Art History: The Impressionists
According to historians, the impressionism technique came into being during late 1860s even though it got its name in 1874. Main elements of impressionism include but not limited to painted surfaces, dashes, dots, lights and its reflection, depicting modern life as the subject matter. Artist always displayed their artifacts in exhibitions like the annual saloon, which allowed them to showcase their art in France and deliver the paintings for sale. Even though the impressionist considered Manet to be their head, he did not demonstrate any intentions to join them into groups. Nevertheless, they strongly held on the significance of landscapes and genres in the society. Through these landscapes and genres, artists portray particular conditions of the atmosphere, like clouds, light on water or a burst of rain (King 67). They achieved this by painting small commas of specific colors to another.
Impressionism brought change to the world as it allowed people to view life differently. In essence, it brought to life a unique understanding of cities, suburbs, and rural areas, in capturing various aspects of modernization. In general, most artists put weight on the theme of modernity in their artworks. For this reason, impressionism was to take over biblical and historic events, which had previously dominated the olden times of painting. It was between 1874 and 1886 that impressionists organized exhibitions, which were important in displaying their designs and products to potential customers (Denvir 45).
Importantly, impressionist styles did not die; they live on through 1870s and 1880s, pushing art to different directions. Though some artists advanced to become post-impressionists, George Seurat was dissatisfied with this kind of impressionism, opting out to create the post-impressionism, which was purely an extension of impressionism. He expanded the ideas, including use of bright colors like blue, red, and yellow (Clancy 203). Notably, post-impressionism was very much against empiricism, which was common in realism and impressionism.
Claude Monet’s Gare St. Lazare developed the biggest painting even though both artists representing modernity in France and massive technological advancements and industrial revolution. During late 1884, he worked on the painting trough campaigns and small brushstrokes of colors. Moreover, he introduced small dots in the complementary colors, making it solid and aluminous in various ways. He employed sophisticated systematic and scientific methods, capturing the natural quality of light. It was during this period that Monet embraced a range of sources of inspiration as he sought recognition in the industry as a modern painter (Herbert 391). Throughout the changing times of art, artists have highly regarded his work in terms of the effects of light, clouds and movement. Despite the modern usage of geometry of the metallic frames, the work still depicts effects of color and light. On the other hand, with paintings of impressionists, abstract visions are core.
It is worth noting that post-impressionists worked towards reducing the size of brushstrokes into round spots. The aspects, which form from these spots, are pointillism. In this approach, there are tiny dots on the canvas without blending of colors. As a result, different colored dots appear together to show an image by brushstrokes (Denvir 76). George Seurat applied this technique that to come up with Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Jatte Island. It became historic arts and is used in modern day and age to depict impressions, post-impressionism, and neo-impressionism.
It is important to underscore the similarity between the impressionism style and the Claude Monet Gare St. Lazare arts because of the shinning colors, augment an anti-academic outlook. In post-impression, artists mainly employed small brushstrokes and pure colors. Seurat’s approach used dots to make figures, thus representing neo-impressionism in his paintings (Thomson 34). From the Sunday Afternoon Art, it is hard to comprehend modern Christian view in the world since the art is unique and does not resemble other artworks. It also revealed the simplicity of human thinking by representing it dots. It further captures God’s magnificent imagination when creating different things in life.
Conversely, after landing in Gare Saint-Lazare, captures the steams closes in how it is possible for people to varnish 
in the crowd. This is essential in striking a balance between right and left peaks, which bend on a train to the right. It further shows how the canvas and scene empower the engine to produce steam. In general, it denotes the painter of landscape, which was important in taming animosity within the modern society (Herbert 120).
In summary, the two artworks capture modernity and industrial revolution in the world. Main elements of impressionism include but not limited to painted surfaces, dashes, dots, lights and its reflection, depicting modern life as the subject matter. In post-impressionism, artists mainly used tiny brushstrokes and pure colors. On the other hand, Seurat represented neo-impressionism by using dots to develop figures through painting. The two artworks demonstrate significant difference even though they show modern changes and massive changes in Paris stemming from technology and industrial revolution.
Work Cited
Clancy, John I. Impressionism: historical overview and bibliography. Hauppauge, New York: Nova Publishers, 2003.Print
Denvir, Bernard. The Chronicle of Impressionism. New York: Bulfinch Press, 2002.Print
Herbert, Robert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure and Parisian Society. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.Print
King, Ross. Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade that Gave the World Impressionism.
New York: Walker and Company, 2006.
Thomson, Belinda. Impressionism: Origins, Practice and Reception. London: Thames and Hudson, 2000.