The Impressionists: Painting Modern Life (Online)



Overview

This course introduces the groundbreaking group of painters in nineteenth-century France. It examines the major concerns of artists such as Cézanne, Monet, Manet and Degas and their intimate interaction with modern life. It expands to embrace the impact of women Impressionists such as Cassatt & Morisot, and investigates the trans-national impact of Impressionism. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Post-Impressionism, and the Impressionists'creative techniques, are examined, analysed and interpreted.

Listen to Dr Jan Cox talking about the course:

This course introduces the groundbreaking group of painters in nineteenth-century France. It examines the major concerns of artists such as Cézanne, Monet, Manet and Degas and their intimate interaction with modern life. It expands to embrace the impact of women Impressionists such as Cassatt & Morisot, and investigates the trans-national impact of Impressionism. Van Gogh, Gauguin, Post-Impressionism, and the Impressionists'creative techniques, are examined, analysed and interpreted.

Programme details

The course is broken down into 10 units over 10 weeks, each requiring approximately 10 hours of study time. The following topics are covered:

1. Introduction to Impressionism

  • Origins and definitions
  • Impressionism: the key artists
  • Setting the scene: politics, economy and society
  • Impressionism: aims and practice
  • The geography of Impressionism
  • Impressionists before Impressionism
  • The Paris Salon

2. The painting of modern life: Manet and Renoir portray Paris

  • Manet’s Olympia and Cabanel’s The Birth of Venus
  • Olympia: the critics’ view
  •  Manet and Titian
  • Baudelaire and the flâneur
  • Renoir and the gaze

3. Techniques of the Impressionists  paint and practice

  • Colour and technique – an overview
  • Claude Monet: La Gare Saint-Lazare
  • Paul Cézanne: Mountains seen from L’Estaque
  • Camille Pissarro’s political colour
  • Van Gogh’s opinions on colour (1882)

4. Critical responses to the Impressionist exhibitions

  • A critical overview
  • The first Impressionist exhibition – two responses
  • Claude Monet – Boulevard des Capucines – critical responses
  • Camille Pissarro – Hoarfrost – critical responses
  • Pierre-Auguste Renoir – Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette – critical responses

5. The Impressionist body: bathers and bathtubs

  • Gauguin and the ’modern’ nude
  • Degas’ pastels at the eighth exhibition
  • Degas and Caillebotte – comparative nudes
  • Cézanne and the bathers
  • Cézanne and Renoir – comparative bathers

6. Women Impressionists

  • Overcoming obstacles
  • Key facts and Information
  • Constraints and society
  • ‘In the theatre box’ – the Impressionist gaze
  • Contemporary criticism at the Impressionist exhibitions
  • ‘A sense of confinement’ – limits, boundaries and barriers

7. Monet and the modern landscape

  • Monet – early works and motivations
  • Monet and Bazille
  • Monet at La Grenouillère
  • Monet and Renoir – comparative works
  • Monet and modernity at Argenteuil
  • Monet and the repetition of image

8. Work and industry: Pissarro, Caillebotte and the art of labour

  • Pissarro and politics
  • Factories on the River Oise
  • Depictions of class: markets and a donkey ride
  • Caillebotte’s The Floor Scrapers
  • Camille Pissarro – a change of heart?

9. International Impressionism

  • Anders Zorn – impressions of London
  • Karl Nordström – View of Stockholm from Skansen
  • Philip Wilson Steer and British Impressionism
  • Steer and Harrison – Impressionist rivals?

10. Beyond Impressionism: Gauguin, Van Gogh and Seurat

  • The final exhibition
  • Seurat and Neo-Impressionism
  • Gauguin and Post-Impressionism
  • Van Gogh and The Night Café
  • The end of Impressionism?

We strongly recommend that you try to find a little time each week to engage in the online conversations (at times that are convenient to you) as the forums are an integral, and very rewarding, part of the course and the online learning experience.

Textbooks

To participate in the course you will need to have regular access to the Internet and you will need to buy the following essential textbooks:

  • Thomson, B, Impressionism: Origins Practice Reception (London, Thames & Hudson, 2000)
  • Harrison, C., Wood, P. and Gaiger, J., Art in Theory 1815-1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas (Oxford, Blackwell, 1998)

We advise that your enjoyment of this course will be considerably enhanced by the purchase of the following highly-recommended books which are not currently in print. We do provide the core extracts that you need for your studies, but if you do want to buy the books they need to be ordered via Abebooks or Amazon well in advance of the course as delivery can take up to a month. Other websites that may assist you are Ebay and Bookfinder.com.

