 Impressionism was an artistic movement that developed mainly in France during the late 19th and early 20th centuries  The style of impressionism focuses on small stokes of mainly primary colors, and the traditional impressionist painters did not use black paint in their works  The impressionist painters were able to accurately capture the look of sunlight and movement  Most impressionists painted en plein air, which is translated to mean “in the open air” and means that they painted outside rather than in a studio  The French public were harsh in their reviews of impressionism at first, but eventually they came to appreciate the new style

Waterlilies and Japanese Bridge - Claude Monet Banks of the Seine at Asnieres - Auguste Renoir

 It was introduced in the United States around  Many leading American artists traveled to Paris, learned the style of impressionism, then brought it back to America where it was accepted a lot more widely than it had been in France  During the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries, Californian artists created a new style based off of French Impressionism and called it Californian Impressionism; modern landscape painting is based off of this style  In 1887, the first exhibition of a single impressionist artist was held at Boston's St. Botolph Club for Claude Monet  In 1898, ten artists (known as “The Ten”) who were inspired by impressionism left the National Academy of Design and the Society of American Artists and lead the way to modern art by defending impressionism from skeptics and helping other American artists escape from the outdated art concepts of the past

“There are no lines in nature, only areas of color, one against another.” -Édouard Manet Édouard Manet Claude Monet Frederic Bazille