Impressionism Versus Traditional Art: Thoughts of a Commercial Photographer

Impressionism Versus Traditional Art: Thoughts of a Commercial Photographer

Whether you think about conceptual art, impressionism, or high fashion, they are all deviations from the traditional art expressions. Is the emperor naked, or do these forms of art have nothing to do with that well-known story? Is it possible to make more profit from impressionism than from traditional photography?

Origins

Whether it's photography, paintings, or motion pictures, the philosophy of art is the same: visuals that have a certain impact on the viewer. The result of that impact could be propaganda, fame, praise, or profit. I know "propaganda" may sound scary for some readers, but that's the word that explains the act of propagating ideas to an audience. Some works of art may contain several of these purposes together.

An example of combining (many times) propaganda, fame, praise, and profit, is the advertisement. Its name means "to turn towards." Works of artists who want to "bring awareness" can be put in the group of those propagating ideas. Amateurs most of the time seek praise and fame by shooting non-commercial work and then sharing it with the world.

Artists of old times, such as painters and sculptors, were frequently propagating ideas related to religion or mythology. Others were drawing moments from their time: battles, landscapes, daily routines, and peculiar or common people. They were creating themes that were digestible by everyone. Young and old could understand what that piece of art was showing even though there might be details that were not known (e.g., a specific battle story, or a story from the Bible, or a character from the Greek mythology).

Not long ago, traditional painters began to observe another movement that was gaining strength: impressionism. It was contrary to the traditional art form. It was presenting ideas that were not known to the general public. The majority of the general public does not comprehend that form of art. However, there are already societies of artists, art buyers, and art admirers who are all about impressionism.

Later that form of art started to impact modern activities, that the readers of Fstoppers are more familiar with: photography and video.

Photography

Traditional forms of photography include images of objects and ideas that are understood by the general audience. When a wedding photographer shows portraits of the bride and the groom, there's no need to explain that. Children and old people know what this is. People pay for that photography because they see personal and historical value in it.

It's the same with photography of still objects where a company displays their products through nicely crafted images, so that buyers may be "turned towards" their business and buy something. This is the way the company makes a profit. Corporate portrait photographers make portraits of working people, which portraits form the image of a company to the world.

Traditional fashion photographers shoot portraits of models who are wearing certain clothes or accessories, so people may find them pleasing to the eye (both models and products) and eventually make a purchase from that company. I doubt a couple, that is going to be married, will rush to an impressionist to ask them to photograph their wedding, because the grandmother of the bride won't understand the final images (so to say). No company wants to display vague imagery to customers who won't associate it with their products or services.

Impressionists are not like that. They don't seek to please everybody. They live in their own world where they show work, hope to receive praise, and make a profit. Profit is not something an impressionist can easily achieve yet, because there are not as many art buyers like there are for traditionalists. "Porsche" also doesn't have lots of buyers, but the general public appreciates their cars, whether or not they can afford them. Impressionistic art, on the other hand, is not consumed by the general public, and even though some could afford it, they might not invest in it. This makes impressionism more challenging to make money from. Despite that, the movement gains more and more publicity. But is that publicity widely spread for the sake of propagating ideas of "something different," or it is gaining more and more followers because the general public starts to appreciate it?

High fashion is a form of impressionism. It was originally meant to be a dressing style for the rich people. Today it's not quite like that. Many times you see a dressing style that you won't see on the street or even at high-society events. Obviously, the purpose of the photograph is not to sell a certain clothing line. Yet high fashion shows, photographers, magazines, online media, TV programs, etc., manage to make a living from something that has no tangible value for the common people.

Filmmaking

Traditional filmmaking still dominates in the world of motion pictures. If a two-hour movie was based on impressionism it wouldn't make a dime at the box office, because a movie is usually aimed to be consumed by a wider audience. It is not meant to hang on someone's wall. Maybe that's the reason feature films won't embrace impressionism in the near future.

However, that movement has found its way in the video industry through music videos. They are short and while people are listening to the audio, the imagery that supports it could be anything. The difference is the storyline: in a music video, the music and the lyrics are the main hooks that will keep someone watching impressionistic art. In the music industry, people pay for the audio, not for its accompanying video. In films, however, images and story go together, and people pay for consuming both of them. If they don't understand any of these, they won't recommend it, and the film won't make a profit. That's why we don't see much deviation from the traditional visual stories there.

Future and Sustainability

Sustainable art is the art that makes a profit. Yes, non-profit photographers who shoot impressionism may continue doing that, but it won't make their ideas live much longer because their work won't have publicity. When their work doesn't have publicity it won't be appreciated and little by little that form of art will die out. The current impressionism is backed up by magazines, modern-art galleries, people in the fashion world, and they all do that for profit. If they don't do that, modern art will be gone.

Traditional art doesn't need that much of a publicity because its consumers and clients are in a close vicinity. These artists don't need mediators who explain to potential buyers what is the value of that kind of work, because it is comprehensible, and most people feel the need to own such art.

Do you think impressionism in photography and video will last long? We don't have any historical evidence for the fate of such an art form, and it's hard to make predictions. Traditional art has endured the test of time and is still going well.

Are you going to take the risk and work in the area of impressionism rather than being traditional?

Tihomir Lazarov's picture

Tihomir Lazarov is a commercial portrait photographer and filmmaker based in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is the best photographer and filmmaker in his house, and thinks the best tool of a visual artist is not in their gear bag but between their ears.

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41 Comments

I have no interest in impressionism, either as an artist or consumer, but, unlike in generations past, given the number of people in the world and the current ease of communication between them, an art style doesn't need wide appeal to be sustainable. 1/100th of 1% of the population is still a whole bunch of people.

Practice shows that the modern art museums nowadays are almost empty, while the traditional ones are full of people. I don't know if 99% of the people are there, but it's a good-to-know fact from commercial standpoint.

Also, the communication is not between the whole population of the world, becuase there are many who don't have access to that communication.

If you read articles or watch videos on that topic you can make a statistic of your own on how many people appreciate or don't impressionism. The numbers may surprise you even more.

Maybe this isn't useful from a commercial point of view but I would think most art, along with everything else, is disseminated online. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find book stores, much less one containing a book on this subject. Online...easy.

As someone working in the commercial world for years, I see most (commercial) people don't understand modern art and don't pay for it. That can be counted as an offline research, I guess.

Despite the availability of the internet, people still don't understand it. That's why the mediators of modern art specific museums, art galleries, editors, art collectors. Otherwise people won't make a difference between a child drawing or a modern art drawing. That's the problem with modern art. Traditional art is easily distinguishable, because it's hard for a child or anyone inexperienced to achieve such results. If we take just museums or modern art galleries, sometimes they get some small payment from the author, but that's not what they make profit from. They make profit from visitors. However traditional galleries and museums do make profit while the modern art ones are strugging, meaning the owner has to pour money in to keep them alive. That's not profitable unless the purpose is propaganda, i.e. spreading certain ideas of the "new beautiful."

Do you understand impressionism? I sure don't. And, yes, I see little difference between a lot of it and a child's drawing. :-)

I don't. Most of the time it's just provocative. Its purpose is not to be "beautiful." Modern art is the reason for they coined the term "beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Whoever wants to be provocative, let them be. I focus on objective beauty.

I'm interested in your assessment on modern vs traditional museums. My own experiences show the opposite: the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC (traditional) is losing traffic and had to scrap a major renovation, whereas MOMA (modern) is packed full and expanding it's building and the new Whitney (also modern) has been an enormous hit. The Met has even opened a new museum solely for modern art (Met Bruer).

It seems from my admittedly unprofessional eye that at least in New York, modern art is thriving. Do you recommend any readings or videos that show the opposite being the case?

Europe is quite different from the US. In the US the presence of variety of cultures, accents has made the tolerance much higher than in Europe where nations are mostly having their own way of living, heritage, and culture. That's why (I think) traditional art is more appreciated.

OK I see. Now that you bring that point up, it could also be the case that the older cultures of Europe have a greater affinity for the traditional pieces, because they have a much longer history of art to call form.

I wonder if the same could be said in photography: that Europeans were more skeptical of embracing photography as art because of their leanings towards the traditional, where Americans (I'm think of Steichen, Stieglitz, Cunningham, Weston, etc.) were able to bring acceptance of photography as a modern artform faster?

I think the question about photography is a question about tools and technology, not about content, which is what we are currently discussing.

I don't believe so. How the photographic content was received by audiences (whether photographic images could be considered "art" and bought and hung in museums as such) may have been expedited by America's ability to accept more modern forms of art in comparison to the traditionalists of Europe. It's conjecture, but I think it still fits in the conversation.

That was my point: people were not about what was displayed but if it had been captured with a click of a button or it had been painted diligently by a master painter that took him a long time.

Today, whether it's a click of a button or a smear of a brush, traditional vs impressionistic is quite evident.

Got it. Good point.

You make a good point. Region and cultures definitely play into marketability and artistic sensibilities.

Corporate offices, doctor's offices, hospitals, homes, etc...all would not agree with you. Many have impressionistic art hanging on their walls. Then again,. maybe those clients aren't considered commercial.

Try having an in-depth conversation with those who purchased that art. All of them will tell you that they do it not because they like it, but because they have been told it's beautiful.

Most offices, hospitals, and homes here in my country have traditional art on their walls. I'm curious if that wasn't the case there in your country and recently they have changed them to make the interiors "modern."

Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezan... I disagree with your classification of impressionistic art not being understood.

Monet's ballerinas are still very popular and a child could not recreate them.

I answered your other comment prior this one and there I stated that old impressionism was much closer to the traditional art. Modern impressionism has gone way too far from the first attempts.

I don't know I would classify a lot of that as impressionistic. I guess it is but I always think of the examples in the article which, aside from (reproductions of) Van Gogh, I don't typically see in those locations.

Probably they use impressionism, because it's cheaper to produce (e.g. give a child a cookie and as it to draw something) while traditional art is much more expensive.

I was recently at a Bed and Breakfast and they had Manet's victorian women holding parasol while looking out at sea on their wall. There are different kinds of impressionism. Impressionistic art can still resemble something identifiable to the masses, it's just not photo-realistic.

I agree there are different kinds of impressionism. The oldest forms were very close to the traditional art (speaking about paintings), just looked a bit "not so detailed". Today's forms are extremely stylized. That's speaking about details.

Speaking about storytelling, today's impressionism has to be explained while older impressionism was just laking the details and excellence of the master painters while the idea was digestible by the masses.

Maybe you are referring to a different kind of art. According to art historians, Impressionism ended around 1910. I'm not sure what modern impressionism is called, but we are probably speaking of different art forms. Your Van Gogh example falls under impressionism, but your high fashion examples do not.

That's what Wikipedia says (other sources say otherwise), but every genre has a formal description with elements that are visually distinguishable. Based on these elements we conclude that a piece of art is of a specific genre.

The key elements of impressionism is introducing odd ideas with more stylistic approach. The official information divides the periods into impressionism and post-impressionism, but all of them have these 2 elements in common. Today's impressionism has those 2 elements at hand but they try to call it a different name, while it isn't different in its concept.

Please don't insinuate I referred to Wikipedia. I retrieved the information from my university textbook. Also in the art reference book, it stated post-impressionism has ended in the 1900s, too, and that the next movement was futurism. Maybe you are referring to futurism, which is influenced by impressionism, but is not impressionism or post-impressionism.

I haven't said that you referred to Wikipedia, but that Wikipedia says that too.

For example in our textbooks today they are changing the history we've studied 20 years ago into 180 degrees. Not minor changes, but quite the opposite. It's the same as if your textbooks used to say Washington was the first president and now they say he has never lived.

That's why I try to believe more on my eyes and understanding than unquestionably accepting that a textbook says "this is an orange" while it's clearly grapes.

The principles of impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, modernism, are all the same: (over)stylizing and introducing odd ideas to the public.

Terminology is good when it's kept in sync with the content it represents. When terminology changes but the actual meaning is the same we better call things with their real names.

The general public understand traditional art. The general public doesn't understand and doesn't call "beautiful" what today we see as strange heavily stylized ideas.

In the next comment I will post two interesting examples.

Both of these are called impressionism (call it post-futurism if you like or modern art). One of them is made by a human being. The other one is by a chimpanzee. Can you guess which is which?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b4uiBsnoFL4/UPvtvArtVSI/AAAAAAAAI14/JYhHo3v3Wq...

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/old_wire/img/upload/2013/08/30/...

Both may be called "beautiful" by those who claim to understand that art, but I can't make a visual difference in these two and I think that's weird.

The term "impressionism" is well thought. It aims to impress (or rather shock), but not with "beauty," but with ideas and a stylized approach.

To me and to what I've learned, impressionism is what you refer to as "early impressionism." Everything that falls after it is part of different art movements/genres.

The images you post are modern art, not impressionism, to me. Impressionistic art represents reality. It's about the brush strokes and the representation of reality. You can find a subject in it. It's just very stylized. The images you posted do not have a subject so they are not considered impressionistic.

There I can agree with you. I do not find modern art marketable to the masses and again I agree, you can't tell if it's made by and artist or a chimp.

Thanks for clarifying the terminology. You got my point too. I'm glad about that.

This example may help. Jackson Pollock who is famous for his drip paintings is considered part of abstract expressionist movement. Note that it's not impressionism.

With that in mind, I'd consider your examples from the artist and the chimp "abstract expressionism."

I agree with your terminology, but the meaning behind the different terminology is the same: it's a form of art that is not comprehensible to the general pubic.

A few thoughts...I am not sure I would call fashion a form of impressionism. There is also a big difference between modern art and impressionism. Also Monet, Degas, etc.. were quite controversial with their impressionistic paintings and were eventually quite successful. Certainly a commercial photographer does not want to stray very far from more traditional photography - images usually need to appeal to a mass audience for profitability.

