The impressionists made common cause with the realists against the artificialities of academic classicism and against all emotiona...l and anecdotal romanticism. But behind this common front their artistic aims remained divergent. The world of impressionism consists of light and reflected or refracted colors. These colors are juxtaposed or contrasted directly, with none of the dark shadows used by the realists. Shadows are broken into spots and flecks of reflected color, which seem to spill over from the objects into every surrounding shade or neutral area.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The novelist sets forth his characters in two ways, by direct comment upon them, or indirectly by reporting their actions and beha...vior and letting the report speak for itself. The portraitist uses the latter method only, translating everything into purely visual and self-sufficient terms. His problem is to fuse into a single unambiguous statement what he sees of a man and what he understands of him. The greater his selective faculty and power of communication the keener will be his portrait. Facial expressions and body gestures are a living language which we all have learned to read as a clue to, and use as a revelation, of character. A keen portraitist has a flair for this wordless language of the face, and simply by reporting the visible quantity of the body-soul equation he can give us insight into the hidden psychological quality.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »