When Monet exhibited his painting “Impression: Sunrise”, the art critic Louis Leroy used “Impressionism” as a derogatory term to describe the painting. Since then it has been used to describe any painting done by the group of artists in Paris in the late 19th century, such as Renoir, Monet, Pissarro, Morrisot, and Sisley, who shared the same approach to their painting. They rejected the accepted school of painting in the academies, and wanted to capture the affects of the atmosphere on the landscape. Their idea was to paint the landscape as it really was, by painting it onsite or “plein air”. By painting outdoors they could capture the real colors of the light and shade, instead of painting the artificial colors that studio artists had previously used. They also wanted to emphasize a loose imagery rather than a detailed painting of the landscape or everyday life. They incorporated bold brushtrokes of contrasting colors, rather than mixing colors on the palette, to achieve vibrant color. A painting was usually finished in a few hours in order to capture the reality of the light, and if they worked on a larger painting they would return to the spot at the same time for several days.
Although they were first viewed as naive and trivial artists, they later gained recognition for their work. Their paintings greatly influenced the artists Gaugin, Seurat, and Van Gogh.
We now use the term French Impressionism, and French Impressionists, because there were also other groups of artists in different parts of the world who were influenced by the founding artists and who carried on the tradition. In Italy there were the Macchiaioli, or Italian Impressionists, who painted the Tuscan landscape and everyday life such as Fattori, Lega, and Abbatti. You can see many works of the Italian Impressionist in the Gallery of Modern Art in the Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy.
In the late 1800′s, many American artists where influenced by the French Impressionists, beginning with Childe Hassam and Mary Cassatt. John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase also used the French Impressionism style in their paintings. American Impressionism was a combination of academic training and impressionistic feeling, with spontaneous brushwork and a brighter palette than other painters of the time.
In the early 1900′s, impressionism had journeyed to the west coast of the United States, where artists were enjoying the landscapes of northern and southern California. Many of them had studied in France and brought the ideas to California where they interpreted the landscape in much the same way as the French Impressionists. Amongst the most famous of the California Impressionists are Maurice Braun, Alson Clark, Armin Hansen, Anna Hills, Hanson Puthuff, Joseph Raphael, Granville Redmond, Guy Rose, Elmer Wachtel, Marion Kavanagh Wachtel and William Wendt. The best place to see their work is at the Irvine Museum in Irvine, California.
After the end of the Russian Civil War in 1922, the government proclaimed that Socialist Realism would be the only officially approved style of painting promoted within the Soviet Union. They were taught by the masters of the day, who were very familiar with traditional and impressionistic techniques, and so the artists worked in isolation, improving and expanding on the genre. You can see some of the best of these pieces at the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota, as well as the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
