Revolutionary Art Moves From Japan To Europe To The Northwest

By Monica Jonen

Now showing is The Movement of Impressionism: Europe, America, and the Northwest at the Tacoma Art Museum. Impressionism was influenced by Japanese wood block prints that were exported to Europe.

“When Japan was isolated, they would capture every day moments and activities on wood block prints,” said Sharon Berens, the Tacoma Art Museum docent. “Then they would wrap their ceramic pottery with the prints and export them to Europe.”

According to Berens, after the wood block prints arrived in Europe, European artists were influenced by the content of the prints. An informational plaque at Tacoma Art Museum says that the first impressionist art pieces came out of France in the mid-19th century and went against the grain of traditional academic art.

According to the plaque, European traditionally artists painted historical scenes or portraits of royalty. They also had to paint by memory or from a pencil sketch, and mix their own paint. With the advent of pre-mixed paint in a tube, artists were able to take their canvases and paint outside.

Outside, artists could capture the changing of seasons, people going about their day-to-day business, the weather, the light and the clouds. On location painting crafting of everyday people and scenes made impressionistic art a revolution.

“They painted their impression of a moment in time,” Berens said. “They weren’t traditional.”

The result was a style that allowed for individual expression.

Edgar Degas is a French artist known for painting ballet dancers. One of his pieces is painted on a silk fan and is on display at the Tacoma Art Museum. It is titled Dancers and was painted in 1879.

A common technique used by impressionist artists is contrasting dark and light, by the manipulation of colors. Shades of pink and tan give color to the ballet dancers in a spotlight, while men in black suits and top hats stand in a darkly lit corner.

“It’s rich. I like it a lot,” said Aaron Bautz, a patron in the Tacoma Art Museum. “I like how it is balanced with the colors. I also like the medium: the silk canvas, the watercolor and oil.”

According to Berens, the movement spread to America with the artist Everett Shinn in New York. Shinn looked up to Degas as an impressionist and a realist and painted ballet dancers and other theatrical scenes in American history.

In 1917 he painted Ballet in the Park. The painting is of the unusual viewpoint of an audience member watching a ballet performance. Adding the viewpoint from an audience member separates his work from Degas who mainly painted performers.

Up close, the moon shining down on the ballerinas looks like blots of white and silver paint. From far away though, the viewer sees the moon illuminating the ballerinas. This is a significant technique that Shinn uses, painting quick strokes that leave dabs of paint on his canvas.

“It’s interesting that with such loose brush strokes, the scene still looks real,” said Alan Medak, an Art Resource Center volunteer. “It doesn’t take a lot of detail in a painting to send a message to your brain of what an image is and to be satisfied with it. With impressionism, you see more detail up close and less at a distance and the artists of that movement knew that.”

The science of impressionism soon spread to the Northwest.

“When impressionist artists came out to the Northwest in the 20th century, there were no cities, instead foggy coasts and raw terrain,” Berens said. “Abbie Williams Hill is an artist that painted the rugged Northwest. She adopted the style of working outdoors, bringing her children to the wilderness and using loose broad brush strokes.”

Hill was commissioned by the Northern Pacific and Great Northern Rail Roads, to paint the Northwest. According to Berens, her paintings would go in railroad depots to draw visitors to the northwest. One piece of hers from 1903, Glacier Peaks, Spring Sunshine, is displayed at the Tacoma Art Museum.

“You come back with amazing shadows, light and depth,” said Bonnie Bautz, a patron at the Tacoma Art Museum. “They must have had incredible talent and such attention to detail.” Her husband Aaron Bautz, noted that the irregularities make you feel that you are there and a part of the scene.

To tour the exhibit for yourself, visit the Tacoma Art Museum. The Movement of Impressionism: Europe, America, and the Northwest exhibit will stay in the Tacoma Art Museum until January, 2011. A new selection of paintings by Northwest impressionists will be added this spring.