The Red Badge of Courage is like an Impressionist Painting

Ramírez Pérez Jaazia Yaotzihuatl

Profesor Phyllis Herrin Obregón

Literatura Estadounidense

October 22nd 2013

The Red Badge of Courage is like an Impressionist Painting.

In this essay I will give several examples for try to prove how the Stephen Crane’s novel “The Red Badge of Courage” it seems to me similar to some painting with the impressionism technique.

First I am going to start with some introduction about the Impressionism, this technique is toke the name thanks to the severe critique that Louis Leroy made of Claude Monet’s Impression, “Sunrise”, “he accused it of being a sketch or <<impression>> and not a finish painting” as Samu Margaret tell us in his article “Impressionism: Art and Modernity”. The technique consist pretty much in short and broken brushstrokes, pure unblended colors and emphasis on the effects of light an the subjects of the paintings were suburban and rural leisure outside of Paris and landscapes.

In the concrete WebMuseum, Paris’ words “The Impressionism is characterized by concentration on the general impression produce by a scene or object and the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light” putting aside the composition of the painting I want to focus in the idea of what impressionism is: an impression, using a new technique for those times, to show the audience different things depending on the perspective that the painting is seen, if the public is looking too closer he only can notice the strokes and the brush, a few colors and would not understand the real image but when you get away it is possible to capture the picture of the painter wants that us can see.

Now, how all these information have to do with the novel? That I think that it had a similar effect if you are away you can see a war novel, but if you get closer you will notice how this war novel it is created based on symbols and some deeper meaning.

For example the war seems to be the main point of the novel, but actually is about the process of the protagonist, Henry Fleming, to find the real courage.

Also show us a different perspective of what is war, we start with the protagonist’s idea of war, and suddenly the author changes completely is like in the painting from outside looks very heroic and patriotic but getting closer we see of what is really made of the war and it is not pretty is hard the life in the camps, the hungry, and fear etc.

Conclude making my point clear about the similarity between the impressionist painting and the novel cited.

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