Great Art episode 5 2018 – American Impressionism
Inspired by the great French masters, including Renoir and Monet, the American Impressionist movement followed its own path which over a forty-year period reveals as much about America as a nation as it does about its art.
It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. These gardens provided unlimited inspiration for artists and a never-ending oasis for the growing middle class. As America forged its economic world domination, the pioneering American impressionists crafted a sumptuous visual language that told their story of the era.
Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France – including the sell-out exhibition that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut – this mesmerising documentary from director Phil Grabsky is a feast for the eyes. Narrated by Gillian Anderson The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism unravels the history of American artists who flocked to the French village of Giverny, home to the master impressionist Claude Monet, and cheered the French new wave: painting outdoors with a new found brilliance and vitality. Then they took their new skills home and changed American art for ever.
It’s a story closely tied to a love of gardens and a desire to preserve nature in a rapidly urbanizing nation. These gardens provided unlimited inspiration for artists and a never-ending oasis for the growing middle class. As America forged its economic world domination, the pioneering American impressionists crafted a sumptuous visual language that told their story of the era.
Travelling to studios, gardens and iconic locations throughout the United States, UK and France – including the sell-out exhibition that began at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and ended at the Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, Connecticut – this mesmerising documentary from director Phil Grabsky is a feast for the eyes. Narrated by Gillian Anderson The Artist’s Garden: American Impressionism unravels the history of American artists who flocked to the French village of Giverny, home to the master impressionist Claude Monet, and cheered the French new wave: painting outdoors with a new found brilliance and vitality. Then they took their new skills home and changed American art for ever.
