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c. 1860–1900
Impressionism emerged in 1860s France as a radical break from academic painting. Artists captured fleeting moments of light and atmosphere with loose, visible brushwork and pure colour applied directly to canvas.
Artists & Works
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was the defining figure of French Impressionism, painting the same subjects repeatedly to capture shifting light. His late Nymphéas series, painted while nearly blind, anticipated Abstract Expressionism by half a century.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir brought warmth and joie de vivre to Impressionism. His figures shimmer with dappled light, capturing the pleasures of Parisian life with a luminosity that made him one of the most beloved artists of his era.
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Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas rejected the label ‘Impressionist’ yet exhibited with the group throughout the 1870s and 80s. His genius lay in radical cropping, asymmetric composition, and depictions of modern life — ballet rehearsals, café scenes, racetracks — from unexpected angles.
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Gustave Caillebotte
Gustave Caillebotte painted Paris from unexpected, almost photographic angles, most famously in Paris Street; Rainy Day, while also using his personal fortune to buy the work of struggling friends like Monet and Renoir. His bequest of that collection to the French state shaped how the world understands Impressionism today.
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