Impressionism

Early Impressionist painters were radicals in their time, breaking many of the rules of picture making that had been set by earlier generations. Up until the Impressionists, history had been the accepted source of subject matter for paintings, but Impressionists looked instead to the many subjects in life around them. In doing so, they rejected attempts to portray ideal beauty, and instead sought the natural beauty of their surroundings at a given moment. They captured a fresh and original vision that often seemed strange and unfinished to the general public, but which, in our own times, has become much beloved. Sometimes they painted out of doors rather than in a studio as had been the previous custom. This enabled them to observe nature more directly and to capture the fleeting characteristics of the moment, especially the momentary and transient aspects of sunlight.

"Classic" Impressionist paintings are often easy to spot. Short, "broken" brush strokes of pure, untinted and unmixed colours give the appearance of spontaneity and vitality for which these paintings are so noted. The surfaces of these paintings are often highly textured with thick paint, a characteristic which clearly sets them apart from their predecessors in which smooth blending minimized the perception that one was looking at paint on canvas. Compositions are simplified and innovative, and the emphasis is upon overall effect rather than

A group of painters led by Edouard Manet and Camille Pissarro followed the example of Gustave Courbet and began to paint outdoors, instead of being in the artificial environment of the studio. They painted the harsh contrasts of the light and shade, and represented a particular colour as a mixture of several different colours on the canvas, and at a distance the colours mix together to produce a realistic representation of colours as they are seen in nature. The sudden change in the look of these paintings was brought about by a change in methodology: applying paint in small touches of pure colour rather than broader strokes, and painting outdoors to catch a particular fleeting impression of colour