Impressionism and Monet please help?

Question

What's actually Impressionism, and why do you like it (if). And also i really like Monet's paintings, but i really want to know why he's considered the greatest Impressionist painter, i mean in the qualities of his paintings. And would you describe of his paintings using some art terms, like his tone, and stroke or his other strengths
thanks a lot

Answer 1

Impressionists actually paint what they saw . This was not the first time as is often beleived . Velasquez painted what actually hit his retina. The classical painters paint what they know and describe the shape of a leg in paint whereas the impressionists , if the leg is in blotchy shadow it will appear in the painting so and taken out of context would not look like a leg at all . The subject was not important to them as it had been in history paintings so they painted what was around them .David Hockney's book Secret Knowledge explains how ' suddenly in the renaissance painters could drawn better as they used the camara obscura and again the impressionists sometimes didn't appear to draw as well ie with photo precision. Although Degar used photos but he is slightly out of the idea of a real immpressionist. I ahve to say Monet probably isn't my favourite one, I think I like Renoir best . Look art this http://digilander.libero.it/giardinauti/ROSACREMONA%20Renoir%20-Conversazione%20con%20il%20giardiniere-1875%20.jpg
We know the shirt is white but its not in the painting and how it all looses its edges in the background
http://www.artchive.com/artchive/r/renoir/renoir_promenade.jpg The movement and Reality of it is far more immediate than a photo would be .
Monet is rather static but lovely too Renoir can be very chocolate boxey but he is very brave in his picture subjects ,
The immpressionists did not all paint out of doors Degar ..bad eyes so couldn't and the subjects one can see are often use the same model for all the poses and so are arranged in a studio.
Artists now think they can paint a la impressionst an throw the paint around ...this can only be done when one has had a lot of training and years of practice( a pionist might have potencial to be a genious but has to learn the notes first and have a rigid training first ) Berthe Morisot had lessons from Corot and had to copy absolutely exactly his paintings .
Tone of the impressionosts are high meaning light ,.they disliked the brown coated pictures of their classical contempories .
The brush strokes , as you see in the examples I have given you , are broken and create movement and copy the light that falls as a ever changing thing , They used Primary colours a lot although Manet used a lot of Balck ...his hero was Velasqez ..
Well I hope this helps and excuse the spelling . I am not an historian but a painter .