Alfred Zwiebel - Style and Influences

Style and Influences

Zwiebel was artistically somewhat out of sync with many of the artists of his own and subsequent generations, as he felt alienated by, and rejected, much of 20th-century modernism, particularly Abstract Expressionism. He felt the deepest affinity for Impressionism. The individual artists by whom he was most strongly influenced were Claude Monet (like Monet, he was fascinated by water lilies and made a great number of paintings of them), Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh, and, in his flower paintings, Odilon Redon. When asked to which stylistic movement he felt he most belonged, he replied, "An artist must be free to work in whatever style the moment calls for, but if anything, I would call myself a modern impressionist."

Although some of his paintings are more post-impressionistic or even expressionistic in style, most art critics who reviewed his work also called him an Impressionist:

"Zwiebel is an 'admitted romanticist' and adds he's quite proud of this fact. Many of his canvases have the lyrical beauty of the French Impressionists. Looking over the walls of the Zwiebel home, soft pastels shimmer about. Paintings of a Long Island pond, a cabbage patch in Scarsdale, have much of the beauty of the great landscapes of Monet and Pissarro."

"Zwiebel has a capacity of feeling as turbulent as van Gogh, as soft as Turner, and as impressionistic as Monet."

"Alfred Zwiebel uses the impressionistic technique with all its wealth of light, nuanced play of color, and open palette, and this breathes life into what he paints. ... One could call Zwiebel a belated Pissarro, but with the caveat that he is a Pissarro for contemporary eyes."

"Zwiebel, whose models have always been the great Impressionists, has intentionally remained apart from the 'Moderns'... He stayed with Impressionism. But he has achieved, as the paintings exhibited here prove, mastery in this style. His landscapes are imbued with life; his flower still lifes have an almost tropical opulence of colors and forms. To view these works gives one great pleasure."

"Zwiebel has often been called a 'modern impressionist.' His works, with all their nuances of light and richness of palate, are predominantly impressionistic in style although they also have a uniquely individual expressionist character, wherein the inner essence of a subject is more important than its outward form."