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Impressionism vs. Cubism Essay

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Impressionism vs. Cubism

Art, according to Webster's Dictionary, is a human skill of expression of other objects by painting, drawing, and sculpture. People have used art as a form of expression for a long time. From the Mesopotamian era to the Classical Greeks and the present. Art is expressed in many different ways and styles, and is rapidly changing, one style replacing another. Impressionism and Cubism broke away from the traditional style of painting. They were both looking for a new way to express everyday life. Time is an important tool that is used in Cubism as well as Impressionism. This element is expressed in Claude Monet's Sunrise and Pablo Picasso's Man with a Violin in different ways. Impressionists' works …show more content…

It is composed of geometrical shapes, abstraction and time. There are no specific colors or objects used. Cubists were looking for a different way to express human form as well as art in general. They provided what we could almost call a God's-eye view of reality: every aspect of the whole subject, seen simultaneously in a single dimension. According to Fiero, the Cubist image, conceived as if one were moving around, above, and below the subject and even perceiving it from within, appropriated the fourth dimension-time itself. In a sense, Cubism is four-dimensional: depth, height, breath, and time, but seen all at once. It displays different viewpoints from different aspects. The object is taken and looked at in many perspectives and is represented that way on the canvas. Monet's painting Sunrise displays vivid color, which is commonly used among impressionists. The painting is of the sun rising over the lake, over looking the bay and the boats within. "Sunrise is a patently a seascape; but the painting says more about how one sees than about what one sees. It transcribes the fleeting effects of light and the changing atmosphere of water and air into a tissue of small dots and streaks of color-the elements of pure perception" (Fiero 114). This painting is typical of its style because it captures light at that moment. The sun is rising and its color is projected to everything in its path. Monet seems to capture this

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