The term impressionist is used to describe a new and revolutionary movement in painting which was developed in Paris in the 1870s. The word was first used derisively by critics of the movement, and was taken from Claude Monet’s canvas representing the sun rising over the sea and entitled impression. Monet was a central figure in the development of the impressionist movement, along with Manet, Degas, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Cezanne, Guillaumin and Berthe Morisot.
What these painters tried to do was to get away from the romanticism and the fetters of the accepted artistic convention. Experiments were made with the use of the pure colours of the prism and the splitting up of “tone” into its component colours.
The impressionists painted outdoor modern life and chose as their subjects Paris and urban scenes, the coasts of the English Channel and the North Sea, and the little village resorts along the banks of the seine and Oise which had been made accessible by railway. They aimed to convey the changing rhythm of light.