IMPRESSIONISM

Impressionism was an art movement that began in the 19th Century and gained significance in the 1870s and 1880s. The name of the movement came from a piece of art created by Claude Monet called Impression, Sunrise.

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (Impression, Sunrise), 1872, oil on canvas, Musee Marmottan

Characteristics of Impressionist paintings include visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. The emergence of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous movements in other media which became known as Impressionist music and Impressionist literature.
Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.

On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt (1868), Claude Monet

Impressionist art is a style in which the artist captures the image of an object as someone would see it if they just caught a glimpse of it. They paint the pictures with a lot of color and most of their pictures are outdoor scenes. Their pictures are very bright and vibrant. The artists like to capture their images without detail but with bold colors. Some of the greatest impressionist artists were Edouard Manet, Camille Pissaro, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot and Pierre Auguste Renoir.

While the term Impressionist covers much of the art of this time, there were smaller movements within it, such as Pointillism, Art Nouveau and Fauvism.