Art Movements - RHS Wentworth Woodhouse

A large part of the RHS Wentworth Woodhouse group submission (pictured in previous blog posts) I explored colour and texture in relation to the elements of art. Our Longborders planting style is based on Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painting and its subsequent movements. 

Impressionism is often considered the most important movement in the history of modern painting. Starting in the early 1860s, it saw the divergence from painting a modified and perfected vision of history, mythology or the lives of the influential and aristocratic, to depicting simply what was seen, thought and felt. Recreating an 'impression' of a landscape, object or person at the specific time of painting. Capturing transitional light and atmosphere in a way not done before. Often resulting in far lighter, looser brushwork than preceding Baroque and Renaissance eras. Most importantly, the impressionist movement standardised en plein air (outdoor) painting, in contrast to the standard in-studio work. Which deepened the connection between subject and depiction, and allowed the artist to capture a far more meaningful moment as opposed to a generalisation. 

Our understanding of what the eye perceived was changing around the time of the Impressionist movement, and people were beginning to recognise that what the eye perceived and what the brain understood were two independent things. Impressionists sought to capture the optical effects of light with the intention of conveying the fleeting nature of passing moments, and in-time ambient features like changes in weather. Relying less on realistic depictions to show a scene, and resulting in more emotive, pigmented pieces that have never lost popularity. 

My painting sample below is far from Impressionist, better fitting the category of Abstract Expressionism. However its conceptualisation would not have come to be without the artists like Monet, Degas, van Gogh, Pissarro, Cezanne, Gauguin, and Seurat who pushed the boundaries of art from something that resembled modern-day editorial photography to the emotive medium it is today.