We all know something about the famous 19th-century Impressionist painters, but who were they?
We all know something about the famous 19th-century Impressionist painters, but who were they? Here’s a quick guide so you can impress your friends with your knowledge of one of the world’s greatest (and favourite) art movements.
Impressionist Painters Edouard Manet: Bar at the folies bergere with woman in black dress with plunging neckline and wearing choker behind bar with painted background, bottles and in front of small barÉdouard Manet: Bar at the Folies Bergère. Public domain. Courtauld Institute
Impressionism as an art form is generally taken to start on the evening of April 15, 1874, when a group of young, struggling and unknown painters put on a show of their work in the studio of the photographer Félix Nadar at 35 boulevard des Capucines in Paris. The group included Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Claude Monet, Camille Pissaro, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne. They were showing works that had been rejected by the official Académie des Beaux-Arts Salon.
Claude Monet: Soleil Levant (Sunrise). Public domain.  Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
The word ‘Impressionist’ was first coined by the French art critic Louis Leroy who hated the new style of art.  Derisively titling his article The Exhibition of the Impressionists, Leroy declared that Monet’s painting of Soleil Levant was at most, a sketch, and could hardly be termed a finished work. He wrote ‘Impression—I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it…and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape’. Little did he know.