Impressionism

In the decades before 1874, several young painters in France became dissatisfied with the academic art favoured by the official Salon, whose jury was linked to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Rather than rely on that annual exhibition, a group formed an independent artists' association. Its first exhibition opened in Paris on 15 April 1874. The participants were not a tightly unified school: they differed in subject, technique and outlook, and their collective membership changed over time. The group organized eight independent exhibitions between 1874 and 1886, a series that helped make the movement visible to the public.

Impressionist paintings often leave brushstrokes visible rather than smoothing them into an illusion of perfect finish. Painters used short, broken marks and patches of bright or contrasting colour to suggest how light and atmosphere alter a scene. Some rendered shadows with colour rather than relying only on black or grey. Many worked outdoors, where they could observe shifting conditions directly; portable paint tubes and easier railway travel helped make outdoor work and trips from Paris practical. These techniques varied between artists and paintings, so Impressionism is better understood as a set of related experiments than as one fixed formula.

Impressionists turned frequently to subjects from their own time: city streets, cafés, theatres, dancers, domestic interiors, boating and leisure in the suburbs, as well as landscapes. Their choices reflected the rapid changes in Paris and its surroundings, including new transport and public spaces. The movement included Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley and Berthe Morisot; Mary Cassatt and Gustave Caillebotte were among other important participants. The artists did not all paint in the same manner or take part in every exhibition. Édouard Manet influenced the circle but did not exhibit with the independent group, an example of why the movement's boundaries are not always simple.

The label 'Impressionist' arose from a critical response to Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise, shown in 1874. Art critic Louis Leroy used the word disparagingly, but artists and audiences later adopted it as the name of the movement. Early critics often described the paintings as unfinished or sketchlike, while supporters valued their treatment of contemporary subjects and light. The initial reception was therefore divided rather than an immediate triumph; the artists' independent exhibitions provided an alternative to the official Salon even when they attracted criticism or financial difficulty.

By the 1880s, disagreements and artistic change had weakened the group's cohesion. The final independent exhibition in 1886 included artists whose work was already moving in different directions. Impressionism nevertheless broadened the possibilities of painting by treating contemporary life, individual perception, colour and the visible act of painting as serious subjects. Later artists built on some of its innovations while pursuing distinct aims; Post-Impressionism, for example, refers to several later approaches rather than a continuation of one uniform Impressionist style.