> Interestingly, I'm taking a History of Photography class right now, and we were just talking about the Impressionists the other day. . . . the Impressionists in particular were inspired by photography to capture the essence, the 'impression' of a single moment in paint. Not necesarily realistically, but quickly and with feeling...

This is what makes impressionism so compelling to me, although I probably wouldn't have been able to explain except that I'm familiar with what books and critics say about impressionism. I look at a Renoir or Degas, and I see not deliberate poses or carefully orchestrated views, but random snapshots of real, every day life. If you took a camera and pointed it at something when the something wasn't ready, you might very well wind up with something that looks like an impressionist painting, except that impressionist paintings tend to have some degree of smudgy painting style that enhances the impression of light and makes the image feel more like a memory than a snapshot.

So it sounds like we basically agree on what impressionism is all about, and if you also like the artists I've named, we probably like them for the same reason.

But now tell me what Van Gogh has to do with any of that. What on earth does, for example, his famous starry sky painting, arguably his most recognizable work, have to do with a snapshot of reality? That painting has nothing to do with reality. There's no slice of life thing going on there. It's not even CLOSE to what a camera would pick up, even if you account for a smudgy painting style. He's got humongous swirls of light that just don't exist in reality.

The paintings of his that involve interior scenes tend to have garish, outright ugly colors and bad perspective lines, both of which would be excusable if they were part of a greater purpose, but what "impression" is being conveyed in these paintings? I don't get the sense of a place or a time or a slice of life; I get the impression of someone who has absolutely no sense of aesthetics.

I figure I'm probably either missing something about Van Gogh's work, or simply not one that personally appreciates it. It'd be nice to know which, so if you can explain why you like him, that might be helpful. Better still, though, would be an explanation of why he's considered an impressionist at all, because THAT confuses me even more.

Gauguin and Matisse I'm not so open minded about. They just suck.