When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of Godlike lambs we joy,
I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our father’s knee;
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him, and he will then love me.
—William Blake (1757–1827)
The impressionists made common cause with the realists against the artificialities of academic classicism and against all emotional and anecdotal romanticism. But behind this common front their artistic aims remained divergent. The world of impressionism consists of light and reflected or refracted colors. These colors are juxtaposed or contrasted directly, with none of the dark shadows used by the realists. Shadows are broken into spots and flecks of reflected color, which seem to spill over from the objects into every surrounding shade or neutral area.
—Paul Zucker (1888–1971)
The painters did very well by her;
it is true, they missed never a line
of the suave turn of the head
or subtle shade of lowered eye-lid
or eye-lids half-raised.
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)