Inspiring Impressionism - The Impressionists And The Art Of The Past

While defining the specific characteristics that, in its time made Impressionism provocative and new a focus on everyday subjects, spontaneity, luminosity, loose brushwork Inspiring Impressionism, featuring nearly 100 works of art launches an in depth exploration of the links between the Impressionists and the major European art historical movements that preceded them.

Beneath the Impressionists commitment to capturing contemporary life, there lay a deep exploration of the art of the past, as well as of their more recent early 19th century predecessors. The Impressionists learned from art historical sources by making painstaking oil copies executed at such museums as the Louvre. These copies as well as drawings and sketchbook studies by the Impressionists are shown with the old masters works they copied.

The exhibition then unfolds into a series of subject groups portraits, still life's, landscapes, interiors and nudes with specific comparisons drawn between Impressionist works and the art of the past, as well as broader connections related to issues of subject, composition and technique. These thematic groupings are punctuated with small dossier sections on the three artists who drew most heavily on art historical sources: Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Paul Cézanne.

Museum Hours:

Tuesday – Sunday: 10 am. – 5 pm.
Thursday & Friday: 10 am. – 9 pm.
Monday: closed

Tickets: Suggested General Admission

$13 adults
$10 seniors (62 and over)
$7 students (with ID) and youth (13–17)
Free for children 12 and under
Free for SAM members.

Date: June 19 – September 21, 2008

Location: Seattle Art Museum Simonyi Special Exhibition Galleries.