Transfigured by the Magic of Light and Shade: Impressionism and Fashion
Woman with a Parrot, 1866, oil on canvas, 185.1 x 128.6 cm. © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN / image of the MMA. Also entitled Young Lady of 1866
Although the Impressionists continued to capture on canvas the constantly changing natural world, their revolutionary contribution was not limited to painting landscapes. Their sharp observation also made them sensitive to urban change and the behaviour of city dwellers. In their desire to depict contemporary life, the Impressionists often chose to represent the human figure in an everyday setting, to capture the “modern” man going about his business or in moments of leisure.
Manet and Degas were perfect examples of this new Parisian, the “flâneur”, the sophisticated, nonchalant observer of “modern life” and its daily cast of characters. Although they were not interested in scrupulous representation of physiognomy, costume and dress, the Impressionists nevertheless recorded the fashions and attitudes of their time through their desire to present the portrait as a snapshot of the subject in familiar
surroundings, through their ability to revitalise both the typology and topography of the genre scene, and above all by focusing on “the daily metamorphosis of exterior things" to quote Baudelaire.
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