Impressionist Paintings
The paintings that gave Impressionism its name — Monet, Renoir, Manet, Degas, Caillebotte, Pissarro, Cassatt and Sorolla — reproduced whole from museum scans.
14 prints · printed to order on heavyweight matte paper · framed or unframed
What Impressionism was
In April 1874 a group of painters refused by the official Salon held their own exhibition in a photographer's studio on the boulevard des Capucines. A critic seized on the title of Monet's Impression, Sunrise to mock them, and the name stuck. What they shared was a way of working: outdoors or from life, in quick visible strokes, with colour used to record light as it fell at a particular hour rather than to describe objects. Within fifteen years the method had spread from Paris to Spain, Scandinavia and America.
The works in this collection
Monet is represented by the Water Lilies, Impression, Sunrise, the Haystacks and Woman with a Parasol; Renoir by the Luncheon of the Boating Party and the Bal du moulin de la Galette; Manet by A Bar at the Folies-Bergère; Degas by The Dance Class; Caillebotte by Paris Street, Rainy Day; Cassatt by The Child's Bath. Sorolla's beach children and Sargent's Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose show the style as it was taken up outside France.
Choosing an Impressionist print
These paintings were made for daylight and reward it: a Monet or a Renoir hung opposite a window keeps the colour the artist saw. The broad canvases, the Boating Party, the Grande Jatte's cousins, want 24×36 above a sofa; the Water Lilies and the Haystacks sit well in a bedroom at 16×24.