Blizzard Blossom

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.

Color photography evokes emotion that can bring a viewer into the scene. It can transport one to faraway places or back into the past.

The first color photograph, taken in 1861, was more of an exercise in science than art. Photographer Thomas Sutton and physicist James Clerk Maxwell used three separate exposures of a tartan ribbon — filtered through red, green and blue — and composited them into a single image, resulting in the first multicolor representation of an object.

Before this innovation, photographs were often tinted by hand. By the 1890s, color photography processes were introduced based on that 1860s experiment. In the early 20th century, autochromes brought color photography to a commercial audience.

Now color photography is widely available, with these historic photographs documenting moments and scenes that are still vivid generations later. Photographers in the 20th and 21st centuries have offered new perspectives in the evolving field of modern color photography with gripping portraiture, snow-capped landscapes, stunning architecture and lots more.

In the voluminous collection of photography on 1stDibs, find vibrant full-color images by Slim Aarons, Helen Levitt, Gordon Parks, Stefanie Schneider, Steve McCurry and other artists. Bring visual interest to any corner of your home with color photography — introduce a salon-style gallery hang or another arrangement that best fits your space.