificent art. Probably, one of the main elements that makes me like Manet's work better is the great deal of colour power he uses in each painting, whereas Monet tends to stick to less varied and more toned-down colour ranges. In this case, eventhough it is a sea painting, he still uses some warm tones to give the whole image a less distant and cold effect. This makes it much more appealing.
Manet's name owns many sea paintings that are absolutely flawless, and I consider them probably the best of his whole work. Here are some other examples of similar paintings that more or less tend to have the same vibes but still variate depending on the represented environment. We can, for example, see some differences in the colour selection; some of them have a wider colour range, as he normally goes for, and others imitate Monet's tendency to cooler tones.
Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama 1864 (?)
The banks of the Seine at Argenteuil 1874
The Port of Calais 1871
The departure of the Folkestone Boat 1869
I don't know about you but these paintings are brimming peace and calm to me. I have found that impressionism in general works really well with nature setting, specially if they involve water. In the first example you can tell that the colours are way more suttled and turned-down since the context of the painting is a war battle. On the other hand, the rest of them really have a cheered-up vibe by the use of warmer tones and a great election of blues.
My other personal favourite selection of paintings from Manet are his landscapes, in which I find there is a great deal of expression and an impecable naturalistic approach. It is obvious why these works are his most renowened. Again, the use of the colour still remains my favored characteristic, specially since the landscape itself allows him to experiment a lot more, which he does perfectly. Here are some of my top picks.
The house at Rueil 1882
Fishing 1862-63
A path in the garden at Rueil 1882
Lastly, since portraits are my personal favourite artwork, I tought I'd include some exmaples of his approach to them. Though his portraits, and impressionist portraits in general, are not my cup of tea, they still can be very attractive since they are normally mixed up with the distinctive packed setting surrounding the main piece. This makes them very intense and naturalistic to a lot of people's prefefrence. The first example I'm including I do really like and I've also selected some others that I thought you might like aswell.
The Railway
Spring
I hope that I helped you discover a possibly unknown artist for you or at least made you dive in some very interesting artwork for a few minutes. If you are interested in having a look at his complete work, click here.
This was such a joy to make and to investigate about. I'm most likely going to write more about impressionism and I might attempt to elaborate my own version of an impressionist painting myself. Thanks for reading.
Enjoy
