Impressionism (c. 1860 CE - 1886 CE)

If you were an artist and your art was the only means of capturing a scene, what would you do if someone else developed a faster, more accurate way to do this? Photography was invented at the end of the 1820s, and by the 1860s photographs were in high demand.

In France, a group of artists reacted to photography and other technological advancements in a way that revolutionized the painter's technique. Impressionists left their studios to paint scenes en plein air, or in the outdoors. If photography had successfully captured an image in time, then Impressionists sought to capture something else: light's effect on the figures and scenery around them.

By applying paint directly to the canvas in short, heavy brushstrokes of color, Impressionists expressed how light and movement changed the optical impression of a scene. The colors combined to form an image recognizable to the eye while individually expressing light's movement over the setting. Artists also often painted the same view more than once a day to capture the way light changed as the sun moved across the sky.

If you stand within three feet of Glimmer Glass you might not be able to decipher the subject of the painting. Step back. What do you see? The title itself hints at what the Impressionists sought to do. The word "glimmer" indicates the movement of light over the water, something that cannot be caught on still film. What other details in the painting imply movement?

Glimmer Glass, 1895
John Ottis Adams, American
(1851-1927)
Oil on Canvas
19 7/8 inches H; 29 15/16 inches W
Frank C. Ball Collection, gift of the Ball Brothers Foundation
1995.035.036
World Events

1839 Louis Daguerre takes first photograph.

1841 The first collapsible tin tubes are patented for oil paint.

1874 Impressionists hold their first exhibition in Paris.

1880 Van Gogh begins his painting career.

1889 The Eiffel Tower built for the World's Fair.

DARCY DISCUSSES: ARTIST

John Ottis Adams, an Indiana native, often worked in the Muncie area. He was a member of the "Hoosier Group," a group of artists who lived and painted in Indiana. Glimmer Glass was painted in the Mississinewa Valley, just north of Muncie.

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