Impressionist Paintings

What is Impressionism?

Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open composition, an emphasis on the accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, unusual visual angles, and the inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience. It originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and the 1880s.

Claude Monet, the founder of Impressionism, is seen as a key precursor to modernism for his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it, and he was the movement's most consistent and prolific practitioner of that philosophy, especially in plein air landscape painting done outdoors. The term Impressionism itself came out of the title of one of his canvases. What the Impressionist painters shared was less a manifesto than a way of working: oil on canvas, daylight first, and everyday life in France treated as a subject worth a large painting. New subjects, new sizes, and a new way of finishing a picture in front of it rather than in the studio.

Famous Impressionism painters

The Impressionist painters best represented in this catalogue, each with a collection of their own. Between them they account for more than two thousand of the canvases in this collection, and the smaller names, 398 works by Alfred Sisley among them, fill in the rest.

• Claude Monet: a French painter and the founder of Impressionism, seen as a key precursor to modernism for his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it, and the movement's most consistent practitioner of plein air landscape painting. 201 works here
• Pierre-Auguste Renoir: a leading French Impressionist artist, described for his depiction of feminine beauty as the final representative of a tradition running directly from Rubens to Watteau. 927 canvases, the largest Impressionist holding in the catalogue
• Edgar Degas: a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings, and for the dancers, rehearsal rooms and Paris interiors that fill 219 canvases here
• Camille Pissarro: a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, who studied from forerunners including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and later worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac. His importance rests on his contribution to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. 665 works here
• Berthe Morisot: 182 works, alongside 132 by Mary Cassatt and 187 by Gustave Caillebotte, a member and patron of the Impressionists who painted in a more realistic manner than many others in the circle. Between them these five names cover the movement from its first show to its last, and if you like one you will usually like the rest

Famous Impressionism paintings

Famous Impressionist paintings you can order as oil on canvas, grouped by what the painters were looking at.

Light, water and the garden at Giverny

Monet worked in series: the same subject at different hours, in different weather, until daylight itself became the subject. Haystacks, poplars, the facade of Rouen cathedral, the Thames, and then thirty years of the garden he built at Giverny. If you are buying one painting to live with in a room that changes through the day, this is the part of the catalogue to look at.

• Impression, Sunrise, Claude Monet, 1872, the canvas whose title gave the movement its name
• Water Lilies, Claude Monet, from the series of approximately 250 oil paintings of his flower garden at Giverny that was the main focus of his artistic production in his later years
• The Japanese Bridge (The Water-Lily Pond), Claude Monet
• The Iris Garden at Giverny, Claude Monet, 1900
• Haystacks, the series that taught the rest of the world what a series was
• Sunset, water and low light
• Water Lilies (Nympheas), Claude Monet, the most searched title in the whole catalogue after the Mona Lisa and The Starry Night
• Wild Poppies, near Argenteuil, a field in full sun
• Poplars on the Banks of the Epte, from the poplar series
• Rouen Cathedral Facade, Morning Effect, stone painted as weather
• Stacks of Wheat, End of Day, Autumn, from the haystack series
• San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk, painted in Venice
• Parliament, Reflections on the Thames, painted in London
• The Rose Path, Giverny, the garden, late
• The Grand Dock at Le Havre, the port where he grew up
• Pleasure Boats, Argenteuil, about 1872 to 1873
• Sunset on the Seine at Lavacourt, Winter Effect, winter on the river
• Dandelions, a small canvas
• Camille, The Woman in a Green Dress, his wife, painted early

Paris and the people in it

The other half of the movement is the city. Restaurants on the Seine, a dance hall in Montmartre, a rehearsal room at the Opera, a wet boulevard seen from a hotel window, a woman in a hat shop. Degas painted the work behind the performance more often than the performance itself, and Caillebotte painted the men laying the floor. Nobody in this group was painting a museum subject at the time: these were pictures of the present, and that is exactly what the critics of the day used against them.

• The Luncheon of the Boating Party, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1880 to 1881, shown at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in 1882, where three critics named it the best painting in the show. The most reproduced group scene of the movement, and the one most people picture when they think of a summer afternoon in France
• Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1876
• The Ballet Class, Edgar Degas, painted between 1874 and 1876, a group of ballet dancers at the end of a lesson led by the ballet master Jules Perrot
• The Absinthe Drinker, a cafe table in the morning
• Paris Street, Rainy Day, Gustave Caillebotte
• The Floor Scrapers, Gustave Caillebotte
• Boulevard Montmartre, Spring Rain, Camille Pissarro
• The Shoppers, William James Glackens, the American side of the same subject
• The Millinery Shop, a hat shop, seen from above
• Two Dancers on Stage, stage lighting from below
• Dancers at the Barre, practice, not performance
• Group of Dancers, the rehearsal room again
• Ballet Rehearsal, an unusual angle on a familiar room
• Portraits at the Stock Exchange, modern work as a subject
• The Bellelli Family, an early group portrait
• M. and Mme Edouard Manet, one painter of the group painting another
• The Skiff (La Yole), Pierre-Auguste Renoir
• Young Woman Taking a Walk, Renoir, a figure in the open air
• Woman in a Red Blouse, Renoir, late and loose
• Two Women in a Garden, Renoir outdoors

