What is Impressionism art? It’s a movement that broke away from the rigid standards of academic painting in the 19th century. Unlike the classical approach, Impressionism focuses on capturing the fleeting effects of natural light, using visible brushstrokes and vibrant colors to depict everyday scenes.
Artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas led this movement, pushing the boundaries of how art could represent modern life.
In this article, you’ll learn about the key characteristics that define Impressionism, the major figures who shaped it, and the techniques they used to revolutionize the art world.
From the plein air landscapes of Camille Pissarro to the urban depictions of Degas, this exploration will provide a clear understanding of how Impressionism became one of the most influential art movements, changing the trajectory of modern art.
What Is Impressionism Art?
Impressionism art is a 19th-century movement that captures moments through light, color, and brushstrokes, focusing on the artist’s immediate impression of a scene. Rather than detailed realism, it emphasizes movement and the effects of light, often portraying landscapes, urban life, and everyday scenes in fresh, vibrant ways.
Historical Context and Origins
Impressionism, as an art movement, took root in the late 19th century, primarily in France. Its emergence was a direct response to the academic standards of the École des Beaux-Arts, which dominated the Paris art scene at the time.
These traditionalists emphasized historical subjects, religious themes, and a polished, realistic style that left little room for experimentation.
This tension between old and new came to a head with the Salon des Refusés in 1863. Artists like Édouard Manet were rejected from the official Art Salon because their work challenged conventional norms.
The Salon des Refusés, created by Emperor Napoleon III, showcased these rejected works and unintentionally provided a platform for the avant-garde.
Impressionism as a movement gained momentum in 1874 when a group of artists held their first independent exhibition.
The term “Impressionism” came from Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise, a work that embodied the movement’s emphasis on capturing fleeting moments rather than perfect representations. Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot were among the early exhibitors.
A key aspect of Impressionism was its rejection of the meticulous, formal approach favored by the Academy. Instead, plein air painting—painting outdoors—became a hallmark of the movement.
By painting directly from nature, artists like Alfred Sisley and Gustave Caillebotte focused on the effects of natural light, the fleeting quality of a scene, and the use of spontaneous brushstrokes.
The growing accessibility of oil paints in tubes allowed for more freedom of movement, encouraging artists to venture outside of studios and explore urban landscapes and natural settings alike.
This practical advancement helped fuel the rise of Impressionist landscapes, as seen in Monet’s work along the Normandy coast or Degas’s depictions of ballet dancers in motion.
As much as Impressionism was a break from the past, it also laid the groundwork for later movements like Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. Artists like Paul Cézanne and Paul Gauguin would draw from the foundational ideas of light, color, and form that the Impressionists established, yet take them in new, radical directions.
By the late 1870s, Impressionism had solidified its place in art history, fundamentally shifting how modern art would develop. Despite initial rejection, the movement’s emphasis on visual perception over precision continues to shape the way art is viewed, studied, and created.
Key Characteristics and Techniques of Impressionism
Impressionism is instantly recognizable because of its distinct approach to painting. One of the most defining elements is light.
Artists like Claude Monet were obsessed with capturing how light changes throughout the day. You can see this in his series paintings like Water Lilies, where he focuses on the shifting effects of natural light on a subject.
Another key technique is plein air painting. Instead of staying cooped up in a studio, these artists took their canvases outside, painting on location.
Plein air gave them a direct connection to their environment, allowing them to work quickly and spontaneously as they observed nature.
This led to the use of loose brushstrokes, another hallmark of the movement. You can see it clearly in the work of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. The brushwork is not about fine details or precision but about the overall impression of a scene—hence the name Impressionism.
Color also plays a significant role. They ditched the dark tones and muted palettes of academic painting. Instead, they embraced a more vibrant color palette to show the interplay between light and shadow.
Traditional blending was out. They used colors side by side, allowing the viewer’s eye to mix them. This technique, seen in works by Alfred Sisley and Berthe Morisot, is what gives their paintings a kind of shimmer, especially when depicting landscapes or urban scenes.
