Introduction

IImpressionists were determined to discover a semblance of individual freedom, self-determinacy, and sensual pleasure that constituted the utopian legacy of Enlightenment and revolution. Born around 1840, they witnessed the industrialization of agriculture in the provinces and the humanization of urban space in Paris. Thus, the Impressionists were mainly passive witnesses of, or willing propagandists for, the emerging modern "forms of bourgeois reaction" of their day. However, the acuity of their observation and the depth of their enthusiasm created a rift between them and the public.

The term Impressionism, used after 1874 to define this group of artists, derives from the word *impression*. This name was applied to the group by journalist Lucien Leroy, who wrote an article about the first exhibition of the “Société Coopérative d’Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs” in the *Charivari* on April 25, 1874, under the title *L’Exposition des Impressionnistes* (Impressionists’ Exhibition). The term was taken from the title of one of Claude Monet’s paintings shown in the exhibition, *Impression, Sunrise* (1872). The group of artists, including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Alfred Sisley, brought innovations in their works that can be summed up under three rubrics:

- **Rejection of chiaroscuro:** By leaving areas of shadows thinly painted and areas of mass thickly painted with bright color and highlights, they established strong contrast between dark and light, shadow and mass, far and near. The effect of these changes from academic practice reduced tonal contrast in the pictures and thereby flattened them.

- **The depiction of the interaction of light and color en plein air:** Before the nineteenth century, artists drew but rarely painted outdoors. In the middle of the 19th century, the Barbizon school (J. Corot, J.B. Jongkind, E. Boudin) made the first steps by starting to paint small outdoor studies. However, these artists seldom painted fully finished compositions outdoors. The Impressionists, on the other hand—especially Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Morisot, and Sisley—painted many of their most ambitious works en plein air and discovered a technique for evoking the interaction of light and air in nature.

- **The equalizing of brushstrokes across the surface of the canvas:** Most paintings submitted for the Salon had a surface that was smooth, clean, and impersonal, whereas most Impressionist canvases had coarse, irregular, and idiosyncratic surfaces. Individual brushstrokes varied in width, breadth, and direction, giving the paintings dynamism and rhythm.

The years between the first exhibition in 1874 (the Impressionists held eight exhibitions in total) and about 1881 are generally regarded as the period of “high” Impressionism. The new style didn’t last long, and due to some arguments within the group, the Impressionists gradually fell apart. A few reasons led to the dispersion of the group. The style that they confined themselves to was limiting their technique, sensibility, and subjects. Some realized that they were not transcribing nature but simply abstracting from what they saw. Despite finding themselves at a dead-end, they eventually opened the way to many new developments.

The Roots of Impressionism

It is important to remember that many of the ideas and practices transformed by the Impressionists were already in use in the early years of the century. Various ideas shared by the group were derived from Romanticism. Their landscapes and city scenes were inspired by observations of ordinary habits of the day. By the time of the Second Empire, a more hedonistic and informal attitude had developed towards outdoor life. The natural and unconstrained scenes of everyday life, picnics, and boating parties weren’t daydreams but were generally accepted parts of life.

All the Impressionists at one time or another were influenced by Delacroix. His ideas on coloring and use of light, which he transmitted to the younger generation, facilitated some of the Impressionists’ experiments. In his watercolors painted in North Africa in 1832 or at Étretat in 1835, and particularly in his painting of *The Sea at Dieppe* (1852), there are clear anticipations of Impressionism.

The landscape painters who worked at Barbizon in the second half of the nineteenth century had a definite influence on the Impressionists. Once artists of the group (Rousseau, Daubigny, Millet) adopted open-air painting, the study of light progressed rapidly. Some Barbizon artists (such as Rousseau and Daubigny) painted a series of the same subject under different conditions, thus anticipating Monet.

However, it was the painters Corot and Courbet who played the most important roles in leading up to Impressionism. Corot showed them how to eliminate false shadows and artificially dark tones, creating space instead of tonality, and simplifying it to express a feeling of atmosphere. To make his grays, he did not mix black and white but used the various colors of the prism to produce all sorts of gray tints, a technique later adopted by the Impressionists. Corot himself taught the Morisot sisters and Pissarro, and his ideas later spread across the group.

Gustave Courbet was the leader of the French realist school that originated during the 1848 Revolution. He formulated his realistic principles in the *Courrier du Dimanche* in 1861. He taught artists (his principles were adopted at one time or another by Renoir, Cézanne, Bazille, and Pissarro) to liberate themselves from the academic principles of the time, find attraction in ordinary objects of everyday life, and appreciate the beauty of real things.

