Subject Area: French Studies

The French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, such as Monet, Renoir and Cézanne, remain today fascinating artists whose works have made a major contribution to many art movements. This course will focus both on historical accounts of the painters’ lives and on fictional representations of these artists, as well as on some examples of their art. The boundaries between life and art, as well as truth and fiction, will be considered.

Key topics: Accounts of the lives of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, fictional stories of their lives and cinematographic representations, the boundaries between factual accounts and fiction, consideration of examples of art works and the reasons for their significance, on the oppositions of life and art, truth and fiction, the movement of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism versus individuality, and the notion of the work of art