One of the things that set them apart was their rejection of traditional compositions. They didn’t want perfectly posed subjects.
They were more interested in capturing fleeting moments, like the movement of water, the bustle of a city street, or the soft play of sunlight on a flower. Degas was particularly focused on capturing motion, especially in his ballet paintings.
Then, there’s the use of color theory. Instead of focusing on realistic portrayals, the Impressionists used color to express an emotional depth.
Shadows weren’t just black or gray but could be composed of blues, purples, and greens, depending on the light source. You can see this in Monet’s paintings of the Normandy coast or Renoir’s portraits, where colors seem to vibrate and shift before your eyes.
The brushstrokes in Impressionism are another key point. Thick, visible strokes make the medium part of the message.
Artists wanted the viewer to see the process of painting—how the paint was applied to the canvas, the movement of the hand. This approach was completely opposite to the smooth, almost invisible brushwork valued by academic painters.
A lack of detail is intentional. The goal wasn’t realism, but rather the perception of a scene. The absence of sharp edges or clear outlines creates a sense of movement, of something in flux.
It’s almost as if the scene is slightly blurred, leaving just enough to let the viewer’s imagination fill in the gaps. Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is a perfect example of this, with its hazy depiction of a harbor at dawn.
Impressionists often worked with new mediums like oil paints in tubes, which made painting on the go easier.
They could take their palettes out into the countryside or the city and respond immediately to what they saw. This spontaneous method set them apart from their predecessors, who often worked on large canvases in carefully controlled studio environments.
Lastly, the influence of photography can’t be ignored. As photography became more popular, Impressionists sought to capture what a photograph couldn’t—those fleeting, transient effects of light, atmosphere, and movement.
Where a photograph could freeze a moment in time with perfect clarity, these painters offered a more subjective, emotional take.
Major Figures in Impressionism
Claude Monet is often the first name people think of when discussing Impressionism. His painting Impression, Sunrise gave the movement its name, but it’s more than that.
Monet’s fascination with natural light, and how it shifts through the day and across seasons, is central to his work. In his Water Lilies series, he captures light dancing on water, using short, broken brushstrokes and vibrant color contrasts.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir took a different approach. While Monet focused on landscapes and light, Renoir was more interested in people.
His figures are soft, warm, often glowing with an inner light. He loved depicting human interactions, especially in social settings. In works like Luncheon of the Boating Party, Renoir portrays relaxed, joyful moments, where the sunlight seems to shimmer across his subjects’ skin.
Edgar Degas, unlike Monet and Renoir, preferred urban life. His interest in ballet is evident in his countless depictions of dancers, often caught in rehearsal or backstage.
Degas’s use of brushstrokes is more precise, but his composition is dynamic, almost like a snapshot. His focus wasn’t on the momentary effects of light but on movement, capturing the flow of a dancer’s pose in the split second before it changes.
Berthe Morisot, one of the few prominent women in the group, explored domestic life and the role of women in society.
Her paintings often depicted intimate, everyday moments. Unlike her male counterparts, she brought a distinct perspective, using light and loose brushstrokes to highlight the softer, more private scenes of family life, like in her work The Cradle.
Camille Pissarro was known for his mastery of plein air painting and his depictions of rural scenes. While the other major figures often focused on the bustling city life of Paris, Pissarro painted quiet, pastoral landscapes.
His dedication to painting outside allowed him to experiment with the effects of natural light on rural settings.
His influence is seen in how he paved the way for artists like Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne in later movements like Post-Impressionism.
Alfred Sisley, perhaps the least well-known, deserves mention for his contributions to landscape painting. He was incredibly consistent in his focus on nature, capturing rivers, trees, and skies with a sense of immediacy and calmness.
His landscapes were more subdued compared to Monet’s, but the attention to light and color remained a constant throughout his work.
