Dec 22, 2009

The Oxford Companion to English Literature | Impressionism

Impressionism,
the name given in derision (from a painting by Monet called Impression: soleil levant) to the work of a group of French painters who held their first exhibition in 1874 . Their aim was to render the effects of light on objects rather than the objects themselves. Claude Monet ( 1840 – 1926 ), Alfred Sisley ( 1839 – 99 ), and Camille Pissarro ( 1831 – 1903 ) carried out their aims most completely. Auguste Renoir ( 1841 – 1919 ) reacted against the spontaneity of the movement in the early 1880s, while Paul Cézanne ( 1839 – 1906 ) became increasingly interested in an analysis of form that led on to Cubism. The term is used by transference in literature and music.