impressionism

A style of painting started in France during the 1860s. Impressionist artists tried to paint candid glimpses of their subjects in every day life, which showed the effects of sunlight on objects at different times and in different weather conditions throughout the day. The leaders of this movement were Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Pierre Renoir.

An art movement founded in
France in the last third of the 19th century.
Impressionist artists sought to break up light into its
component- colors and render its ephemeral play on
various objects. The artist's vision was intensely
centered on light and the ways it transforms the
visible world. This style of painting is characterized
by short brush strokes of bright colors used to
recreate visual impressions of the subject and to
capture the light, climate and atmosphere of the
subject: at a specific moment in time. The chosen
colors represent light- which is broken down into its
spectrum components and re-combined by the eyes
into another color when viewed at a distance (an
optical mixture). The term was first used in 1874 by
a journalist ridiculing a landscape by Monet called
Impressionist-Sunrise.