Impressionist Art
Emerging in 19th-century France, Impressionist art embraced loose brushwork and plein-air painting to respond to the movement of daily life. Although the pioneers of the Impressionist movement — Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir — are now household names, their work was a radical break with an art scene led and shaped by academic traditions for around two centuries. These academies had oversight of a curriculum that emphasized formal drawing, painting and sculpting techniques and historical themes.
The French Impressionists were influenced by a group of artists known as the Barbizon School, who painted what they witnessed in nature. The rejection of pieces by these artists and the later Impressionists from the salons culminated in a watershed 1874 exhibition in Paris that was staged outside of the juried systems. After a work of Monet’s was derided by a critic as an unfinished “impression,” the term was taken as a celebration of their shared interest in capturing fleeting moments as subject matter, whether the shifting weather on rural landscapes or the frenzy of an urban crowd. Rather than the exacting realism of the academic tradition, Impressionist paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings represented how an artist saw a world in motion.
Many Impressionist painters were inspired by the perspectives in imported Japanese prints alongside these shifts in European painting — Édouard Manet drew on ukiyo-e woodblock prints and depicted Japanese design in his Portrait of Émile Zola, for example. American artists such as Mary Cassatt and William Merritt Chase, who studied abroad, were impacted by the work of the French artists, and by the late 19th century American Impressionism had its own distinct aesthetics with painters responding to the rapid modernization of cities through quickly created works that were vivid with color and light.
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2010s Impressionist Art
Photographic Paper
1880s Impressionist Art
Etching, Drypoint
1870s Impressionist Art
Drypoint, Etching
1860s Impressionist Art
Drypoint, Etching
1880s Impressionist Art
Paper, Watercolor
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Charcoal, Paper
1870s Impressionist Art
Epoxy Resin
1910s Impressionist Art
Board, Gouache, Watercolor, Paper
Impressionist Art
Photographic Paper
19th Century Impressionist Art
Watercolor
1870s Impressionist Art
Etching
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil, Canvas
1960s Impressionist Art
Acrylic
1940s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1990s Impressionist Art
Oil, Canvas
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Panel, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Board, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Panel, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
1870s Impressionist Art
Etching
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
1890s Impressionist Art
Oil, Panel
20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1920s Impressionist Art
Etching
1960s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil
1870s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1870s Impressionist Art
Watercolor, Paper
2010s Impressionist Art
Color Pencil, Paper
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
1920s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1860s Impressionist Art
Panel, Oil
19th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Canvas
1930s Impressionist Art
Gouache, Paper
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Board, Oil
1880s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Canvas
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Watercolor
1950s Impressionist Art
Charcoal, Paper
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
1910s Impressionist Art
Board, Pastel
20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil
1930s Impressionist Art
Watercolor, Paper
Late 19th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Wax, Watercolor, Oil, Wood Panel
1950s Impressionist Art
Pigment
1940s Impressionist Art
Ink
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Canvas
1930s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
Early 1900s Impressionist Art
Mixed Media