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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1920s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil, Board
1880s Impressionist Art
Archival Paper, Etching
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil
Early 1900s Impressionist Art
Etching
1990s Impressionist Art
Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1930s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Panel
1920s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1970s Impressionist Art
Oil
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
Mid-20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Linen, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil, Panel
1890s Impressionist Art
Etching
19th Century Impressionist Art
Board, Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
1910s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Early 2000s Impressionist Art
Bronze
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Wood Panel
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1980s Impressionist Art
Oil, Panel
1970s Impressionist Art
Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Screen
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Oil
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Artist Comments
A man stands in front of a Picasso painting exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The considerable time he spends in front of the artw...
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
Artist Comments
This painting combines two of artist Onelio Marrero's interests: his love for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and his fascination with observi...
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Metal
1880s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
Early 20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
20th Century Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Oil
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Wood Panel
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Wood, Wood Panel
Artist Comments
Artist Maurice Dionne illustrates crowds of people walking along the street in an impressionistic representation. "Nimbus describes the luminous cloud or atmo...
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Watercolor
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Panel
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Paper, Watercolor
1950s Impressionist Art
Offset
Late 20th Century Impressionist Art
Lithograph
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1970s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil
1960s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil, Cardboard
2010s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil, Cardboard
Artist Comments
Three sisters sit closely together on a couch, their fashion evoking the feeling of vintage Hollywood style. A black furry dog sits on the floor and enjoys th...
21st Century and Contemporary Impressionist Art
Acrylic
2010s Impressionist Art
Oil, Board
2010s Impressionist Art
Paper, Acrylic
2010s Impressionist Art
Screen
1970s Impressionist Art
Lithograph
1920s Impressionist Art
Canvas, Oil