Misinformation about the Impressionist movement on the internet is rife. Even art education resource providers are guilty, lumping Van Gogh and Seurat into the Impressionist movement when they were nothing of the kind.

Four young men

Impressionism was developed by four young painters in Paris in the 1860s: Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and Fréderic Bazille. It was a radical departure from the established approaches to painting as set out by the academies and emerged from new technologies and inventions of the time.

New technologies 

The paint tube had been invented in America in 1841 which enabled painters to be able to paint outdoors for the first time. Also, The camera had inspired a new generation of landscape photographers to capture fleeting moments and atmospheric lghting effects in remote locations in a way painters hadn’t. 

The four Paris painters, inspired by artists such as John Constable, Turner, and Modernists such as Edouard Manet (who was a mentor to them), began to try to capture the transient nature of modern life – not in a studio from sketches, but outdoors ‘en plein air’. 

New approaches, new subjects

Led by Monet, they attempted to depict movement, the passing of time and the fleeting nature of light. Their brushstrokes therefore, were rapid, loose and unfinished. Colour was more vibrant and abstract, rather than literal. For their subject matter, they rejected the established way of painting mythological scenes, stuffy portraits or Biblical subjects, and instead chose to depict modern life, the natural world and everyday scenes.  

Rejected 

When they tried to exhibit their work in 1863, they were rejected by the Paris Salon. They protested to Emperor Napoleon III who responded by creating a new gallery for them, and also other rejected work called the Salon des Refusés. People came to laugh and mock the work in large numbers, but other artists were quickly inspired, and over the following years many famous names began to paint in an Impressionist style: Edgar Degas (who didn’t want to be seen as an Impressionist), Camille Pissarro, Walter Sickert, Mary Cassat (protégée of Degas), Paul Cezanne, Berthe Morisot (Manet’s sister-in-law), James Whistler, and Winslow Homer. 

Impressionism was an insult 

In 1873 they founded the Société Anonyme Coopérative des artistes, peintres, sculpteurs, graveurs, to exhibit their works independently. Their first exhibition, held in 1874 featured works by over 30 (now famous) Impressionists. The critics were scathing at the apparent lack of skill, saying paintings looked like unfinished wallpaper. A newspaper article entitled ‘The Exhibition of the Impressionists’ focussed its attack on Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise, and in doing so gave the group a new name.

The group continued to exhibit but over the following years, many disputes emerged over what was, and what wasn’t Impressionism. In 1886 they exhibited their last show and the movement dissolved soon after.

Postscript: Post-Impressionism is a different movement, with a different approach to painting entirely. It ran from 1886 (after Impressionism died), to 1905, and features work by artists such as Van Gogh, Gaugin, Rousseau, and Seurat. The post-impressionists were often scathing of the impressionists, so to lump them together is a bit of an irony!