In the later period, the English school of painters played an important role in the evolution of Impressionism. During the war of 1870, Monet, Sisley, and Pissarro went to London to study the works of great English landscape artists such as Constable, Bonington, and Turner.

Additionally, scientific research in the mid-19th century, specifically optical studies (especially the construction of colors and the structure of light), influenced the Impressionists. The scientist usually associated with the Impressionists is Eugène Chevreul, the French chemist, who conducted research on color harmonies. The artists were decisively influenced by Chevreul’s discoveries; there is direct evidence that Monet and Pissarro (and later, Seurat) had first-hand knowledge of his work. The invention of the camera had a considerable effect on mid-nineteenth-century painting. There is evidence that sometimes the artists used actual photographs as a basis for their compositions.

Events leading to the Impressionists exhibition of 1874

A passionate interest in modern expression and contemporary subjects must have been among the factors that drew Manet to Degas when they met in 1862. At that time, Degas was still producing historical compositions in the style of his teacher Lamothe and his mentor Ingres. Nevertheless, Manet was struck by Degas’s confidence as a copyist when he found him working at the Louvre. Thus began a friendship that lasted until Manet’s death in 1883.

During the late 1860s, Manet and his artist and critic friends often met at the Café Guerbois on the Grande Rue des Batignolles. The cafés of Paris had long been favorite meeting places for artists. Since 1860, Manet had occupied a studio in the Batignolles, and from 1866, the Café Guerbois in the quieter northern quarter, near the Place Clichy, became his favorite resort. The core of the group consisted of Astruc, Duranty, Silvestre, Fantin-Latour, and Degas. This group of artists, known as the Batignolles group, was strongly united, and successive attacks from conservative critics bound them even more firmly together. Manet's work *Olympia* was the focus of severe criticism when it was shown at the Salon in 1865.

By 1866, new recruits had joined Manet at the Café Guerbois and the Salon: the four friends from Gleyre’s studio, Monet, Bazille, Renoir, and Sisley. Renoir was connected with the Batignolles group through his early acquaintance with Fantin-Latour, Monet was introduced to Manet by Astruc in 1866, and Bazille was already acquainted with Manet through Commandant and Madame Le Josne, who were cousins of Bazille’s mother.

The possible topics of discussion among the artists included artistic technique, open-air techniques, the use of shadows, and the relationships between a spontaneous sketch and a finished picture. Nearly everyone in the group was influenced by Japanese art at the time, but each derived something different from it. The mood of solidarity among the Impressionists at the beginning of the 1870s is expressed in several group portraits such as *Homage to Delacroix* (1864), *A Studio in the Batignolles Quarter* (1870) by Fantin-Latour, and *The Artist’s Studio, Rue de la Condamine* (1870) by Bazille.

In July 1870, the war with Prussia broke out. Monet went to London, where he was introduced to Durand-Ruel by Daubigny. Durand-Ruel, an art dealer, played a significant role in establishing the Impressionists as recognizable artists and in promoting their art to the public. Pissarro also found shelter in London during the war and met Monet frequently. It remains controversial to what extent Monet and Pissarro were influenced by the works of Constable and Turner, which they saw at this time. It seems that Pissarro’s style developed more rapidly in England, although both artists achieved a looser technique and greater lightness of color.

During the war, Renoir stayed in France but had little opportunity to paint. The most tragic result of the war for the Impressionist group was the death of Bazille, who was killed in action in 1870. Soon after his return to France in 1872, Pissarro settled in Pontoise, where he was accompanied by several friends, including Cézanne. For Degas, the post-war period was especially fruitful. It was at this time, in 1871-1872, that he began to paint his first pictures of ballet dancers. In the autumn of 1872, Degas made a visit to New Orleans. Renoir remained in Paris, seeking buyers and commissions. He continued to paint views of the city as he had done before the war. In 1872, he spent the summer in Paris and Bougival, where he produced some of his purest Impressionist works (*Pont Neuf*, 1872, *Quai de Conti*, 1872).

Meanwhile, Monet moved to Argenteuil in 1872 with his family and was often visited by Renoir, Sisley, and Manet. In 1873, Durand-Ruel prepared and completed a catalogue of the contents of his gallery. It represented the finest works in his possession, which included pictures by Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, and Degas, as well as the established masters of the Barbizon school, in three volumes. However, it was never published due to the financial crisis in 1873, followed by a depression.

