Impressionism in music

Impressionism originated in France when a group of artists — C. Monet, C. Pissarro, A. Sis-ley, E. Degas, O. Renoir, and others — performed their original paintings at Paris exhibitions of the 1970s. Their art was very different from the smoothed and faceless works of the then painters and academics: the Impressionists left the workshops to the open air, learned to reproduce the play of the living colors of nature, the sparkle of sunlight, colorful highlights on the moving river surface, the diversity of the festive crowd. Painters used a special technique of fluent spots and brushstrokes, which seemed disorderly near, and at a distance gave rise to a real feeling of a lively play of colors, bizarre modulations of light. The freshness of an instant impression was combined in their canvases with the subtlety and refinement of psychological moods. Continue reading →