Impressionism

(noun)

A 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists. Impressionist painting characteristics include relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), common, ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles.

Related Terms

Examples of Impressionism in the following topics:

  • Post-Impressionism

    • Post-Impression refers to a genre that rejected the naturalism of Impressionism in favor of using color and form in more expressive manners.
    • Post-Impression refers to a genre of painting that rejected the naturalism of Impressionism, in favor of using color and form in more expressive manners.
    • Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations.
    • Post-Impressionism developed from Impressionism.
    • These artists were slightly younger than the Impressionists, and their work contemporaneously became known as Post-Impressionism.

  • Impressionism

    • Impressionism is a 19th century movement known for its paintings that aimed to depict the transience of light, and to capture scenes of modern life and the natural world in their ever-shifting conditions.
    • Impressionism is a nineteenth century art movement that was originated by a group of Paris-based artists, including Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, August Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, and Alfred Sisley, as well as the American artist Mary Cassatt.
    • Critic and humorist Louis Leroy wrote a scathing review in the newspaper Le Charivari in which, making wordplay with the title of Claude Monet's Impression, soleil levant ("Impression, Sunrise"), he gave the artists the name by which they became known.
    • The development of Impressionism can be considered partly as a reaction by artists to the challenge presented by photography, which seemed to devalue the artist's skill in reproducing reality.
    • Camille Pissarro was a stylistic forerunner of Impressionism known for his landscapes and for capturing the daily reality of village life.

  • Manet

    • Édouard Manet, a French painter, was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
    • One of the first nineteenth-century artists to approach modern and postmodern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
    • His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism.
    • Express why Édouard Manet is considered a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism

  • Europe and America from 1850–1900

    • By the late 19th century, additional movements which were to be influential in modern art had begun to emerge: post-Impressionism as well as Symbolism.

  • Fauvism

    • Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a short-lived and loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism.
    • Fauvism can be classified as an extreme development of Van Gogh's Post-Impressionism fused with the pointillism of Seurat and other Neo-Impressionist painters, in particular Paul Signac.
    • Contrast the characteristics of Fauvism, as found in the work of Matisse and Derain, from those of its predecessor Impressionism.

  • Figure

    • Edouard Manet is consider by most a transitional figure from Realism to Impressionism.
    • His early masterworks, like Olympia , engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism.
    • Edgar Degas is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.
    • Edouard Manet's early masterworks, like Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism.

  • The Armory Show

    • Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism were among the European avant-garde schools represented.
    • Discuss the influence of the Armory Show in introducing the artistic styles of impressionism, fauvism, and cubism to the American public.

  • Modern Life

    • Critic and humorist Louis Leroy wrote a scathing review in the newspaper Le Charivari in which, making wordplay with the title of Claude Monet's Impression, soleil levant ("Impression, Sunrise"), he gave the artists the name by which they became known.
    • The development of Impressionism can be considered partly as a reaction by artists to the challenge presented by photography, which seemed to devalue the artist's skill in reproducing reality.

  • Impressionist Sculpture

    • He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, although he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist.
    • Recognized as an important artist in his lifetime, Degas is now considered "one of the founders of Impressionism". 
    • Though his work crossed many stylistic boundaries, his involvement with the other major figures of Impressionism and their exhibitions, his dynamic paintings and sketches of everyday life and activities, and his bold color experiments, served to finally tie him to the Impressionist movement as one of its greatest artists.

  • Figurative and Abstract Art

    • Three movements which contributed heavily to the development of these styles were Romanticism, Impressionism, and Expressionism.