Key Works of Impressionism and Modern Sculpture

Iron Architecture

Eiffel Tower

• Three distinguished parts; the ultimate section is the pinnacle.

Sculpture Highlights

• Dance (Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux): Very moving, featuring many different characters, attempting to give expression to the figures and reflecting softness in the body.
• The Thinker (Auguste Rodin): Focus on innocence and the working class.
• La Marseillaise (François Rude): Popular excitement, high energy in movements and expressions, highly detailed, Hellenistic style.
• The Burghers of Calais (Auguste Rodin): Expressionist aesthetic.

Claude Monet

• Water Lilies: Framed composition, excellent reflection of water.
• Saint-Lazare Station: Blurred vision (as if viewed through wet glass).
• The Railway Bridge: Modern architecture reflected in the water.
• Rouen Cathedral: Impressionism characterized by coarse strokes, blurry images, and rough texture.
• Impression, Sunrise: Oil painting done in 1872. Monet painted the sun with almost the same luminance as the sky, suggesting high humidity and atmospheric attenuation of light. This effect relies on complementary colors and varied color temperatures, rather than changes in intensity or contrasting values, to differentiate the sun from the sky.

Édouard Manet

• Luncheon on the Grass (Déjeuner sur l'herbe): Scandalous topic, academic painting, three scenes; the last scene, featuring the painter himself, is the least blurred.
• Olympia: Venus pose and treatment of luxury/wealth. Features a Black maid with a bouquet of flowers and a cat on the bed.
• The Waitress: Very detailed and technical mirror effect (strong influence of Goya), excellent portrait of the maid.
• Lola de Valence: Typical Spanish clothing, exotic setting in a theater (costumes).
• The Fife Player: Uniform of a band member, academic style (no Impressionist influence).
• Music in the Tuileries: Scene depicting social classes, fashion styles, and customs.
• Dead Toreador (Torero Muerto): Use of darkness and black emphasizes the depiction of death.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

• Luncheon of the Boating Party (Déjeuner des canotiers): Excellent portraiture, highly technical, academic inspiration, spontaneity.
• The Three Graces: Style differs from Impressionism; figures are narrow.

Edgar Degas

• The Laundress (The Presser): Depicts stage manners, class differences, poor photographic framing.
• Absinthe: Reflects loneliness and apathy; characters are positioned low, emphasizing the ceiling.
• The Orchestra: Male stereotype, detailed instruments, photographic framing.

Georges Seurat

• The Models (Les Poseuses): Three naked women capturing female delicacy, three different scenes forming a triangle.
• Circus Sideshow (Parade de Cirque): Moving composition, vivid colors, duochromatic palette (yellow and red), slightly geometrized.

Paul Signac

• Port of Marseille: Buildings and structures rising up, blurred background, boat in the foreground.
• Venice: Gondolas in the foreground, St. Mark's Cathedral in the background.