Cultural and Global Impact
Impressionism’s impact didn’t stay confined to France or even Europe. It spread, influencing countless artists and movements across the globe.
By challenging academic traditions, Impressionist art opened doors for experimentation, laying the groundwork for modern art as we know it today.
One of the biggest ways it affected culture was by making art more accessible. Traditional academic painting, with its strict rules and historical subjects, was reserved for the elite.
But the Impressionist exhibitions brought art into the everyday, showcasing scenes from contemporary life, landscapes, and ordinary people. This resonated not just with art critics but with the public.
Suddenly, art wasn’t just about grand historical moments; it was about the way light filtered through the trees, or the soft play of sunlight on a riverbank.
Globally, the movement influenced many other styles. Post-Impressionism, which followed soon after, drew from Impressionism’s color techniques and light studies but pushed even further into abstraction.
Artists like Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh embraced the emotional depth and expressive use of color that Impressionism pioneered but introduced their own, more individualistic visions.
Outside Europe, Impressionism found its way into the United States. The Art Institute of Chicago became a key institution in spreading Impressionist works to American audiences, with Monet’s water lily series, in particular, captivating viewers across the Atlantic.
American artists like Mary Cassatt, who was closely associated with the movement, brought back the techniques and ethos of the Impressionists to the States, influencing generations of American painters.
In Japan, Impressionism struck a chord as well. The exchange wasn’t one-way, though—Japanese ukiyo-e prints, with their flat compositions and emphasis on nature, had a profound impact on the Parisian art scene in the 19th century.
The movement’s global spread wasn’t just about imitation but about a cross-pollination of ideas and techniques. Georges Seurat‘s later pointillist works, for instance, show how Impressionism’s study of light could evolve into something far more structured and scientific.
Ultimately, Impressionism’s legacy is found in its refusal to adhere to established norms, a trait that reverberates through movements like Fauvism and even contemporary art.
What is impressionism art if not a disruption of the status quo—a rebellion against the old guard that paved the way for the vibrant, diverse art world we have today?
Legacy and Influence on Subsequent Movements
The legacy of Impressionism can’t be overstated. It shattered the constraints of academic painting and laid the foundation for everything that came after.
By rejecting traditional techniques and emphasizing natural light and everyday subjects, Impressionism opened the door for more radical forms of expression. It was the jumping-off point.
Post-Impressionism is the clearest example of its influence. Artists like Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh took the ideas of light, color, and brushstrokes from Monet and Pissarro, but pushed further.
Cézanne started breaking down forms into basic shapes, which led directly into Cubism. Van Gogh, on the other hand, heightened the emotional impact of color, foreshadowing Expressionism.
Then there’s Georges Seurat, who applied a more methodical approach to the study of light and color, developing Pointillism.
His meticulous placement of dots to create an image was born out of the Impressionists’ interest in optical effects, but with more structure. This shift from capturing a fleeting moment to something more deliberate marks one of the key transitions from Impressionism to Post-Impressionism.
Fauvism, led by Henri Matisse, also owes much to Impressionism. The vibrant color palettes of Impressionist works laid the groundwork for the bold, unblended hues that the Fauvists used to express emotion.
They took the Impressionists’ departure from realism even further, embracing abstraction and emotional depth over accurate representation.
In the early 20th century, Abstract art began to emerge, and while it may seem distant from the loose, light-drenched landscapes of Impressionism, the connection is there.
The movement’s rejection of precise forms and its focus on visual perception over detailed realism allowed artists like Kandinsky and Picasso to feel free enough to break down form entirely.
Photography’s rise paralleled the spread of Impressionism and its influence on art cannot be ignored.
As cameras became more adept at capturing real life with accuracy, painters began to move away from literal representations. Impressionism’s focus on fleeting moments and atmospheric effects was a direct response to this technological shift, but it also planted the seeds for Surrealism and other movements that explored subjective realities over objective truths.
