Impressionism Madison O’Connor

What is impressionism? The term 'Impressionism' comes from a sarcastic review of Monet's painting, 'Impression, Sunrise' (1873), written by Louis Leroy in the satirical magazine 'Le Charivari'. Impressionism was a style of painting that used a more scientific analysis of color to capture the effects of light in nature. The Impressionists painted with small strokes of pure colors which mixed in the eye of the spectator when viewed from a distance. The subject most suited to the Impressionist technique was landscape, but they also painted portraits, as well as still life paintings and figure compositions. Impressionism is now seen as the first movement in modern art, and had a huge influence on the development of art in the 20th century.

Facts about Impressionism The Impressionists had to paint quickly to capture the atmosphere of a particular time of day or the effects of different weather conditions on the landscape. The speed of the Impressionists' painting technique forced them to sacrifice accurate line and detail in favor of atmospheric effect. Impressionist compositions were strongly influenced by the development of photography and the discovery of Japanese woodcuts.

Famous Impressionists Some of the main artists associated with French Impressionism were: – Claude Monet – Pierre Auguste Renoir – Camille Pissarro – Edgar Degas – Alfred Sisley – Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec

French Impressionism in America Major exhibitions of French impressionist works in Boston and New York in the 1880s introduced the style to the American public Soon after Americans began earnestly to collect and emulate European art, the French Impressionists made their debut in a private exhibition in Paris in 1874; they would show together eight times in all, until During the mid-1880s, as French Impressionism lost its radical edge, American collectors began to value the style, and more American artists began to experiment with it after absorbing academic fundamentals

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