Impressionism
A fleeting moment of light and air, caught outdoors in separate strokes of pure colour
How to recognise it
- short visible strokes of pure colour
- coloured shadows, blue and violet, not black
- water, mist, smoke and sun flecks
- snapshot framing with cropped figures
- cafés, boulevards, stations, weekend outings
Why it emerged
Paint in tubes and railways made outdoor painting easy, photography took over the documentary role, and the Salon kept rejecting the young. In 1874 they held their own show in the photographer Nadar's former studio.
Examples
Impression, Sunrise1872 · Claude MonetA critic's jibe at its title gave the whole movement its name
Bal du moulin de la Galette1876 · Pierre-Auguste RenoirSun flecks through leaves on a dancing crowd, a celebration of urban leisure
Paris Street; Rainy Day1877 · Gustave CaillebotteHaussmann's new Paris: wide boulevards, umbrellas and near-photographic cropping
L'Absinthec. 1876 · Edgar DegasCafé loneliness in an off-centre frame; London critics of 1893 called it immoralMore in this style
- 1872 The Cradle — Berthe Morisot
How it spread
- 1874 Paris
- 1886 New York
- 1889 Melbourne
- 1890 Berlin
- 1890 Moscow
- 1893 Tokyo
Meanwhile elsewhere
- Ife and Benin bronzes Africa
- Ming and Qing Porcelain Asia
- Ukiyo-e Asia
- Realism Europe
- Peredvizhniki (The Wanderers) Eastern Europe & Russia
- Post-Impressionism Europe