Art, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. It should stand on it's own merit regardless of the medium. I am not interested in "top 40" photography.

The term "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" was introduced by impressionists, because otherwise they could not tell masses that their art was beautiful. This also has a relation to the introduction of the relativistic philosophy of the early 20th century where everything is relative and subjective, which denies the objectivity of the masses.

The word 'beautiful" has an absolute meaning for almost everything. We have words such as "provocative," "strange," "ugly,", etc. Most of the impressionistic art (the modern one) can hardly be described with the word "beautiful," but despite of that, it is used as some kind of "metaphore."

As I said above, classic impressionism was quite close to the traditional art, while the modernistic approach is very stylistic and the general public can't understand it, can't appreciate it, and thus won't buy it.

When speaking about fashion, I talk specifically about high fashion, not fashion in general. Fashion is the way people like to wear clothing, accessories, hair, makeup, moustache, beards, etc. High fashion was used to represent the fashion style of the high-society. Today it represents provocative, strange, and not-so-high-society-wearable clothing and accessories, but a subjective vision of an author. I haven't seen anyone in the high-society wearing the pink "clothing" from the picture above. Not even Lady Gaga :)

Tihomir: Your story gave me pause and made me think. Interesting analysis.

It's good to hear that. Thank you.

Tihomir, I feel out of step with your definitions. But that aside the art world and commercial world are waves which sometimes cross for short periods and move on. Impressionist Art sells at high prices at auction houses, some of the current stuff who knows yet? We are suffering from revisionism now in both art and history.

As I mentioned in the comments above, it is different terms with the same root and the same meaning in them: odd (to the public) ideas displayed in a very stylized way that is easy to be replicated by a multitude of people. Yet, there are people who pay for that not because it's "beautiful," but because it's shocking, different, or someone with authority told the buyer "this is art even if you don't understand it." Common people see the new clothes of the emperor and wonder. That's the very truth.

That movement has gone through different stages but even the general public can tell if something is close to the traditionalism or way off that track (called impressionism, post-impressionism, futurism, modernism). Words can be very misleading and that's why I try to stick to the roots and explain what meaning I use when I write this analysis.

Wedding photography is commercial too. Not all of it is of high quality, but it is commercial and yet people find it beautiful and traditional.

That (impressionism) movement has pierced not only paintings, photographs, sculptures, but also architecture (both interiors and exteriors). Today the buildings I see are glass cubes. The furniture I see is flat metal or flat particle board with shiny plastic on top of it. The eye slides along it and it can't stop anywhere because it's all the same. Yet these are sold for quite a lot of money not because they are art, but because people are told these are modern and are worth buying.

That is also influenced by the time we live in where everyone wants everything quickly, today, now, all of it. Having boxes (that are very easy and quick to be assembled) and putting them in the interiors is the same form of art. It is not uncommon for people to find cosiness in the interiors of old and buildings of old time, while new architecture is felt to be sterile and without warmth.

I have been fond of modern architecture for some time, because that was the only thing I was shown as "beautiful." After I started studying the old architectural principles, and appreciating the slow process of making the art of old times, I had two things I could compare and evaluate what is what.

I don't blame people who like modern art in all its forms, because most of them are just like I was: they are shown only a fraction of what art could be and they are taught this is the standard of beauty.

This is extremely obvious in countries where there was a specific form of communism. During that time they removed all the beautiful pieces of art and replaced them with modern ones and told its people: that is the standard. Follow it. Generations grow up with these standards and it takes quite a lot of effort to open your eyes and compare what people of old deemed "beautiful" and what is presented as beautiful today.

You mean the architecture of the basic box? Everything conforms to the box, balls are not welcome? Communist are not the only purveyors of the basic... To not know today but maybe tomorrow? Now, how to tell that story with photography.

I'm not talking about boxes and balls here. I'm talking about the time consuming process of making something that's out of the hand of a master, appreciated for their hard earned skills, not for their perversion or bravery to do provocative stuff that doesn't require that much skills but ..."nuts", so to say.

I haven't said that commuists are the doyens of impressionism/modernism/futurism. Just saying that they are marketing it. So does the current status quo.

The principle is the same with photography: introducing weird ideas of things that are often useless, shocking, even perversive. The idea is vague, the story is not understood by anyone but 17 people in the whole earth. If there weren't industries and individuals who supported that type of art, it would have vanished, because the general public doesn't understand it and doesn't want to pay for it (even if some have the money). It's not like that with beautiful products like nice cars where even if someone can't afford it, they appreciate the beauty of it.

I don't have problems with the non-traditional art as long as it's not called "beautiful".

Tihomir, we are thinking similarly on different paths.

Yes, it is possible.