Impressionism for beginners: painting light

How to read the labels Historical what the old sources say. Later tradition what later writers added. Modern modern practice and my own notes.

On 15 April 1874 a group of painters opened their own exhibition in Paris, outside the official Salon, in the former studio of the photographer Nadar. A critic mocked one picture, a misty harbor at sunrise, and called the whole group “Impressionists”. The name stuck. Their visible brushstrokes, bright colors and everyday subjects looked shockingly unfinished at the time. Today they are among the most loved paintings in the world.

Three layers

Historical What the works and records show. Later tradition The myths. Modern How we use these paintings now.

A new Paris and an old Salon

Historical In the 1860s Napoleon III and Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris with boulevards, parks, cafés and railway stations. The official Salon still favored polished history paintings. In 1863 the jury rejected so many works that the emperor allowed a Salon des Refusés, where Édouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass caused a scandal. Manet never showed with the Impressionists but was their hero. Practical changes mattered too: the collapsible paint tube (1841) and bright new pigments let painters work outdoors.

The first exhibition

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise, 1872. Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. Image: Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Historical Monet’s Impression, Sunrise (1872) shows the port of Le Havre in fog, with a small orange sun and its broken reflection. The critic Louis Leroy used its title to mock the show in Le Charivari. Eight Impressionist exhibitions followed until 1886, and in 2024 the Musée d’Orsay and the National Gallery of Art marked the 150th anniversary with Paris 1874.

Monet and the series

Historical Claude Monet (1840 to 1926) painted the same subject again and again in different light: haystacks, poplars, Rouen Cathedral, the Thames and finally his water garden at Giverny. The series make time itself the subject. He had cataract surgery in 1923; claims that he could see ultraviolet light afterward are speculation.

Morisot, Cassatt and the spaces of women

Berthe Morisot, A Woman Seated at a Bench on the Avenue du Bois, 1885. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (48.10.8). Image: Open Access, public domain (CC0).

Historical Berthe Morisot (1841 to 1895) showed in seven of the eight exhibitions, with rapid, feathery strokes. In 1988 Griselda Pollock pointed out that women Impressionists painted mainly the spaces they could enter: homes, gardens, parks, theater boxes. Mary Cassatt (1844 to 1926), an American invited by Degas in 1877, painted mothers and children without sentimentality.

Degas

Edgar Degas, The Dance Class, 1874. The Metropolitan Museum of Art (1987.47.1). Image: Open Access, public domain (CC0).

Historical Edgar Degas (1834 to 1917) disliked the label and called himself a Realist. He painted dancers, racehorses and laundresses from odd angles, figures cut by the frame, influenced by photography and Japanese prints. In The Dance Class (1874) dancers wait, stretch and scratch their backs while the ballet master leans on his stick.

Japonisme

Historical After Japan opened to Western trade in the 1850s, prints, fans and ceramics flooded Paris. Japanese prints taught flat color, bold outlines, unusual viewpoints and everyday subjects. It is a clear case of influence flowing from East to West.

The esoteric angle

Historical I will be honest: Impressionism has little esoteric content. It is about seeing. But seeing is where every practice begins. Monet’s last great water lily panels were installed in the Orangerie in Paris in 1927, after his death, in two oval rooms meant as a place of peace.

Later tradition Later writers called the Orangerie a “Sistine Chapel of Impressionism”. That is praise, not history, but the rooms do feel like a temple.

Modern Many people now use Monet’s water lilies for slow-looking meditation.

Try it yourself

Find three paintings from one Monet series online, such as the wheat stacks or Rouen Cathedral. For each, guess the time of day and season, and list the colors in the shadows. Then look at real shadows at two times of day. Are they gray?

Before and after

Before this: Realism.

After this: Post-Impressionism.

See every movement in order on the art movements timeline, or learn to look step by step in the free Art History for Beginners course.