Air and colour

The paintings that laughed at him merrily from the walls were like nothing he had ever seen or dreamed of. Gone was the brown gravy in which Europe had been bathing its pictures for centuries. Here were pictures riotously mad with the sun. Paintings of ballet girls backstage, done in primitive reds, greens and blues thrown next to each other. He looked at the signature Degas.

There were a group of outdoor scenes along a river bank, caught with all the hot, bright colour of midsummer sun over head. The name was Monet. The darkest colour Monet used was a dozen times lighter than the lightest colour to be found in all the museums of Holland.

He studied the technique closely, and saw that Monet put elementary colours next to each other without gradation, that many details were barely suggested, that colours, lines, lights and shades did not end with definite precision but wavered into each other.

Just as the eye sees them waver in nature, said Vincent. These painters filled their pictures with air. And that moving, living air did something to the objects that were to be seen in it.

Vincent knew that, for the academicians, air did not exist: it was just a blank space in which they placed rigid, set objects.

But these new men! They have discovered the air! They had discovered light and breath, atmosphere and sun; they saw things live in that vibrant fluid. Vincent realized that painting could never be the same again. It was almost as though these men had created a new art.

Exercise 21. Make a plan and write a composition about Impressionism and Impressionists.

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