Impressionism from the Inside Out

Forget what art historians say. What did the artists say back then?

Most histories of Impressionism define the movement in terms of the outward stylistic features of the paintings. These features typically include such things as small strokes, broken color, white ground, high key palette, rapid execution, sketchy handling, and commonplace subject matter.

For example, John Rewald, in his influential “History of Impressionism," wrote:

"The Impressionists sought to capture the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. Their technique of applying pure colors in small, separate touches was designed to create a vibrant, shimmering effect when viewed from a distance."

Claude Monet, "Houses of Parliament, London, Sun Breaking Through the Fog" 1904

This approach to defining a movement in painting is natural for curators, gallerists, and historians who spend a lot of their time categorizing paintings and trying to make sense of them after the fact.

Claude Monet, Les glacons, 1880.  Oil on canvas, 38 ¼ x 58 ¼ in

But to really understand Impressionism from the inside out, it would be helpful to know what the artists themselves said they were trying to accomplish in visual terms. In particular, it would be interesting to know what Claude Monet was trying to do, since Monet was the one that Edgar Degas called “the Sole Impressionist.”

The problem is that Monet was intuitive in his approach, modest in his statements, and averse to theorizing.

"Claude Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood," by John Singer Sargent, 1887

How did Sargent use the term?

One place to find answers to this important question is by looking at the writings of the American expatriate John Singer Sargent. Sargent was perfectly fluent in Italian, French, and English, was close friends with Monet, admired him greatly as an artist, and painted outdoors with him.

According to Sargent's 1927 biography by Evan Charteris Sargent didn’t agree at all with the way people were starting to use the term "impressionist."

"My dear MacColl,
I daresay I muddled what I said about Impressionism last night and perhaps this is a clear definition of what I think Monet would mean by the word, "The observation of the colour and value of the image on our retina of those objects or parts of objects of which we are prevented by an excess or deficiency of light from seeing the surface or local colour."
Of course to a very astigmatic or abnormal eyesight the whole field of vision might offer phenomena for the notation of an impressionist, but to the average vision it is only in extreme cases of light and dark, that the eye is conscious of seeing something else than the object, in other words conscious of its own medium—that something else is what the impressionist tries to note exactly. . . .
Yrs. sincerely,
John S. Sargent.

The two letters which follow were written by Sargent to Mr. Jameson, a close friend of Sargent and the author of a volume on art which forms the text of the letters. Continuing to quote Charteris:

My dear Jameson, March 20th
I have been reading your book with great enjoyment, and feel as if my ideas and my vocabulary had gone through a very satisfactory spring cleaning and I like the opposition of your clear processes of reasoning and analysis as far as that will take one and the ultimate mystery that you lead one up to from the different directions. There is one point only that I should quibble at and that is your use of the word Impressionism and Impressionist.

These words were coined in Paris at a particular moment when Claude Monet opened the eyes of a few people to certain phenomena of optics, and they have a very precise meaning which is not the one that you use them for, so that in the exact sense or to a Frenchman, [George Frederick] Watts' saying "All art is Impressionism" would be a misuse of words. "Impressionism" was the name given to a certain form of observation when Monet not content with using his eyes to see what things were or what they looked like as everybody had done before him, turned his attention to noting what took place on his own retina (as an oculist would test his own vision). 

It led to his doing 50 pictures of the same subject under varying degrees of light and the phenomena which he recorded would be more or less apparent when there was excess or deficiency of light and the fact that he is astigmatic accounts for his having an excellent subject for his own discoveries in this line. 

A person with normal eyesight would have nothing to know in the way of "Impressionism" unless he were in a blinding light or in the dusk or dark.

 If you want to know what an impressionist tries for (by the way Degas said there is only one Impressionist "Claude Monet") go out of doors and look at a landscape with the sun in your eyes and alter the angle of your hat brim and notice the difference of colour in dark objects according to the amount of light you let into your eyes—you can vary it from the local colour of the object (if there is less light) to something entirely different which is an appearance on your own retina when there is too much light. 

It takes years to be able to note this accurately enough for painting purposes and it would only seem worth while to people who would wear the same glasses as the painter and then it has the effect of for the first time coming across a picture that looks like nature and gives the sense of living—for these reasons Monet bowled me over—and he counts as having added a new perception to Artists as the man did who invented perspective. 

This observation or faculty does not make a man an Artist any more than a knowledge of perspective does—it is merely a refining of one's means towards representing things and one step further away from the hieroglyph by adding to the representation of a thing the conscious Will of the Medium through which one sees it. One of these days some genius will turn it to account and make it part of the necessary equipment of an Artist. 

For the present in its exact sense "impressionism" does not come within the scope of your considerations. Of course I agree with what you say, given the rough and tumble and un-Jameson like use of the word. 

You can make impression stand for whatever you like but not add-sm or -ist without being challenged by the astigmatic.
Yours sincerely,
John S. Sargent

The next letter by Sargent shows his characteristic wit and humor, and after that we get at what Monet thought of Sargent, and my take on all this: