The Great Impressionists (Art & Design)

the long version

This is the first English text on both sides of the Atlantic to unlock fully the secrets of Impressionist methodology for the connoisseur and art enthusiast alike, and it is illustrated in full color with some of the artists' finest works. So new was this style in 1874 that when, on 30 April, a group of young painters first showed their work in the Paris studio of the photographer Nadar, the public was shocked by what it saw. These landscapes and portraits, painted in pure, brilliant colors and with short, swift brushstrokes, flew in the face of tradition. Traditionalists coined the term "Impressionists" as an insult. These painters had no concern for grand historical subjects. Rather, they sought to reproduce their immediate environment as it appeared to the eye, in all its atmospheric richness and untainted by traditional notions of "art." Fleeting effects of color and the play of light on the objects are the hallmark of this style.