IMPRESSIONIST MOVEMENT

The Impressionist movement takes its name from a painting of Monet from 1872, entitled Impression, Sunrise. The term "impressionist" originally referred to a style considered incomplete and in stark contrast to the style endorsed by the influential French Academy of Fine Arts, which required mythological, historical or religious subjects to be painted in a realistic manner, with clear outlines, invisible brushstrokes and meticulous attention to detail. The Impressionists, on the other hand, used fresh, bright colors, their subjects came from everyday life, and they preferred to paint outdoors, so as to immortalize the passage of time and how scenes changed according to the light, and indeed they often painted several works with the same subject at different times of day.