Impressionistic art has passionate fans

PROVO — "People don't just like Impressionism, they love Impressionism," said Cheryll May, head curator at the Brigham Young University Museum of Art and educational advisor to the "Paths to Impressionism."

The exhibition explores the history and essence of a movement that has captivated the hearts and minds of generations since its conception. This exhibit explores what led to its conception and reveals why it continues to stir the imagination.

The paintings are from the collection of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Mass. BYU's museum has the honor of being the only museum west of the Mississippi to house this exhibition. As the MOA is becoming more and more a major museum in the West, says Rita Wright, director of academic programming, "the MOA and its reputation is being recognized and able to present to the public a collection of this magnitude."

"Paths to Impressionism," said curator Paul Anderson, "presents Impressionism in a way that is educational and people can appreciate and understand the pieces themselves that are beautiful."

This is truly an aesthetic as well as educational exhibition.

According to Anderson, the exhibition is divided into four major components. The first is the French Barbizon School, a precursor to the impressionist movement that captured ordinary people whose work had dignity and their lives meaning. The lives of the people were captured in landscape, in the "divinity of nature," May said.

A second component in the exhibition, said Anderson, is the American reaction to the French Barbizon School, which had its own unique character.

The major component is the French Impressionist movement itself.

What exactly is Impressionism? Why do people not just like Impressionism but love it? As the primary works in the exhibit attest, Impressionism captured those essences of art that have a wide appeal.

Using "an amazingly brilliant color palate that captures the qualities of light as on water (in the case of Monet), it grasps the essence of a particular moment," said May. "It has a vitality, something alive in its style and approach, using 'pixels' of color and the way light is reflected upon that."

To viewers then and today, Impressionism has a timeless quality — a moment in art that contemporary viewers may find "nostalgic and idealistic," she said.

Initially the French critics of the late nineteenth century had difficulty in accepting Impressionism as it broke from French Academic standards. However, by 1909, Impressionism had its first major exhibition. It was at that point that the insightful director of the Worcester Art Museum purchased one of Monet's Water Lilies.

The American reaction to Impressionism is the fourth component.

Time is the test of great art and it is a credit to Impressionism that in its case "ageAge becomes irrelevant as people are still moved by these works. People are moved by the vibrancy, the sense of immediacy, and in capturing a moment," May said.

"Paths to Impressionism" is a moment in and of itself<, which viewers will remember.

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If you go . . .

What: "Paths to Impressionism"

Where: BYU Museum of Art, BYU Provo campus

When: through July 8

Cost: free with admission

Web: www.moa.byu.edu

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Ehren E. Clark is a freelance art critic with a master's degree in art history and criticism. E-mail him at ehrlyne@hotmail.com.