"California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Museum"

With fifty paintings showcasing an array of California landscapes, from coastal beaches to vast deserts, "California Impressionism: Selections from the Irvine Museum" shows Nov. 17 through Feb. 17.
Also called California plein air painting, after the French term for “in the open air” — California Impressionism focused on capturing the special light and color of the state’s landscape and helped to define modern landscape painting. Inspired during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, California… Show more artists produced a unique style that combined several aspects of American and European art.

While French Impressionism often depicted urban experiences, American Impressionists preferred small-town landscapes where they could paint solid forms, such as visible mountains and trees, in the background. While artists across the US were painting local landscapes during this time, the California terrain made a distinct impression on the Impressionists.

“The combination of the landscape and the intense lighting [in California] convinced people to become landscape painters,” said Jean Stern, Executive Director for the Irvine Museum and curator of this traveling exhibition, which comes to Bellingham from the Portland Art Museum.

The Irvine Museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of California art of the Impressionist Period (1890-1930). This show features key works that embody the regional variant of American Impressionism that has come to be associated with California and its remarkable landscape.

As the third largest state in the United States, California spans from the northern Redwood National Forest, east to the Sierra Nevada, west to the beaches of the Pacific Ocean and at the tail end of the state, just above Mexico lies the Mojave Desert. These sprawling variations of landscape made it possible for painters to experiment with different types of landforms and try their hand in new sceneries, according to Stern.

Exhibition – related programs include “Impressions Improv”
Attend a lecture by Jean Stern, Saturday November 17 at 2 PM, or participate in “Impressions Improv,” a night of improvisation by local poets, dancers and musicians performing their interpretation of the paintings on display, during the Downtown Art Walk Friday, December 7.

Show less