Many works were rejected by the jury of the Salon of 1873, leading to the re-establishment of the Salon des Refusés. However, this was not a satisfying solution for the Impressionists, as their works simply got lost among hundreds of mediocre pictures. In 1867, Monet had planned to organize a group exhibition, but most artists still believed that success could only be achieved within the Salon. When Monet reverted to the idea in 1874, Degas supported him. He wrote about it to Tissot and Legros with an invitation to participate. Pissarro and Renoir also took part in preparing the exhibition. Finally, thirty-nine artists agreed to participate with over 165 works. The exhibition was open from April 15 to May 15, 1874, in the Nadar Studios. Although the exhibition was hastily organized and ridiculed in the press, it gave the group cohesion and brought the perspective of further ventures.

The period of high Impressionism

The years between the first Impressionist exhibition and about 1881 are generally regarded as the period of mature, or "high," Impressionism. It is puzzling that the heyday of this new style should have lasted for such a short time. The explanation lies in the inherent limitation of a style that attempts to transcribe nature. Partly because they came to realize that they were not merely transcribing nature (which the camera could do better), but epitomizing and abstracting from what they saw, they found themselves in a stylistic impasse and eventually opened the way to many new developments.

The years of high Impressionism are especially well represented in the works of Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro. Degas made enormous strides during the 1870s, but except for his originality of execution, his work bore little relation to the art of his colleagues.

During the 1870s, Renoir forged a style of rendering the life of his own day. The characters in Renoir's paintings, such as those dancing at the Moulin de la Galette in Montmartre or attending boating parties at Chatou, are solid, ordinary petits-bourgeois enjoying their real and characteristic pastimes. However, the way in which Renoir painted these simple and direct subjects was far from naïve. He was, in many ways, the most instinctively professional painter of the whole group, with a light, sweeping, feathery brushstroke and greater delicacy and unity than Pissarro or even Monet. This showed to particular advantage in his renderings of shimmering light or delicate young skin. He was the only Impressionist who invested contemporary life with a touch of social glamour, and it is worth noting that during the 1870s, Degas and Manet were producing very different versions of the modern scene.

In 1876, the Impressionists held their second exhibition, to which Renoir contributed fifteen works, some of which had already been bought by Croquet. Croquet became a particular friend and patron of Renoir, who painted him several times. During 1876, Renoir painted at least two of his most celebrated works (*La Balancoire* and *Bal du Moulin de la Galette*) and met a new patron, Georges Charpentier. Charpentier played a significant role in establishing and recognizing Renoir as an artist in the rich bourgeois circles, which allowed Renoir to secure himself financially. In 1880-81, just before stylistic problems began to worry him and heralded his so-called "sour period," he received many commissions for portraits of rich bourgeois children, not always those of his friends. In 1878, one of his paintings, *The Cup of Coffee*, was accepted by the Salon; after that, he submitted other pictures there and did not participate in the fourth, fifth, and sixth Impressionist exhibitions in 1879, 1880, and 1881.

On the other hand, Monet was much less successful in finding rich and fashionable admirers. In the winter of 1875, Monet was painting snow scenes in Argenteuil; the next year, he showed some of his *La Grenouillère* pictures at the second Impressionist exhibition. Then he began to paint his series of masterpieces depicting the Gare St-Lazare. At that time, Monet was in a very difficult financial situation. He constantly had to ask for financial help from Manet, Zola, and others to pay off his landlord in Argenteuil. Finally, he could no longer afford to live in that neighborhood and had to rent a house further away from Paris, at Vétheuil. Despite these years of misery and despair, he painted such pictures as his bright, colorful *Rue Montorgueil Decked Out with Flags*. By 1878, Monet's patron Hoschedé had been ruined. In the spring of the following year, Monet was too poor and depressed to submit his pictures for the fourth Impressionist exhibition, and in September, his wife Camille died. Along with this break in his life came the end of his close friendship with the other members of the Impressionist group.

