To taste the world through your eyes

"What Was Different About the Art of the Impressionists?
Now, instead of making smooth paintings that referred to classical literature and history, the Insurgents painted the 'real' life around them from boat parties to shoes to streets to haystacks. It was personal and they wanted their personality to show – hence, the unabashed use of the brush stroke.

But here is the big step: the paintings no longer were pictures in which there were references to other things. They were hedonistic visual treats for the artists who did the work. They tasted the world through their eyes.

The new painting was all about the thrill and delight of the visual sensation, which means becoming intimately involved with the sensation of light or 'painting the light'. It is about painting directly from nature and expressing the rush of your visual (as opposed to ideational) sensation on the canvas in such a way that the activity itself is the point, not the painting!"

I've spent the last five years learning to hate art. Then, planning for a lesson on an art movement I despise--of which I have been known to state "was made for the glossy pages of a Wal-mart discounted calendar", I felt it--A fiery passion for creation. It grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me, for a moment.

The moment passed.