Impressionism

When Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley and their circle showed their work in a rented studio on the Boulevard des Capucines in April 1874, a critic borrowed the title of one of Monet's harbour paintings — *Impression, Sunrise* — and used it as a term of mockery. The name stuck and the movement it described changed painting permanently. Impressionism was not, at its core, about any particular subject matter (though parks, cafés, racecourses, riversides and gardens dominate). It was about a new relationship between the painter and light in time: the idea that the correct subject of painting was not the permanent form of things but their momentary appearance as light moved across them. Monet painted the same Rouen Cathedral facade thirty times in different weather and seasons. Renoir painted sunlight filtering through leaves onto skin. Degas painted artificial gaslight in theatres. Each insisted that what the eye sees in a specific, passing instant is more real than any convention of form.

How to recognise it

The hallmark is visible brushwork — strokes left separate and readable on the surface rather than blended smooth. Shadows are not brown or black but coloured: violets, blues, greens, reflecting the ambient light. Outlines dissolve; edges between objects become suggestions rather than lines. Outdoor light dominates: paintings feel flooded with natural daylight, often midday or late afternoon, often dappled. Colour is lighter and higher-keyed than anything that came before — the shift from studio-dark to plein-air brightness is immediately visible. Subjects are contemporary leisure and everyday life. If the paint surface seems alive and flickering, as if you are seeing something caught for a moment rather than studied over months, you are in Impressionist territory.