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  • Empires - The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
    Empires - The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance
    A fascinating and highly entertaining look at one of the most important families of the Renaissance era--the Medici.
  • Sister Wendy - The Complete Collection (Story of Painting / Grand Tour / Odyssey / Pains of Glass)
    Sister Wendy - The Complete Collection (Story of Painting / Grand Tour / Odyssey / Pains of Glass)

    “Sister Wendy Beckett has transformed public appreciation of art through her astonishing knowledge, insight and passion for painting and painters.” This set includes Sister Wendy's Story of Painting, Sister Wendy's Odyssey, and Sister Wendy's Grand Tour. Simultaneously delightful and scholarly--this is a must have for anyone interested in art history.

  • Exit Through the Gift Shop
    Exit Through the Gift Shop
    When British stencil artist Banksy traveled to Los Angeles to work, he came across obscure French filmmaker Thierry Guetta and his badly organized collection of videotapes involving the activities of graffiti artists. Inspired, Banksy assembled them with new footage to create this talked-about documentary, and the result is a mind-boggling and odd film (so strange as to be thought a hoax by some) about outsider artists and the definition of art itself.
  • The Impressionists
    The Impressionists
    A dramatization of the Impressionist movement as seen through the eyes of Claude Monet. Highly entertaining and informative.
  • The Impressionists: The Other French Revolution
    The Impressionists: The Other French Revolution
    A very personal and revealing look at the personalities that created Impressionism.

Entries in American Impressionism (3)

Friday
Oct232015

William Merritt Chase: American Exponent of Impressionsim

William Merritt Chase - Idle Hours - 1894 - Oil on canvas, 65 x 90 cm - Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth (click photo for larger image)Teaching in public or state art schools by artists associated with Impressionism was of central importance in the American dissemination of the new art and its ideas. Summer schools devoted to open-air painting became established in the 1890s as an integral part of American art teaching. The most popular and successful of the schools was the Shinnecock Summer School, opened on Long Island in 1891. It was founded by William Merrit Chase (1849-1916) who taught the methods and practice of open-air painting there for twelve consecutive summers. The carefree cheerfulness that Chase's canvases emanate became increasingly Impressionist in technique as the 1890s wore on. He became master of the flickering atmospherics of light set off by blue strips of sea or sky and enlivened by women and children in bright summer dresses. The dunes and beaches of Shinnecock on Long Island provided Chase with his staple material. A particularly fine example of this period in his work is Idle Hours, featured here.

Monday
Mar162015

An American Original

William Merritt Chase - Woman in White, 1910, oil on canvas, Indianapolis Museum of Art (click photo for larger image)American painter William Merritt Chase (1849-1916) settled in New York in 1878, after five years studying in Munich. He became the most important American teacher of his generation—teaching at the Art Students' League of New York and then at his own Chase School of Art, founded in 1896. The vigorous handling and fresh color characteristic of much of the best American painting of the early 20th century owes a good deal to his example. His pupils (whom he encouraged to paint in the open air) included Charles Demuth and Georgia O’Keefe. Chase was a prolific artist, with an output of more than 2000 paintings that include still lifes, portraits, interiors, and landscapes. Chase is also defined as an American Impressionist. That movement was inspired by earlier French Impressionism, but was much more structured and deliberate.

Tuesday
Jul162013

Childe Hassam - An American Impressionist

Childe Hassam - Boston Common at Twilight - 1885-86 - Oil on Canvas - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (click photo for larger image)Artist Childe Hassam (1859-1935) became well known for his urban and coastal scenes. He was one of the artists who help to promulgate Impressionism to important individuals and institutions in the United States. He produced well over 3000 works of art.