Impressionist Art

IMPRESSIONIST STYLE

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.

Find a collection of authentic Impressionist art on 1stDibs.

Style: Impressionist

Artist: Mitchell Funk

Artist: Richard Szkutnik

Walking the Dog in Central Park

Impressionist Art

1970s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkWalking the Dog in Central Park, 1973

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkCovid-19, Cherry Blossom Park Avenue. No Cars but One Lone Figure and Dog, 2020

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkGirl in East Hampton Pond, 2015

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkCentral Park Bow Bridge with Golden Light, 2013

1980s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkNoble Lion Silhouetted at Sunset, Animal Photography by Mitchell Funk, 1982

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkBlurred New York Skyline, 2014

1970s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkNew York Skyline, Hotel Dixie

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkNew York Skyscraper in Golden Burst of Light, 2017

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkWord Trade Center in Blue, New York, 2017

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkEast Hampton Landsape , Abstract Photography by Mitchell Funk, 2015

2010s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkBethesda Fountain in the Snow, 2017

1970s Impressionist Art

Mitchell FunkStatue of Liberty and Ferry in Morning Mist, 1970