Pissarro/Impressionism thoughts

Finally saw the Pissarro exhibition at the MAM on Thursday, with Pam-from-work. She knows a lot about classical music and was able to talk about the changes in music happening during the time period covered by the exhibit, so it was worth holding off until I could find someone to drag with me. And she bought dinner. *grin*

It was a good exhibition. I went into it with an open mind, and I've upgraded my opinion of Impressionism from "annoying" to "neutral".

1) I liked the chronological display of paintings. Recently I've been fascinated with how artists evolve (or don't...) over time. Also really liked seeing how painting with others changed Pissarro's work.

2) The qualities of light at different times of day and in different seasons. Half of my photographs show this, but getting it on canvas, from life, is very impressive. I enjoyed comparing the same views at different times of year.

3) I'm also a sucker for landscapes with smokestacks. All my best Indiana Dunes photographs feature the NIPSCO cooling tower looming just outside the park boundaries. So I really liked the paintings of the distillary along the Oise, of which I can't seem to find images of online.

4) I bought a postcard of Jallais Hill, Pontoise because the composition reminded me of Grant Wood. Chronologically, that's backwards--Wood's Iowa landscapes were painted several decades later--but since I'm learning art history on my own in a very piecemeal fashion, that's how it goes. It's a terrible reproduction, too dark.


Other stuff:
1) I don't know enough about 19th century European history. Sweet sassy molassy, my "formal education", minus engineering school, was pathetic.
2) I need to do some freshman-year color-mixing exercises with paint so I'm not just working from the jars when I paint fabric.
3) This bit where you can order a reproduction oil painting of famous paintings online for $100 annoys me. I know $100 American is unbelievable money for the people cranking these out--probably Russia, they're not big on the Berne Convention--but puh-leeze. If you can't afford to drop millions for the real thing, no one's going to think less of you for hanging a print over your couch. If you MUST have paint, pick up an original by someone local who'll be happy for the support, and you won't look like such a poser.