Background: from Neoclassicism to Impressionism
In the early 1800s, Neoclassicism (sharp lines, calm heroes, ancient stories) and Romanticism (strong feelings, wild nature) ruled art. In the middle of the century Realism (Courbet, Millet) showed ordinary workers and peasants as they were.
In Paris, the official Salon decided which paintings were good. It liked smooth, finished history paintings. In 1863 so many works were rejected that a 'Salon of the Rejected' was opened; Manet's paintings there shocked visitors.
New things helped the young painters:
- Paint in tubes (from the 1840s) could be carried outdoors.
- Railways took them to rivers, beaches and villages.
- Photography made exact copying less important, so painters looked for other goals.
- Japanese prints showed bold, flat colour and unusual viewpoints.
Features of Impressionist painting
- En plein air: painting outdoors, in front of the subject.
- Light and atmosphere: the real subject is how light falls at one moment; Monet painted series (haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, water lilies) at different hours.
- Broken colour: pure colours placed next to each other, not mixed on the palette; the eye mixes them.
- Coloured shadows: shadows are blue or violet, hardly ever black.
- Visible, quick brushstrokes and a sketch-like surface.
- Modern life: cafés, boating parties, railway stations, ballet dancers, gardens, mothers and children.
- Cropped, informal compositions, as in a snapshot.
Key artists
- Claude Monet: light on water and landscape; 'Impression, Sunrise' (1872).
- Pierre-Auguste Renoir: happy crowds and warm skin tones.
- Edgar Degas: dancers and movement, often indoors; strong drawing.
- Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley: villages, roads and rivers.
- Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt: home life and women's world, painted by women artists.
- Édouard Manet: a forerunner who inspired the group.
The exhibitions of 1874–1886 and how people reacted
Tired of rejection, the artists organised their own show in Paris in 1874. A critic, writing about Monet's 'Impression, Sunrise', mockingly called them 'Impressionists' — as if they only made unfinished sketches. The group accepted the name. They held eight exhibitions, the last in 1886.
At first many critics and buyers laughed. Slowly, dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel sold their work in Europe and the USA, and by 1900 Impressionism was popular. Today it is one of the most loved styles in museums worldwide.
Post-Impressionism and Impressionism in music and literature
Post-Impressionism (about 1886–1905) kept the bright colour but added structure or feeling:
- Georges Seurat: pointillism, tiny dots of pure colour placed scientifically.
- Vincent van Gogh: thick, swirling strokes that show emotion.
- Paul Cézanne: nature built from solid shapes (cylinder, sphere, cone) — a step towards Cubism.
- Paul Gauguin: flat areas of strong colour and symbols.
In music, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel wrote soft, shimmering pieces that suggest moods and images (water, clouds, moonlight) instead of telling a clear story.
In literature, impressionist writers (for example Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi in Ukraine, Anton Chekhov's short stories, and the early prose of Virginia Woolf) describe a character's quick sense impressions, colours, sounds and changing moods, often in short, fragmentary scenes, rather than long explanations.
Try it
Paint or colour the same view from your window three times in one day using only small dabs of pure colour (no mixing). Step back two metres and compare the three pictures.
Key formulas and definitions
- Impressionism ≈ outdoor painting + changing light + broken colour + quick visible strokes + modern life
- Broken colour: blue dab + yellow dab side by side → eye sees green (optical mixing)
- Timeline: 1863 Salon of the Rejected → 1872 'Impression, Sunrise' → 1874 first show → 1886 last show
- Post-Impressionism: Seurat (dots), Van Gogh (emotion), Cézanne (structure), Gauguin (flat colour)
Worked examples
1. Why did Monet paint the same haystacks again and again?
He wanted to show how light and weather change the colours of a subject at different times of day and in different seasons. The real subject was the light, not the haystack.
2. A painting shows a café scene with quick strokes, bright colours and blue shadows. Is it Neoclassical or Impressionist? Give two reasons.
Impressionist: it shows modern everyday life, and it uses visible quick strokes and coloured shadows. Neoclassical works have smooth surfaces and ancient or heroic subjects.
3. How is Seurat's pointillism different from Monet's broken colour?
Both place pure colours side by side, but Monet's strokes are quick and free while Seurat used tiny, carefully planned dots based on colour science. Seurat's work is more ordered and calm.
Common mistakes
- Thinking Impressionists could not draw. Many trained carefully; they chose quick strokes on purpose to catch light.
- Calling Van Gogh an Impressionist. He is a Post-Impressionist who used colour to show emotion.
- Thinking 'Impressionism' was a proud name chosen by the artists. It began as a critic's joke.
- Painting shadows black in the Impressionist style. They used coloured shadows, often blue or violet.