A very simplistic definition of “open air painting” is a painting that is done outdoors of are of landscapes and natural scenes. According to the “Corot to Monet” exhibit, open air painting was largely impressionistic. They were recreating their sense of the world with new techniques and mediums. There is a lot more blending of color, watercolors, and one technique that I noticed was the use of a lot of little brush strokes like in Corot’s “Evening on the Lake.”
Open air painting and communities of painters at the Barbizon School, for example, contributed to the Impressionism further developed by Monet. They painted rural scenes and landscapes and their work led to artists like Monet depicting real life scenes.
Bathers at La Grenouillere, The Beach at Trouville, The Gare St-Lazare; all of these are works by Monet that evolved from the earlier works of open air painting. As European landscape painting developed further it focused on natural elements like weather, the movement of light, movement of water, clouds, and, as previously stated, depictions of real life particularly in rural settings. Something I noticed about the paintings in this exhibit is that they aren’t just of pretty, peaceful, pastoral scenes. Those artists got out there and painted what they saw, what they felt, and tried to capture the raw emotions of nature. Being out in the open air, directly communicating with the environment brought landscape painting to a whole new dimension and this is what evolved into Impressionism.
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