Plein-Air Painting
Guide to Ourdoor Painters Like the Impressionists, Artists from Barbizon, Grez-sur-Loing, Pont-Aven, Concarneau, Newlyn Schools.

Plein-Air Art

En plein air or outdoor landscape painting began with the Romantics (fl.1789-1830) whose search for authenticity accorded particular value to spontaneous sketching from nature. One of the earliest pioneers of plein-air landscapes was John Constable (1776-1837) who along with JWM Turner (1775-1851) was the major English landscape artist of the 19th century. Although most of his open air work was limited to drawings - in pencil and oils - which were later worked up in his studio, at least one of his works - his masterpiece, Boatbuilding Near Flatford Mill (1815) - was painted wholly out of doors.

Continental Developments

The tradition of painting landscapes en plein-air was greatly developed during the 19th century by a series of artist colonies on the Continent, such as those at Barbizon, Grez-sur-Loing, Pont-Aven, Louveciennes, St. Malo and Concarneau, which attracted French Romantic painters like Theodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) as well as Realists like Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875), and Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) and others. In addition, numerous Irish landscape artists like the tonal expert Nathaniel Hone the Younger (1831-1917), the rural artist Augustus Nicholas Burke (1838-91), the orientalist Aloysius O'Kelly (1853-c.1941), the romantic painter Frank O'Meara (1853-88), the colourists Roderic O'Conor (1861-1940) and (later) William John Leech (1881-1968), the Impressionists Walter Osborne (1859-1903) and John Lavery (1856-1941), the classical Dermod O'Brien (1865-1945), and Newlyn artists Stanhope Forbes (1857-1947) and Norman Garstin (1847-1926), to name but a few.

Bridge at Rathwilly, Misty Evening.
Paul Kelly.

June, Inch Beach by John Morris.

In Russia, in 1863, Ilya Repin (1844-1930) and other progressive members of the St Petersburg Academy of Art, formed a group of painters known as The Wanderers, who toured the countryside painting rural scenes entirely in the open air to raise awareness of conditions outside the cities.

Impressionism

The high point of plein-air art came with the emergence of Impressionism, the world famous art movement named after the picture Impression, Sunrise (1872) by Claude Monet (1840-1926). As well as Monet - who became famous for a wide range of outdoor works, notably his series of water-lilies - other leading exponents of Impressionist landscape painting included Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), perhaps the greatest painter of 'dappled light' in the history of art, the Parisian-born Englishman Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), and the anarchist-inclined Camille Pissarro (1830-1903).

Post-Impressionist artists Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) and Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) continued the tradition: Cezanne with his use of grid-like structures with which he slowly built up his compositions in his open air pursuit of French Classical painting traditions; Van Gogh in his manic, highly personal and rapid rendering of the landscape around Arles. One should also note that plein-air work was encouraged and facilitated not only by its freedom from studio rents, but also by the invention of the metal tube in which slow drying oil paint could be stored almost indefinitely.

Plein Air Painting Today

Typically, painting a picture in the open air requires rapid composition and brushwork, neither of which is feasible unless the artist is familiar with the fundamentals of drawing. Thus it is no surprise to learn that many, if not most, outdoor painters were academically trained in life-drawing and perspective. Unfortunately, in today's colleges of fine art, this type of basic training is no longer seen as necessary - far less 'essential' - for would-be painters, who instead are encouraged to 'create' and 'express themselves' in a variety of media, without the need for methodical learning. While this focus on freedom of expression may facilitate variety and the development of new forms of artwork, it fails to inculcate the values and skills needed for outdoors painting. Because of this, more and more traditional artists are voicing their dissatisfaction with modern methods of teaching art, and with the reluctance of official arts bodies to promote the principles of painterly craftsmanship.

Grand Canal Venice. (2007)
Norman Teeling.

Early Spring by Henry McGrane.

Plein-Air Art Tradition in Ireland

Although nineteenth century Irish artists were actively involved in the theory and practice of plein-air painting, the situation today seems in some ways less promising.

As in much of Western Europe, art education in Ireland is suffering from an overdose of modernism. Following the historical controversies of the mid-20th century between the traditionalists in the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA) and the more avant-garde ranks of the Irish Exhibition of Living Art, as well as the revamping of the National College of Art and Design (NCAD) in the early 1970s, control of the RHA and NCAD has passed out of the hands of the more academically inclined artists. In their place - according to some commentators - we now see a generation of administrators who have lost touch with the demands and standards of professional painters, and who, as a result, are now presiding over a slow decline in artistic standards.

Meanwhile, high quality traditional artists - especially plein air painters - are finding it more difficult to gain entry to the RHA annual exhibition, being viewed as 'old fashioned' and 'out of step' with current fashion. Whether this will adversely affect the high standards of plein-air painting in Ireland is yet to be seen.

For the most valuable plein-air pictures from Ireland,
please see: Most Expensive Irish Paintings.

• For biographies of other painters and sculptors from Ireland, see: Irish Artists.
• For more about fine art and culture in Ireland, see: Irish Art: Visual Arts Ireland.

Irish Art News - Guide to Irish Art Exhibitions and Shows
© visual-arts-cork.com 2008 All rights reserved.