What Would Claude and Eddie Think? Quiz

Answer:

This song was written by "Pop" Wagner (real first name well hidden) and Jack Hansen after Wagner visited a Monet museum and brought home some pamphlets.

Impressionism began in France in the 19th century. Claude Monet and Édouard Manet are credited with being very influential in the movement which emphasized the use of natural light and ordinary subject matter. In fact, the movement was named by French artist Louis Leroy, who was impressed, so to speak, by Monet's work "Impression, soleil levant" ("Impression, Sunrise"). The Impressionists went against the established rules of the time and it took a while for the new style to catch on.

Monet often painted the same scene several times to explore the changing of light and progression of the seasons. He used short brush strokes rather than long fluid lines.

Manet was more inclined to base his paintings on people, while Monet did more with nature. Manet frequently used smoother brush strokes than Monet's shorter and somewhat stippled look.

André Derain did indeed go to London and painted a picture of Charing Cross Bridge. Monet had painted it years before but Derain, who, along with Henri Matisse, was a founder of the Fauvism school of art, used brighter colors and a different perspective than Monet.

Auguste Rodin, of "The Thinker" sculpture fame, has sometimes been called an Impressionist sculptor. He was among the first to break away from basing his work on mythology and sculpted humans in their natural form rather than making them perfectly formed super beings.

Paul Cézanne painted in the modernist style but still had a fondness for the Old Masters and incorporated some of their style into his. His experimentation would eventually lead him to Fauvism.

Vincent van Gogh may be one of the most familiar to many of us due to Don McLean's 1971 song "Vincent". Van Gogh led a troubled life, at one point cutting off his left ear in a fit of rage. Though only selling one painting during his lifetime ("The Red Vineyard") he made an enormous output of art, about 2,100 including nearly 860 oil paintings before his death by suicide at age 37. His use of bold colors and lively brushwork was a precursor of Expressionism.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born into the French aristocracy. He showed an interest in art at an early age. Later on he showed an interest in alcohol, nightclubs and brothels. Many of his paintings are centered on the decadent Paris lifestyle of the late 19th century. He is considered to be a Post-Impressionism artist.

Camille Pissarro was, indeed, "older than the rest of the bunch" - by ten years or more. As such, he became a father figure to many aspiring younger artists, encouraging and leading them. He worked through the Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Neo-impressionism periods. Inspired by Georges Seurat he tried Pointillism, a method of painting using small dots instead of brushstrokes, much like half-tone printing is done today.

And let's not forget Paul Gauguin, who worked in several art forms. He was frequently short on cash and moved around a lot, spending time with many of the Impressionists, and eventually ending up in French Polynesia. He became known as a Post-Impressionism artist, whose adherents used more abstraction rather than the naturalistic depictions of the previous generation.