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The Art of Art“Don’t think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it’s good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.” - Andy Warhol

# The Greatest Impressionist Artists

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Updated July 3, 2024400.2K views91 items

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This list of famous Impressionism artists features images, bios, and information about their notable works. Art fans will also enjoy craziest facts about Van Gogh and weirdest quirks of historical artists. All the greatest artists associated with the Impressionism movement are included here, along with clickable names for more details on that particular painter or sculptor. These notable Impressionism period artists are organized by popularity, so the best artists are at the top of the list. If you think the best Impressionism artist isn't as high as they should be then be sure to give them an upvote, as your votes can change the rankings! You can rank all of these famous impressionists and artists, from Vincent van Gogh to Claude Monet.

Famous Impressionist artists - unsurprisingly - created famous Impressionist paintings, many of which are among the most notable works of art from any period in history. From French Impressionist painters (the movement originated in Paris during the 19th century) to Impressionists artists of other nationalities, these wonderful artists brought the world a unique style of painting. Works of the Impressionist period are characterized by small, yet visible brush strokes; open composition; an emphasis on accurate depiction of light and its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, depictions of movement, and unusual visual angles.

So, now that you can spot impressionism, who was an Impressionist painter? Who are the most famous Impressionism artists? Who are the best Impressionism artists? Almost every well-known or influential figure in this movement is listed below. You're able to copy this list to build your own just like it, re-rank it to fit your views, then publish it to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networks where your artsy friends will marvel at your handiwork and opinions on this great art movement.

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1

## Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch: [ˈvɪnsɛnt ˈʋɪləm vɑŋ ˈɣɔx] (listen); 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade he created about 2,100 artworks, including around 860 oil paintings, most of which date from the last two years of his life. They include landscapes, still lifes, portraits and self-portraits, and are characterised by bold colours and dramatic, impulsive and expressive brushwork that contributed to the foundations of modern art. He was not commercially successful, and his suicide at 37 came after years of mental illness and poverty.
Born into an upper-middle-class family, Van Gogh drew as a child and was serious, quiet and thoughtful. As a young man he worked as an art dealer, often travelling, but became depressed after he was transferred to London. He turned to religion and spent time as a Protestant missionary in southern Belgium. He drifted in ill health and solitude before taking up painting in 1881, having moved back home with his parents. His younger brother Theo supported him financially, and the two kept up a long correspondence by letter. His early works, mostly still lifes and depictions of peasant labourers, contain few signs of the vivid colour that distinguished his later work. In 1886, he moved to Paris, where he met members of the avant-garde, including Émile Bernard and Paul Gauguin, who were reacting against the Impressionist sensibility. As his work developed he created a new approach to still lifes and local landscapes. His paintings grew brighter in colour as he developed a style that became fully realised during his stay in Arles in the south of France in 1888. During this period he broadened his subject matter to include series of olive trees, wheat fields and sunflowers.
Van Gogh suffered from psychotic episodes and delusions and though he worried about his mental stability, he often neglected his physical health, did not eat properly and drank heavily. His friendship with Gauguin ended after a confrontation with a razor when, in a rage, he severed part of his own left ear. He spent time in psychiatric hospitals, including a period at Saint-Rémy. After he discharged himself and moved to the Auberge Ravoux in Auvers-sur-Oise near Paris, he came under the care of the homeopathic doctor Paul Gachet. His depression continued and on 27 July 1890, Van Gogh shot himself in the chest with a Lefaucheux revolver. He died from his injuries two days later.
Van Gogh was unsuccessful during his lifetime, and was considered a madman and a failure. He became famous after his suicide, and exists in the public imagination as the quintessential misunderstood genius, the artist "where discourses on madness and creativity converge". His reputation began to grow in the early 20th century as elements of his painting style came to be incorporated by the Fauves and German Expressionists. He attained widespread critical, commercial and popular success over the ensuing decades, and is remembered as an important but tragic painter, whose troubled personality typifies the romantic ideal of the tortured artist. Today, Van Gogh's works are among the world's most expensive paintings to have ever sold at auction, and his legacy is honoured by a museum in his name, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, which holds the world's largest collection of his paintings and drawings.

- Artworks: The Starry Night, The Potato Eaters, Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers, Portrait of Adeline Ravoux, Portrait of Dr. Gachet (First Version)

- Birthplace: Zundert, Netherlands

- Associated periods or movements: Post-Impressionism

- Nationality: Netherlands

- Art Forms: Painting, Printmaking, Drawing

- Dig DeeperVincent Van Gogh's Greatest Works Of Art

- Also ranks #58 on500+ People We Wish Were Still Alive

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1,398 votes

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2

## Claude Monet

Oscar-Claude Monet (; French: [klod mɔnɛ]; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter, a founder of French Impressionist painting and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein air landscape painting. The term "Impressionism" is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.Monet's ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883, Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899, he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

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1,540 votes

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3

## Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, commonly known as Auguste Renoir (; French: [pjɛʁ oɡyst ʁənwaʁ]; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919), was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau."He was the father of actor Pierre Renoir (1885–1952), filmmaker Jean Renoir (1894–1979) and ceramic artist Claude Renoir (1901–1969). He was the grandfather of the filmmaker Claude Renoir (1913–1993), son of Pierre.

- Artworks: Bal du moulin de la Galette, Pont Neuf, Paris, By the Seashore, The Canoeist's Luncheon
- Birthplace: Limoges, France
- Associated periods or movements: Impressionism
- Nationality: France
- Art Forms: Painting

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876 votes

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4

## Édouard Manet

Édouard Manet (US: ; UK: ; French: [edwaʁ manɛ]; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born into an upper-class household with strong political connections, Manet rejected the future originally envisioned for him, and became engrossed in the world of painting. His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, both 1863, caused great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the start of modern art. The last 20 years of Manet's life saw him form bonds with other great artists of the time, and develop his own style that would be heralded as innovative and serve as a major influence for future painters.

- Artworks: Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe, The Monet Family in Their Garden at Argenteuil, The Railway, Rochefort's Escape, Music in the Tuileries

- Birthplace: France, Paris

- Associated periods or movements: Impressionism, Realism, Realism

- Nationality: France

- Art Forms: Painting, Printmaking

- Also ranks #14 onThe Greatest Painters Of All Time

- Also ranks #5 onArtists Who Should Have Biopics, Ranked

- Also ranks #7 onHow 14 Famous Artists Died

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564 votes

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5

## Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas (US: or UK: ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, French: [ilɛːʁ ʒɛʁmɛ̃ ɛdɡaʁ də ɡɑ]; 19 July 1834 – 27 September 1917) was a French artist famous for his paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings. He is especially identified with the subject of dance; more than half of his works depict dancers. Regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism, he rejected the term, preferring to be called a realist. He was a superb draftsman, and particularly masterly in depicting movement, as can be seen in his rendition of dancers, racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and for their portrayal of human isolation.At the beginning of his career, Degas wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classical art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.

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734 votes

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6

## Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne (US: or UK: ; French: [pɔl sezan]; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavor to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne is said to have formed the bridge between late 19th-century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. Cézanne's often repetitive, exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects.
Both Matisse and Picasso are said to have remarked that Cézanne "is the father of us all".

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593 votes

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