Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) Tow-Path at Argenteuil, Winter, ca. 1875 Oil on canvas, 23 5/8 x 39 3/8" Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery Gift of Charles Clifton, 1919

LESSON PLAN: TAKING AN IMPRESSION

INTRODUCTION
Before beginning the lesson plan with your students, please be sure to read it all the way through. The plan can be adapted to any grade level.

SUPPLIES

• watercolors, tempera, or markers
• overhead projector
• paper

BEFORE BEGINNING

• Practice mixing colors by optical blending.
• Fold a piece of paper into four sections.
• Using watercolor, markers, or tempera, fill one section with blue dots and dabs. Let dry. Apply dots of yellow to the same section.
• Use the other three sections to optically mix orange (red and yellow), purple (blue and red), and brown (red, yellow, blue).
• Experiment by adding white dots to half of each section.
• Let the students experiment on another sheet of paper. See what kinds of unique combinations they can discover.
• Look at the paintings close up and far away to see if the students can make optical mixing work. How far away do they need to be in order not to see any brushstrokes at all? Are there a variety of sizes of marks? Does that make a difference? (e.g. do small dots mix better optically than larger ones, etc.)

PART I: TAKING IMPRESSIONS

• Give your students four large sheets of paper.
• At four different times during the day (or at four times throughout a week), have them use markers or watercolors to QUICKLY (no more than 4-5 minutes) paint what they see outside, using what they have learned about painting through the optical mixing exercises. They should paint the SAME EXACT SCENE each time, sitting in the exact same place:
• Ask them to sit for a full minute without talking before they begin, and urge them to concentrate on the light, the shadows, and the colors of what they see.
• Tell them not to use black — if possible, don’t give them any.
• If you have time, let them go outside and paint their five-minute compositions, sitting each time in the same spot.

PART II: TALKING IMPRESSIONS

Display each student’s four impressionist paintings.

Questions for discussion:

• What is different about the images?
• Did they have any difficulties in the process?
• Did they notice anything that surprised them (e.g. that shadows are not actually black, but a combination of many colors)?
• How did it feel to work within a time limit?
• Are colors and light different at different times of the day?
• Do they notice differences in the style that is used by each student, even when they are all working with similar brushstrokes?
• Ask each student to choose which of their own four works was, in their opinion, the most successful and why.

If students are intrigued by these exercises:

• Have them repeat them with different media (e.g. collage, tempera paint, colored pencils, etc.) or different subject matter.
• Try to get them to do a painting when they wake up, right before the sun goes down, or at night.

PART III: TALKING ABOUT MONET

Look at the painting by Monet. IT IS CRUCIAL to remember that all responses are subjective and need to be accepted, but urge the students to support their answers with details in the painting — colors, textures, the way space is portrayed, etc. With their own impressionist experiences in mind, have them discuss:

• What time of year is Monet representing? What time of day?
• Which part of the composition did he paint first? The sky? The mountains? The trees? The people? The path? The water?
• Which colors do they think he put down first? Second? Third? Last?
• Can you find areas where he used optical mixing? What colors did he use? What colors was he trying to have your eyes see?
• How did he paint the figures? How many figures are there in the painting? Who is closest? Farthest away? How do you know?
• Try to imitate the body position of the closest figure. How does that figure feel? Is the figure male or female?
• What is the mood of the painting? What contributes to that mood? Color? Texture? Subject matter?
• Can you find the smokestacks in the painting? Why did Monet put those in?
• If you like, compare this to the painting by Delacroix, which was done in the studio from sketches. What is different about the paintings? What is the same? You can compare subject matter, colors, brushstroke, composition, and mood. Which one is more "realistic?" Why? Which painter do your students prefer? Why?

ADDITIONAL SUGGESTIONS FOR OLDER STUDENTS

• Have students research other impressionist painters in France and elsewhere, such as the United States or Britain.
• Have them research what kind of art was being produced in non-Western countries during this same time period: e.g., Africa, Japan, China.
• Have them listen to impressionist music of the time (e.g. the work of Claude Debussy) and discuss similarities with impressionist painting.
• The idea of optical mixing in impressionism actually foreshadows the way that color is used in television and video monitors. Have the students research how the image is produced in these technological media and compare it to the use of color in impressionism.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION FOR TEACHERS

Claude Monet (cl-ohd mun-ay) is the best-known painter of the impressionist movement. Today, his work hardly seems radical. However, to art viewers of the 1870s, his paintings seemed unfinished and sketchy — nothing like they had ever seen before. Monet and the other impressionists turned away from the past, rejecting traditional subjects such as history or religion, and painting the modern world around them in new ways.

Many of the impressionists, Monet included, painted outdoors, a practice made easier by the recent invention of paint in tubes. Their primary goal was to capture on canvas the atmosphere of a particular moment in time through the use of color and light. In this painting, Monet has successfully conveyed the feeling of a late winter day in Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris. There is a sense of dampness and chill in the air; however, the snow seems to be melting, as the multiple greens of the grass and many browns of the path emerge from underneath. The sky is not simply gray, but also includes pale pinks and yellows, perhaps indicating the approach of the clearer skies of spring.

The short, choppy brushstrokes you see in this painting were characteristic of impressionism. Through them, the artists intended to recreate the vibrating quality of light and lend their paintings a certain spontaneity. Each dab of paint is an unmixed color. Monet and others believed that placing two colors next to each other on the canvas and allowing the viewer’s eye to mix them optically would result in a more intense hue than if the colors were first blended on a palette. The brushstrokes make the painting blurry when up close; by standing back, viewers get a different effect. Monet almost never used black — only for clothing and other man-made objects. If you look carefully at the shadows, you will notice that they are not black, but various shades of brown, blue, purple, green, and so on.

The scene represented in this painting is a tow-path along the Seine River in Argenteuil. In the past, horses pulled barges along the river from the tow-path. Monet lived in Argenteuil for six years in the 1870s, during which time the town changed quite dramatically. Since it was only a short distance from Paris by train, many new factories were built, which attracted workers from the city. If you look carefully into the distance in this painting, you can see some of the smokestacks of the industry at Argenteuil. Also, it became a favorite spot for Parisians to go on weekends to enjoy the countryside, participate in boat races (regattas), and enjoy walks along the river, as we see the figures in this painting doing. In Tow-Path at Argenteuil, Winter, Monet shows both aspects of Argenteuil: the peace and quiet, which is what attracted him to the village; and the smokestacks of modern industry, which eventually drove him to leave in 1878. By that time, an iron works had opened up across the street from his house, permits had been granted for a distillery and chemical company to be built, and increasing quantities of waste from Paris were polluting the river.

While many impressionists became dissatisfied with the style, Monet alone continued to develop it. As his work continued into the twentieth century, forms became less and less distinct, until they sometimes disappeared altogether in a dazzle of color and light.

— Mariann Smith

Taking an Impression was written by Nancy Spector and Mariann Smith and was made possible, in part, through the generous support of the Cameron Baird Foundation, sponsor of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery’s Looking and Learning program.