This video covers the Impressionism art movement which actually covers a lot of artist. The Impressionist movement is important because it is one of the first times that artist broke away from representational art to do something different. The invent of the camera was going to make this more and more important as time went on.
Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Neo-impressionism is characterised by the use of the divisionist technique (often popularly but incorrectly called pointillism, a term Paul Signac repudiated). Divisionism attempted to put impressionist painting of light and colour on a scientific basis by using an optical mixture of colours.
The Neo-Impressionist artists thought more about the scientific and almost mathematical placement of dots and brushes of color to create specific images than artists in previous periods. Impressionism was waning and these "new" Impressionists were the advance guard of a new generation. They also tended to be making a political statement where the impressionist were not.
We begin our study of master artists with Vincent Van Gogh. I always present questions for the student's interactive journal called a Fact File before watching the video. Students are prepped by the Fact File and it usually generates a good deal of interest in the famous artists we study. During the film we take a test.
The second artist we study is Pablo Picasso. His influence on our world can still be felt like ripples in the water. Of all the artists that we study I believe he had the greatest impact.
The third artist we study is Henri Matisse. I believe that his greatest impact was in the utmost simplification of images leading to what I believe most logos desire to be in today's world, such as Nike or McDonalds.
The fourth artist we study is Salvador Dali. Dali was a Surrealist in life as well as in art. He impacted the world in more than art from comedy to furniture and beyond.
In combination with watching the film over Salvador Dali, students will also watch the Disney film Destino, which was a film that was originally conceptualized by Dali in 1945 but was not finished until after his death in 1989. The film was released in 2003.
The fifth artist we study is Andy Warhol who proves that you don't have to have a flair for the classical arts to have a major impact. He perfected the artist image and beguiled people with his enigmatic answers.
As we study Pablo Picasso who was a co-creator of the Collage, we will Segway to talk about Louse Nevelson an American artist who was famous for her assemblage art which owes a lot to Picasso's earlier work.