Even contemporary art holds traces of Impressionism’s influence. Street art, for instance, often mimics the loose, expressive strokes of the movement.
And the concept of plein air painting—now an organized practice among art communities—can still be traced back to those first rebellious painters taking their easels outdoors. What is impressionism art, after all, if not a challenge to the traditional in pursuit of something new?
Techniques in Depth: A Closer Look
Brushwork in Impressionism is immediate, almost chaotic at first glance. It’s the opposite of what the École des Beaux-Arts taught—no smooth blending, no hidden strokes. Instead, thick, visible strokes that create texture on the canvas.
Monet’s Impression, Sunrise is a classic example of this. His strokes look rushed, but that’s the point.
They capture the moment, the light, the feeling of the scene as it happens. Renoir and Morisot did the same, each with their unique handling of the brush, creating a sense of life and movement.
Color played a massive role in the technique. Forget the dark shadows and earthy tones of traditional academic painting.
Impressionists worked with light, using pure, unmixed colors. They laid them side by side, letting the eye blend them. Color theory became central to their work—especially for artists like Pissarro and Sisley, who painted landscapes and relied heavily on the interplay of light and shadow.
Instead of black, shadows were blue, purple, even green, depending on how the light hit the subject.
Light itself became a technique. Impressionists were obsessed with it, constantly studying its effects at different times of day.
Monet painted series of the same subject under different lighting conditions—the Rouen Cathedral, the Water Lilies, the Normandy coast—to show how light changed everything.
This obsession with light was tied directly to their method of plein air painting, capturing the scene in real-time, under natural light, rather than creating a staged, artificial composition in a studio.
Composition in Impressionist works broke every rule. They didn’t care about symmetry or classical balance.
Degas, in particular, played with composition, cutting off figures, placing subjects off-center, even framing scenes like they were snapshots. He was influenced by the rise of photography, and it shows in his ballet paintings. You get the sense of movement, of something happening outside the frame.
What is impressionism art without these techniques? It’s defined by them. Loose brushwork, pure color, the obsession with light, the rejection of traditional composition—each element challenged the norms of the art world, creating something raw, immediate, and incredibly modern.
That’s how they did it. Painting the present, in the present, with every stroke.
Major Exhibitions and Public Perception
The Salon des Refusés in 1863 is where it all started. When Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe was rejected by the official Art Salon, it wasn’t just about one painting. It was a rejection of an entire approach to art that was beginning to take shape.
Napoleon III‘s decision to create the Salon des Refusés gave space to those who defied traditional standards, and it became a pivotal moment for what would later evolve into Impressionism.
But the true breakout came in 1874. The First Impressionist Exhibition was held in the studio of the photographer Nadar on the Boulevard des Capucines. Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, and others exhibited together, presenting work that was radically different from the polished, detailed academic art that was still the standard at the Art Salon.
The critics were not kind. Louis Leroy, a critic, coined the term “Impressionism” as an insult, referencing Monet’s Impression, Sunrise. It was meant to mock the unfinished, sketch-like quality of the works.
Public reaction wasn’t exactly welcoming either. People were used to historical, mythological, or religious subjects. What they saw in these exhibitions were fleeting moments, loose brushstrokes, and scenes from everyday life—things that didn’t seem worthy of being immortalized in paint.
Edgar Degas’s ballerinas, for example, weren’t grand historical figures; they were performers, caught in rehearsal. These weren’t subjects that aligned with the grandeur the public expected from art.
In the years following, the Impressionists held a total of eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886. Each time, the reaction was a mix of shock, criticism, and a slow, begrudging acceptance. Camille Pissarro, one of the consistent participants, used these exhibitions as a way to push boundaries even further.
His plein air work, capturing rural landscapes, contrasted with the more urban focus of artists like Gustave Caillebotte and Degas, but it all played into the larger narrative of defying convention.