Most of Pissarro's works from the mid-1860s to the mid-1870s have a more architectural quality than those of Monet and Renoir. He also used lines to define volumes more than they did. But in the late 1870s, the balance between naturalism and intellectual design was broken, and Pissarro moved toward a new style of deliberately cultivated "Impressionism" that never suited him so well. It would seem that the style had no purpose behind it and appeared contrived and decorative. Among the Impressionists, Pissarro had the best analytical brain, and it is fitting that he should have been the one to attempt to expand Impressionist technique. When questioned, he was prone to say that the method was easy to explain but that it took a lifetime to learn how to practice it. In his view, the chief characteristics of the method were the use of colored light reflection and unmixed colors. Also, from all the Impressionists, he was the most interested in the ideas of younger artists and most open to their influence. They felt free to come to him for advice and instructions, and he recognized their talent and listened to their theories. Later, he became a mentor to the young Paul Gauguin. After meeting Paul Signac and Georges Seurat, he embraced the pointillist technique for a while, although he became bitterly disappointed in it later. He also befriended the Dutchman Vincent Van Gogh, who had arrived in Paris in 1886.

Degas's art made enormous strides during the 1870s, but except for originality of execution and modernity of conception, it bore little relation to the works of his colleagues. He sought out striking modern subjects and treated them with increasing economy. His method was opposed to that of the other Impressionists, being based chiefly on working from memory. Many of his pictures of the early 1870s, such as *The Cotton Market* and the ballet scenes, encompass a wide field and are full of details. As time passed, Degas chose to concentrate on smaller fragments, isolating figures in striking poses that sum up an individual's character or trade.

The Dispersal of the Group

In 1880 and 1881, only three of the original leaders of the Impressionist group participated in the exhibitions: Degas, Pissarro, and Berthe Morisot. The others, seeking better reception at the Salon, abstained in defiance of Degas's increasing domination of the group shows. A division that had been felt from the start, owing to Degas's unique method and slow working style, developed into a major rift. Degas had always objected to the label "Impressionist" and introduced many of his own followers to the exhibitions, resulting in two distinct camps: one led by Degas, and the other, in the absence of Monet, by Pissarro and Berthe Morisot.

Monet and Renoir were incensed by the introduction of many new participants by Degas, such as Raffaelli and Vidal, whom they considered to lack talent and compromise the movement. Meanwhile, Degas criticized Monet and Renoir as renegades for returning to the Salon. Pissarro and Caillebotte strove against all odds to hold the group together. They tried to persuade Degas to give up his circle of followers to induce Monet, Renoir, and Sisley to return, but without success.

Towards the middle of the 1880s, the Impressionists moved further afield, each trying new methods and forms, leading to a breakup of the group accompanied by physical dispersal. Renoir moved away in 1885 from Paris to La Roche-Guyon, and later to Essoyes. Monet moved to Poissy from Vétheuil, and in 1883 he settled further from Paris, at Giverny. Sisley moved in 1882 to Moret, Pissarro moved the same year to Osny and, in 1884, further north to Éragny, while Cézanne led an increasingly hermit-like existence in Provence.

The last occasion on which the Impressionists appeared before the public as a united group was in 1882, when Caillebotte, Pissarro, and Durand-Ruel succeeded, despite considerable reluctance, in persuading the disheartened and estranged friends to exhibit again together. The participants included Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Pissarro, Guillaumin, Gauguin, Vignon, Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. This exhibition marked the end of an era, as the artists' paths diverged and new art movements began to emerge.

Conclusion

Impressionism is widely regarded as the true precursor of 20th-century art. Its deliberate breakdown of forms and exercises in color abstraction anticipated the works of artists like Mondrian and Mark Rothko. Both Monet, in his water-lily studies at Giverny, and Turner, in his harbor scenes, achieved levels of abstraction and atmospheric texture that much of recent abstract art has struggled to surpass.

From the Impressionist movement emerged four great geniuses—Cézanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec—whose achievements bridged the gap between the 19th and 20th centuries. In their later years, their work was termed "Post-Impressionism." The battles fought by the Impressionists were the major battles of modern art, challenging the prejudices and assumptions of socially accepted art. The radical changes in European consciousness during the last three decades of the 19th century can be traced back to the revolutionary efforts of the Impressionists.

The defiance seen in modern artists' refusal to conform to traditional mediums or environments, and their steadfast opposition to establishment values, are direct consequences of the courageous questioning and unswerving initiative shown by the Impressionists. Their legacy is evident in the bold, independent spirit that characterizes much of contemporary art, highlighting their lasting influence on the evolution of artistic expression.

1855

Courbet shows paintings in his “Pavilion of Realism”.

