50 Fun Facts About Impressionism

The name Impressionism derives from the title of a painting by which artist?

Impression, Sunrise shows his home port in Normandy in 1872.

Which critic coined the term 'Impressionists' in a satirical 1874 review?

He wrote that 'wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape'.

In which Parisian newspaper did the mocking review that named Impressionism appear?

The artists soon accepted the label themselves.

Where was the First Impressionist Exhibition held in April 1874?

Thirty artists took part; Manet declined.

How many times did the Impressionists exhibit together between 1874 and 1886?

Membership shifted every time; only one painter showed at all of them.

Which painter was the only artist to show at every one of the group's exhibitions?

John Rewald called him the 'dean of the Impressionist painters'.

What French phrase describes the Impressionists' practice of painting outdoors?

They finished paintings out of doors rather than making sketches to be worked up in the studio.

Under which academic painter did Monet, Renoir and Sisley meet as students in the early 1860s?

They discovered a shared taste for landscape and modern life over history painting.

Which café on the Avenue de Clichy was the group's favourite meeting place, with Manet leading?

Pissarro, Cézanne and Guillaumin soon joined the circle.

Which Manet painting, rejected by the 1863 Salon, shows a nude woman picnicking with clothed men?

The composition borrows from a Raimondi engraving after Raphael.

Which emperor decreed the 1863 Salon des Refusés so the public could judge the rejected works?

Many came only to laugh, but it drew more visitors than the official Salon.

Which painter did the Impressionists regard as their leader, though he never exhibited with them?

He insisted 'the Salon is the real field of battle'; the others avoided his favourite dark pigment.

Which Impressionist rejected the label, preferring 'realist', and belittled painting outdoors?

He believed in the primacy of drawing over colour; more than half his works depict dancers.

Which of the four Gleyre students was killed at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande in 1870?

He had joined a Zouave regiment a month after the Franco-Prussian War began.

Which mid-century innovation in paint packaging let the Impressionists work spontaneously outdoors?

The tubes resembled modern toothpaste tubes.

Which art dealer championed the Impressionists, staging shows in London and New York?

He recognised their potential as early as 1870 and held his first big show of their work in London in 1872.

Which two Neo-Impressionists' invitation to the eighth exhibition in 1886 split the group?

Pissarro adopted their pointillist style himself at 54.

Which American painter did Degas invite to show with the Impressionists in 1879?

Born near Pittsburgh, she later steered the Havemeyers and other US collectors towards the movement.

Which Impressionist was married to Manet's brother Eugène?

She was the only woman in the first exhibition of 1874, showing ten works.

Which Impressionist, born in Paris to British parents, painted the Thames at Hampton Court?

He spent most of his life in France, later around Moret-sur-Loing.

Pissarro was born on which Caribbean island, then a Danish colony?

He was Danish-French, and later a father figure to Cézanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh.

Which wealthy painter debuted with The Floor Scrapers in 1876 and later helped the state buy Manet's Olympia?

His Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877) was praised for its photographic precision.

Which American museum owns Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day?

It was first shown at the Third Impressionist Exhibition in 1877.

Which port town, Monet's home town, is depicted in Impression, Sunrise?

He painted a series of views of the port during a visit in 1872.

Which Paris museum usually displays Impression, Sunrise?

It was stolen from there in 1985 and recovered in 1990.

In which village did Monet settle from 1883 and build his water-lily pond?

The garden occupied him for the last 20 years of his life.

Approximately how many Water Lilies paintings did Monet make?

A set of large murals has a permanent home in two oval rooms in a Paris museum.

Which Paris museum houses Monet's largest Water Lilies murals in a pair of oval rooms?

The French state built the rooms in the 1920s as a permanent home for them.

Which cathedral did Monet paint more than thirty times in 1892–94 under different light?

He reworked the canvases in his studio in 1894.

A Monet Grainstacks painting sold in 2019 for what record price?

A Chicago museum holds six of the twenty-five Haystacks.

What eye condition affected Monet's late work?

He was prescribed new glasses and refused surgery on his right eye.

Which Renoir painting depicts a Sunday afternoon dance in Montmartre?

Painted in 1876, it hangs in the Musée d'Orsay.

Which collection bought Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party in 1923?

Duncan Phillips chased it for a decade and paid $125,000 in 1923; it still hangs at the Phillips Collection in Washington.

Which of Renoir's sons became a celebrated filmmaker?

Pierre became an actor and Claude a ceramic artist.

Which illness crippled Renoir's hands in his last two decades, though he kept painting?

He moved to Cagnes-sur-Mer on the Mediterranean in 1907 for the warmer climate.

Which Renaissance painting did Manet paraphrase for the pose of Olympia?

Her confrontational gaze and the details marking her as a courtesan shocked the 1865 Salon.

Who was the model for both Olympia and the nude in the 1863 picnic painting?

She was 19 when she posed for Olympia; the servant was modelled by a woman named Laure.

What was Manet's last major work, hung at the Salon of 1882?

He died the following year.

What was the Musée d'Orsay before it became a museum in 1986?

The Beaux-Arts Gare d'Orsay was built from 1898 to 1900 beside the Seine.

Whose 1966 bequest gave the Marmottan the world's largest holding of works by the painter of Impression, Sunrise?

The building had been a hunting lodge for the Duke of Valmy.

Which critic first used the term 'Post-Impressionism'?

Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh and Seurat are the movement's principal figures.

Which painter is known as the 'father of Post-Impressionism'?

He and Monet took the harshest attacks at the first exhibition of 1874.

Which older painter's example first persuaded Monet to paint outdoors, and joined the 1874 exhibition?

Jongkind, another influence, declined to take part.

Which poet wrote in 1876 that the Impressionist subject 'palpitates with movement, light, and life'?

The public gradually warmed to the style even as critics disapproved.

Which Italian group of painters was exploring plein-air painting at the same time as the Impressionists?

Winslow Homer was doing the same in the United States.

Which four artists does the article call the 'purest' Impressionists?

They stuck most consistently to spontaneity, sunlight and colour.

Which Académie des Beaux-Arts juried show did the Impressionists rebel against?

Its juries prized the finished, varnished style of Gérôme and Cabanel.

What did Monet accuse the Impressionists of in 1880 when Degas brought in realists like Raffaëlli?

The 1882 show was the most selective, with only nine 'true' Impressionists.

What did the Impressionists avoid using, preferring to mix darker colours instead?

Manet was the exception, keeping his liberal use of it.

Which two Impressionists were the 'purest' along with Monet and Sisley, one being the group's only woman in 1874?

Morisot's The Cradle of 1872 is among her best-known works.