Editing Impressionism (section)

== Overview ==
[[File:The Fighting Temeraire, JMW Turner, National Gallery.jpg|thumb|left|[[J. M. W. Turner]]'s atmospheric work was influential on the birth of Impressionism, here ''[[The Fighting Temeraire]]'', 1839]]

Radicals in their time, the early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of painters such as [[Eugène Delacroix]] and [[J. M. W. Turner]]. They also painted realistic scenes of everyday life in natural settings, often outdoors, attempting to capture a moment as experienced.

Previously, paintings were accomplished in studio, whether [[landscape art]], [[still life]] or [[portrait]], with an emphasis on verisimilitude.{{efn|Exceptions include [[Canaletto#Outdoor painting|Canaletto]], who painted outside and may have used the [[camera obscura]].}} The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting outdoors or ''[[en plein air]]''. They portrayed overall visual effects instead of details, and used short "broken" brush strokes of mixed and pure unmixed colour—not blended smoothly or shaded, as was customary—to achieve an effect of intense colour vibration.<ref name="Seiberling"/>

[[File:Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Moulin de la Galette.jpg|thumb|right|[[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], ''Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette ([[Bal du moulin de la Galette]])'', 1876, [[Musée d'Orsay]], one of Impressionism's most celebrated masterpieces.<ref>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AXdOAAAAYAAJ |editor1-first=Ingo F. |editor1-last=Walther |title=Masterpieces of Western Art: A History of Art in 900 Individual Studies from the Gothic to the Present Day, Part 1 |edition=Centralibros Hispania Edicion y Distribucion, S.A. |date=1999 |publisher=Taschen |isbn=3-8228-7031-5 }}</ref>]]Impressionism emerged in France at the same time that a number of other painters, including the Italian artists known as the [[Macchiaioli]], and [[Winslow Homer]] in the United States, were also exploring ''[[En plein air|plein-air]]'' painting. The Impressionists, however, developed new techniques specific to the style. Encompassing what its adherents argued was a different way of seeing, it is an art of immediacy and movement, of candid poses and compositions, of the play of light expressed in a bright and varied use of colour.<ref name="Seiberling" /> In 1876, the poet and critic [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] said of the new style: "The represented subject, being composed of a harmony of reflected and ever-changing lights, cannot be supposed always to look the same but palpitates with movement, light, and life".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hook |first=Philip |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h-vq5phx00AC&pg=PT5 |title=The Ultimate Trophy: How The Impressionist Painting Conquered The World |date=2012-12-17 |publisher=Prestel Verlag |isbn=978-3-641-08955-9 |language=de}}</ref>

The public, at first hostile, gradually came to believe that the Impressionists had captured a fresh and original vision, even if the art critics and art establishment disapproved of the new style. By recreating the sensation in the eye that views the subject, rather than delineating the details of the subject, and by creating a welter of techniques and forms, Impressionism is a precursor of various painting styles, including [[Post-Impressionism]], [[Fauvism]], and [[Cubism]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Voorhies |first=James |url=http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/poim/hd_poim.htm |title=Post-Impressionism |date=October 2004 |publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art}}</ref>