By the time of the final exhibition in 1886, the public perception had started to shift. The shock value had worn off. Critics began to understand that the Impressionists weren’t simply unskilled or lazy. They were doing something entirely new—capturing the immediacy of life, the natural light of a scene, and the fleeting moments that traditional art often ignored.
As Impressionism moved into the public consciousness, its influence spread beyond these exhibitions, eventually leading to movements like Post-Impressionism and Fauvism. It’s interesting how what began as a mockery—”Impressionism”—became one of the most celebrated and defining movements in art history.
FAQ on What Is Impressionism Art
What is Impressionism art?
Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement that focuses on capturing light, color, and moments as they appear in real life. Instead of emphasizing precise details, artists like Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir used loose brushstrokes and bright colors to show the effect of light on everyday scenes, often painted outdoors.
Who were the major figures in Impressionism?
The most notable figures in Impressionism include Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Each contributed to defining the movement with their distinct focus on natural light, modern subjects, and the rejection of traditional painting techniques taught at the École des Beaux-Arts.
What techniques did Impressionists use?
Impressionist painters worked with loose brushstrokes, vibrant, often unblended colors, and frequently painted en plein air to capture the natural light. The focus was on capturing the feeling of a scene, not its precise details. Shadows were often painted in color—such as blue or purple—rather than black.
How did the public initially react to Impressionism?
The public and critics were mostly hostile toward Impressionism when it first emerged. Louis Leroy, a critic, coined the term “Impressionism” as an insult, mocking Monet’s Impression, Sunrise. Over time, though, public perception shifted, and Impressionism became widely accepted as a revolutionary movement in modern art.
What subjects did Impressionists typically paint?
Impressionist painters moved away from historical and religious themes, focusing instead on landscapes, urban scenes, and everyday life. Edgar Degas often painted ballet dancers, while Monet captured the changing light in nature. They preferred modern, ordinary subjects, and their works were often snapshots of life.
How did Impressionism influence later art movements?
Impressionism paved the way for movements like Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and even Abstract art. Artists like Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh expanded on the Impressionists’ use of color and light, pushing these ideas into new, more experimental directions, ultimately leading to even more radical forms of expression.
Why did Impressionists focus on light and color?
Impressionists were fascinated by the effect of natural light on a subject. By focusing on light, they could portray scenes in a more immediate, emotional way. Claude Monet was known for painting the same subject at different times of day to capture the shifting colors and tones caused by light.
What is the significance of plein air painting in Impressionism?
Plein air painting—painting outdoors—was essential to Impressionism. It allowed artists like Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley to capture scenes directly from nature, observing and depicting the changing light and atmosphere in real time. This technique contributed to the movement’s focus on capturing fleeting moments.
Why did the Impressionists reject traditional techniques?
The École des Beaux-Arts promoted polished, detailed paintings of historical subjects. The Impressionists wanted something different. They rejected these academic rules, favoring modern subjects, visible brushstrokes, and the effects of light. They wanted to show life as it is, in motion, rather than staged or idealized.
How did the rise of photography influence Impressionism?
The rise of photography changed how artists approached their work. Since photographs could capture precise details, painters like Edgar Degas and Monet focused on what a camera couldn’t: the emotional, atmospheric effects of a scene. The fleeting, imperfect moments of life, captured through the brushstrokes of the artist.
Conclusion
Understanding what is impressionism art means looking at a movement that reshaped the way we see and create art.
By focusing on the effects of natural light, everyday subjects, and quick, visible brushstrokes, Impressionist painters like Claude Monet and Edgar Degas broke away from traditional forms of representation.
This movement paved the way for future innovations in modern art, influencing the works of Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and even the development of Post-Impressionism.
The techniques and subjects that Impressionists embraced—whether it was plein air painting or the rejection of academic standards—left a lasting mark on how artists approach their craft.
The essence of Impressionism is about capturing fleeting moments, the ever-changing nature of light, and the everyday scenes that had been previously overlooked by the art world. It’s not just a style—it’s a turning point in art history.
