Impressionism

Impressionism was a nineteenth century art movement that began as a loose association of Paris-based artists who started publicly exhibiting their art in the 1860s. Characteristics of Impressionist painting include visible brush strokes, light colors, open composition, 1 on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary subject matter, and unusual visual angles. The name of the movement is 2 from Claude Monet's Impression, Sunrise (Impression, solely Levant). Critic Louis Leroy inadvertently coined the term in a satiric review published in Le Charivari.

Radicals in their time, early Impressionists broke the rules of academic painting. They began by giving colors, freely brushed, primacy over line, drawing 3 from the work of painters such as Eugene Delacroix. They also took the 4 of painting out of the studio and into the world. Previously, not only still-lives and portraits, but also landscapes had been painted indoors, but the Impressionists found that they could 5 the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting air (in plain air).