1857

Millet’s Cleaners shown in Salon, and Courbet’s Young Women on the Banks of the Seine.

1859

Manet’s Absinthe Drinker rejected by Salon.

1861

Manet shows two paintings in Salon.

1863

Manet shows fourteen paintings at the Galerie Martinet; his Dejeuner sur l’herbe and other pictures appear in the Salon des Refuses; he marries Suzanne Leenhoff in October.

1864

Morisot, Renoir, and Pissarro make their first appearance in the Salon.

1865

Manet’s Olympia and Christ Mocked at the Salon; Degas and Monet make first appearance there.

1866

Monet’s Camille at the Salon. Zola begins to defend Manet in the press.

1867

Pissarro,Renoir, Sisley, and Monet rejected by Salon. Monet paints views of Paris from the Louvre; he spends the summer painting at Sainte-Adresse. Manet holds exhibition of his own work, as does Courbet; Manet begins painting of Maximilian’s execution.

1868

Manet, Cassatt, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Monet, Sisley, Bazille exhibit at the Salon. Morisot meets Degas and Manet.

1869

Manet summers in Boulogne. Monet and Renoir paint at La Grenouillere and Bougival.

1870

Monet marries Camille Doncieux in June; they go to Trouville for the summer, to England in the fall; Pissarro also in England. The painter Bazille killed in the war; Renoir, Degas, and Manet in uniform but not under the fire.

1871

December: Monet settles in Argenteuil after fifteen month I England and Holland; Pissarro had returned in June.

1872

Cassatt’s first appearance at the Paris Salon. Manet moves to studio on rue de Saint-Petersbourg, near Gare Saint-Lazare. From October to march 1873, Degas visits family in New Orleans. Monet’s first full year at Argenteuil.

1874

First exhibition of the impressionists group; Manet never shows with them. Manet’s Railroad at Salon, his other works rejected. Manet and Renoir frequently paint with Monet at Argenteuil. Morisot paints at her sister’s estate at Maurecourt; in December she marries Manet’s bother Eugene. Cassatt settles in Paris.

1875

Manet’s Argenteuil at the Salon. Morisot paints at Gennevilliers, then at the Isle of Wight.

1876

Mallarme, L’Apres-midi d’un faune; in a London journal he publishes “The Impressionists and Edouard Manet”.

1877

Third exhibition of Impressionists; Riviere edits L’Impressioniste. Monet paints views of the Gare Saint-Lazare. Manet’s Nana rejected by Salon, shows on boulevard de Capucines. Cassatt meets Degas; her parents and sister move permanently to Paris.

1878

Monet and Hoschede families move to Vetheuil.

1879

Manet’s Boating and In the Conservatory, Renoir’s Mme Charpentier and her Children at the Salon. Fourth Impressionists exhibition; Cassatt and Gauguin included; Morisot and Renoir abstain.Renoir has one-artist show at offices of La Vie Moderne, and shows at Salon. Death of Camille Monet; Monet and Alice Hoschede henceforth live together.

1880

Fifth Impressionists exhibition;Renoir and Monet abstain. Manet’s Chez le Pere Lathuille at the Salon; his Execution of Maximilian exhibited in New York and Boston. Manet and Monet have one-artists shows at La Vie Moderne, Monet begins nearly annual campaigns of painting along Channel coast.

1881

Sixth impressionists exhibition; Monet and Renoir abstain ; Renoir travels to Algiers, then to Italy; Morisot summers at Bougival, Manet at Versailles.

1882

Seventh Impressionists exhibition; Degas and Renoir abstain. Manet’s Bar at the Folies-Bergere and Spring at Salon; He is seriously ill.

1883

Durand-Ruel inaugurates one-artist shows of impressionists. Morisot moves t house on rue de Villejuste. Monet settles in Giverny. Death of Manet on 30 April.

1884

Retrospective exhibition of Manet’s work. Onset of Renoir’s “Ingres Period”; he drafts plan for a “Society of Irregularists”. Monet paints on Mediterranean coast.

1885

Pissarro meets Signac and Seurat, begins to paint in their mew manner , later called “Neo-Impressionism”. Monet paints at Etretat.

1886

Eighth and last Impressionists exhibition; Monet and Renoir abstain; Seurat (Sunday on the Island of the Grande Jatte) and Signac included. Durand-Ruel shows impressionists in New York. Monet at Etretat in late winter, at Belle-Isle in autumn.

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