Impressionism

Impressionism, dominant artistic movement in France from the mid-1860s to 1890, characterized by the use of brushstrokes of contrasting colors to convey the impression of objects by the light they reflect. The impressionist painters, who include Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and others, painted landscapes and scenes of leisure in contemporary Paris. They usually worked outdoors, recording the scenes before them spontaneously and directly. The term “impressionist” was first used as a criticism of Monet's Impression: Soleil levant (1874). The artists organized 8 independent exhibitions for their pictures. The U.S. painters Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam were influenced by the impressionists. The term “impressionism” is also applied to other art forms, notably literature that uses symbolic imagery and music that expresses mood and feeling.