  • ​Moffett, C. S., 1986 The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886, Oxford, Phaidon.
  • Smith, P., 1995 Impressionism: Beneath the Surface, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (The Everyman Art Library).

Please note that there are other editions of Moffett and Smith in addition to those that we list. 

Please ensure you are able to access copies of any required textbooks prior to enrolling on a course but please keep in mind that courses with insufficient students enrolled will be cancelled. The Department accepts no responsibility for books bought in anticipation of a course running.

Certification

Credit Application Transfer Scheme (CATS) points 

To earn credit (CATS points) for your course you will need to register and pay an additional £30 fee for each course you enrol on. You can do this by ticking the relevant box at the bottom of the enrolment form or when enrolling online. If you do not register when you enrol, you have up until the course start date to register and pay the £30 fee. 

See more information on CATS point

Coursework is an integral part of all online courses and everyone enrolled will be expected to do coursework, but only those who have registered for credit will be awarded CATS points for completing work at the required standard. If you are enrolled on the Certificate of Higher Education, you need to indicate this on the enrolment form but there is no additional registration fee. 

 

Digital credentials

All students who pass their final assignment, whether registered for credit or not, will be eligible for a digital Certificate of Completion. Upon successful completion, you will receive a link to download a University of Oxford digital certificate. Information on how to access this digital certificate will be emailed to you after the end of the course. The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will be able to download your certificate or share it on social media if you choose to do so. 

Please note that assignments are not graded but are marked either pass or fail. 

Fees

Description Costs
Course Fee £385.00
Take this course for CATS points £30.00

Funding

If you are in receipt of a UK state benefit, you are a full-time student in the UK or a student on a low income, you may be eligible for a reduction of 50% of tuition fees. Please see the below link for full details:

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Concessionary fees for short courses

Tutor

Dr Jan Cox

Dr Jan Cox has been awarded a BA (Hons) by Oxford Brookes University, an MA from Bristol, and a PhD from the University of Leeds (Nordic Art). He specialises in nineteenth-century European art and British art of the early twentieth-century.

Course aims

This course aims to introduce the participants to the group of artists known popularly as The Impressionists. It will place these artists within the aesthetic, social, and economic context of their time, and examine critical reactions to their art. We will look at a number of overarching themes such as body, landscape, and depictions of work and modern life. Additionally, we will analyse such areas as the important role of women artists and Impressionist painting techniques.

Teaching methods

Teaching methods on this course will be:

  • Guided reading of particular texts.
  • Guided use of particular websites.
  • Discussions of particular issues and responses to reading in the unit forms.
  • Close critical analyses of particular pieces of visual, written and material evidence.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course students will be able to understand:

  • The concept of Impressionism in terms of both a shared ethos and its many individual interpretations.
  • The methods and ideals that informed the Impressionists engagement with 'Modern Life'.
  • The place of Impressionism in the canon of nineteenth-century European art.
  • The strengths and weaknesses of the Impressionists' approach to the creation of art.

By the end of this course students will have gained the following skills:

  • Ability to assess and critically analyse different types and sources of evidence.
  • Ability to think laterally across a range of issues and be able to evaluate and summarise the interaction between them.
  • Ability to discuss and interpret specific issues in a clear and logical manner.

Assessment methods

You will be set two pieces of work for the course. The first of 500 words is due halfway through your course. This does not count towards your final outcome but preparing for it, and the feedback you are given, will help you prepare for your assessed piece of work of 1,500 words due at the end of the course. The assessed work is marked pass or fail.

English Language Requirements

We do not insist that applicants hold an English language certification, but warn that they may be at a disadvantage if their language skills are not of a comparable level to those qualifications listed on our website. If you are confident in your proficiency, please feel free to enrol. For more information regarding English language requirements please follow this link: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/english-language-requirements

Application

Please use the 'Book' or 'Apply' button on this page. Alternatively, please complete an Enrolment form for short courses | Oxford University Department for Continuing Education

Level and demands

FHEQ level 4, 10 weeks, approx 10 hours per week, therefore a total of about 100 study hours.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online; to participate you must to be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support