Impressionism emerged amidst a background of Romanticism and Realism in nineteenth-century France. Both of these movements challenged traditional subjects and style endorsed by the fine arts and academic communities. Many artists abandoned conventional ideas of imagery (mythological, religious, and historical subjects), and instead focused on landscape, still life, and scenes of the everyday environment. Impressionists did not believe in the established notion of “art as the likeness of reality,” and sought to represent Through their own emotional interpretations.

This revolutionary thinking was largely criticized by the establishment. In fact, the very name came from a critic attempting to deride Claude Monet’s Impression: Sunrise. Although it was meant to be derogatory, the impressionists embraced the term, and continued to develop this new sense of perspective, ultimately redefining the standards of artistic expression.  

Impressionism is a visual, instinctive form of art. Color, light, and atmosphere are all central to the artists’ concept of the picture as a whole. Rather than adhere to specific stages or steps of painting, Impressionists believe that each work should be a new creation of the mind, and placed emphasis on spontaneity and immediacy in the artistic process. The experience of painting is a constantly evolving process, where a new response could be discovered even with the final brush stroke. This continually renewed vision allows the artist to free himself from pretense or expectation, and paint directly from nature.

Impressionists found that by working outdoors, they were better able to seize every fleeting impression. “Plein-air” painting, as it came to be known, allowed the artist to be alone with nature and make an intimate connection with the environment. Their mind was exceptionally keen, and they observed every shifting tone and fleeting moment.

Technically speaking, Impressionist painters no longer copied nature as they believed it to be, but rather as they saw it under the distorting effect of light. This led them to discard traditional methods of art, and adopt new means of expression. Broken, flickering strokes of paint allowed the artist to maintain a sense of spontaneity. Graded tones and tints of color were used to define space and volume. Greys, whites and earth tones were exchanged for prismatic colors like blues, greens, yellows, oranges, and reds, and in pure Impressionism, black paint is never used.

With such signature elements, Impressionist masters such as Édouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Monet reshaped the standard artistic models of landscape, portraiture, and still life. By focusing on an experience of nature in an exact moment in time, the Impressionists were the spectators as well as the creators of their paintings. To experience an Impressionist work, one must develop an intimate relationship with its subtleties. Only then can you sense the rhythmic stroke of the brush, the varied tones and gradients, and the sensation that surfaces from within.