This movement developed from naturalistic painting, particularly landscape, a central feature of 19th Century art. It carried the realist landscape painting of Courbet and others a stage further, the accent being on colour and light in rapid brush- strokes.

The term itself comes from a Monet painting entitled "Impression: Sunrise", painted in 1872, a picture of Le Havre in the mist. A malicious critic, Louis Leroy, dubbed his work "impressionist", using the term in a derogatory way, but others warmed to Monet's style and happily adopted the name; from then onwards Impressionism was a term representing an experience arising from a fleeting impression, rather than laborious detail. Their work is characterised by a variety of brush- strokes, and by high-key colours.

Other impressionists in the art world included Degas, Renoir and Pissarro.

Sir Ernst Gombrich, the art historian, commenting upon the impressionists, writes:

"They discovered that if we look at nature in the open, we do not see individual objects each with its own colour but rather a bright medley of cones which blend in our eye or really in our mind."

What brought these artists together was not their strategies or general approach, for they were widely different; what united them was an intense dislike for the art establishment of the time, and repeated rejections by the Salon jury in France.

They looked with a measure of contempt at the current establishment; it is said that Sir Joshua Reynolds was nicknamed "Sir Sloshua" by them.

Photography also had its impressionists. In May 1874 a group of them in Paris began to exhibit photographs at the studio belonging to Nadar. The group continued in being for the next twelve years, and work was exhibited by, among others, Cezanne and Gaugin. Another photographer who was influenced by the impressionists was George Davidson, who contended that a sharp photograph was not always to be striven for. For one of his photographs, "The Onion field" (1890) he used rough-surfaced paper and a soft-focus technique.


By Dr. Robert Leggat