Country Arts SA pays respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and recognises their continuing connection and spiritual relationship to these lands, waters and skies. We are committed to listening and helping care for Country, and safeguarding, sharing and celebrating First Nations’ living cultures.
5 Facts – The Impressionists
Welcome to the second of our “5 Facts” series, where we give you five interesting facts about shows from our mainstage program.
This week we take a closer look at our second Arts on Screen event for the year: The Impressionists. Filmed exclusively for cinema at some of the world’s greatest exhibitions, The Impressionists: Exhibition on Screen is a ground breaking series which allows art lovers worldwide to enjoy, marvel and delight at the works of some of history’s exceptional painters on the big screen, in stunning high definition. Here are five facts you may not know about the film The Impressionists and the father of impressionism, Paul Durand-Ruel:
1. Paul Durand-Ruel, the outspoken champion of Impressionism was born in Paris in 1831.
2. During the Franco-Prussian war Paul Durand-Ruel took refuge in London. Here he met Monet and Pissarro leading to the discovery of Impressionism.
3. Exhibition goers, critics and journalists initially used the term ‘Impressionists’ to mock Durand-Ruel and his artists. They took the name from Claude Monet’s 1872 painting titled ‘Impressionism, Sunrise’.
4. Durand-Ruel never hesitated to buy whatever was proposed to him by an artist. His first purchase from Manet amounted to 23 pictures!
5. The first Impressionist paintings to enter a major museum were in the United States, in the Metropolitan Museum, in 1889.