Impressionism

The Impressionists were given their name when an art critic saw Monet's sunrise painting and scoffed at it. The critic thought he was putting Monet down when he called the painting an impression, as realism was more the highly thought of art form of the day. The Impressionists loved the term and adopted it as the name for their new style of painting. This new style was based upon capturing a moment in time, or slice of life point of view. Major subjects often went beyond the edge of the picture. The use of scientific color balancing was evidenced in the complementary color choices, and the bouncing of color and light throughout the painting. They were fascinated with the play of color and light across a surface, a recurring theme being reflection in water. The brush strokes were dabby and made the hand of the artist very visible. Impressionists were plein aire painters. This means that they loved to paint outdoors to capture the light and scene of a very particular moment.