1800-1900 Artistic Movements - French Impressionism

Impressionism was an important art movement in which artists attempted to record a scene through the fleeting effects of light and colour. They did this by placing bright colours straight from the tube side by side on the canvas. The Impressionists abandoned sentimental narrative (story telling), myths and historical people and events as subject matter. They replaced these themes with landscape and scenes from modern life. The Impressionists aimed to capture a particular moment in time and frequently painted 'on the spot', in front of their subject (rather than working paintings up in the studio from sketches), to give a feeling of spontaneity.