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  • Essay / Impressionism in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Miss...

    Edgar Degas said: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see”, this feeling is essential to understanding Impressionism as an artistic movement. and later as literary. Impressionist literary authors adopted the artists' techniques. The artist and author use layering to construct impressions of their subjects. Berthe Morisot's painting, Femme à sa toilette, in which the painting of her subject appears to be wearing jewelry, but a closer examination of the work reveals that she used paint layering to give the painting the texture that creates this impression. Like Morisot, Muriel Sparks also uses the layering of her words to create an impression of her subject, Miss Jean Brodie, in her short story, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. This layering provides the depth and complexity that predominates in the impressionist style of art and literature. Jesse Metz, in the introduction to his book, Literary Impressionism and Modernist Aesthetics, speculates that if literature is considered an impression, it "makes surfaces show depths, fragments suggest wholes", which can also be seen in the artistic style. (1). While the artist uses paint and brush to create an impressionistic painting, author Muriel Sparks uses the layered perception of characters to create the subject of her text. Due to the subjective nature of impressionist art and literary style, both mediums possess an ambiguous quality. According to Bernard Dunstan, in Painting Methods of the Impressionists, Impressionism "came to have connotations and associations which can obscure its true meaning" (11). This is also true for impressionist literature. However, Metz argues that "ambiguity surrounds the process by which printing...... middle of paper...... CityDunstan, Bernard. Painting methods of the impressionists. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976. 11-13. Print.Gibbs, Beverly Jean. “Impressionism as a literary movement.” The Journal of Modern Languages ​​36.4 (1952): 175-83. JSTOR. Internet. January 14, 2014. "Impressionism - Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cézanne, Degas, Guillaumin and Berthe Morisot." Impressionism. Atlantis International, 2006. Web. April 22, 2014. Matz, Jesse. “Proust’s immortal analogy.” Introduction. Literary impressionism and modernist aesthetics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2001. 1-11. Print.Morisot, Berthe. A woman at her toilet. 1875-1880. Oil on Canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, Illnois. Renoir, Pierre Auguste. Young woman sewing. 1879. Oil on canvas. The Art Institute of Chicago, Illnois.Spark, Muriel. Miss Jean Brodie's first. New York: Perennial Classics, 1999. Print.