Impressionism was a 19th-century
art movement that began in Paris. The name of the movement is derived from the title of a
Claude Monet work,
Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant), which provoked the critic
Louis Leroy to
coin the term in a satiric review published in
Le Charivari.
Characteristics of Impressionist painting include visible brushstrokes, open composition, emphasis on
light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time), ordinary
subject matter, the inclusion of
movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and
unusual visual angles.
The emergence of Impressionism in the visual arts was soon followed by analogous movements in other media which became known as
Impressionist music and
Impressionist literature.
Impressionism also describes art created in this style, but outside of the late 19th century time period.
