Impressions: Sunrise. Claude Monet. The term...

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Impressions: Sunrise. Claude Monet.

The term impressionism was first used by Louis Leroy in the French paper Charivari in application to the now famous painter Monet in a derogatory way over the vague nature of his work, Impressions: Sunrise. The aim of impressionists was to “suggest rather than to depict; to mirror not the object but the emotional reaction to the object; to interpret a fugitive impression rather than to seize upon and fix the permanent reality.”

The application of the term “impressionist” to Debussy and the music he influenced is a matter of intense debate within academic circles. One side argues that the term is a misnomer, an inappropriate label which Debussy himself opposed. In a letter of 1908, he wrote “I am trying to do ‘something different’—an effect of reality…what the imbeciles call ‘impressionism’, a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by the critics, since they do not hesitate to apply it to Turner, the finest creator of mysterious effects in all the world of art.” The opposing side argues that Debussy may have been reacting to unfavorable criticism at the time, and the negativity that critics associated with impressionism. It can be argued that he would have been pleased with application of the current definition of impressionism to his music.