Gardens, portraits and American Impressionism

The style travelled. American painters who studied in France took it home and applied it to New England gardens and summer afternoons, and Russian painters did the same with their own subjects. The New York school of the 1890s learned it from William Merritt Chase, who had learned it in Munich and Paris; the Giverny colony learned it next door to Monet. Like the French originals, these canvases were painted outdoors and finished fast. This is the least crowded part of the catalogue and often the best value for a large wall, because the names are less famous than the pictures are good.

• Roses, Berthe Morisot
• Keying Up, The Court Jester, William Merritt Chase
• The Blue Kimono, aka Girl in Blue Kimono, William Merritt Chase
• Idle Hours, William Merritt Chase
• Eleanor in the Pines, Frank W. Benson
• Lady in a Garden, Frederick Carl Frieseke
• The Hammock, William James Glackens
• From Under Willows, William James Glackens
• Portrait of Prince Yusupov, Valentin Serov, from the Russian side of the movement
• A Boy with An Oar, Henry Scott Tuke
• The Golden Lady, William Merritt Chase
• A Stroll in the Park, William James Glackens
• New Castle, New Hampshire, William James Glackens
• Still Life with Grapes, Renoir, still life
• Vase of Tulips and Anemones, Renoir, flowers
• Landscape with Red Roofs, Renoir, landscape
• Saint Hripsime Church, Etchmiadzin, Yeghishe Tadevosyan
• Woman before Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Isaac Israels

Still life and the small canvases

Not every Impressionist painting is a garden or a boulevard. The same painters treated a bowl of fruit, a copper pot or a vase of lilacs as a study in light, and these smaller canvases are the ones that work in a hallway, a kitchen or a stairwell rather than over a sofa. William Merritt Chase, who taught a generation of American painters, left more of them than anyone else in the catalogue.

• Still Life, Fruit, William Merritt Chase
• The Little Red Bowl, a single object, painted for the light on it
• The Big Brass Bowl, metal, which is the hardest thing to paint quickly
• Still Life with Pepper and Carrot, a kitchen subject at close range
• Still Life with China Vase, Copper Pot, an Apple and Grapes, the full table
• Prospect Park, Brooklyn, the same method used on a New York park
• Boat House, Prospect Park, water, boats and an afternoon
• At the Boat Landing, a small canvas of a jetty
• A Sketch of My Hound Kuttie, a dog, painted in an afternoon
• Lilacs in a Vase, Valentin Serov

Related styles

Post-Impressionist paintings are what the next generation did with the same brushwork: the movement that developed between 1886 and 1905 as a reaction against the Impressionists' concern for naturalistic light and color. Realism art reproductions come immediately before, and several painters here sit on the line between the two. Fauvism oil paintings push color past the representational values Impressionism kept, in the style of les Fauves after 1904.

Frequently asked questions

What makes a painting Impressionist?

Visible brush strokes, open composition, ordinary subject matter, unusual angles, movement, and above all the accurate depiction of light as it changes. The circle formed in Paris and showed together through the 1870s and the 1880s, in independent exhibitions they organized themselves because the official salon would not have them. The style of the work matters more than the date: a late Monet of the water lily pond and an early Renoir of a boating party are both Impressionist paintings, thirty years apart.

Which Impressionist painting should I start with?

Monet's Impression, Sunrise if you want the canvas that gave the movement its name, or Renoir's The Luncheon of the Boating Party if you want the one critics of the day singled out. Water Lilies is the most searched Impressionist title in the world and the safest choice for a large wall, because the composition has no focal point to fight with the furniture. For a smaller room, a single Degas rehearsal scene or one of the Chase still lifes will do more work than a famous picture at the wrong size.

Can I have an Impressionist reproduction framed?

Yes. Every painting comes in seven sizes and can be ordered rolled in a tube, stretched as a gallery wrap, or with an optional frame. An artist paints it in oil on canvas by hand, using the same medium the original was made in, and you see a photograph of the finished work before it ships. Shipping is free worldwide and returns stay open for 90 days. Nothing here is a print, a giclee or a canvas transfer.

What came after Impressionism, and where are Van Gogh and Gauguin?

Post-Impressionism, which developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism, as a reaction against the Impressionists' concern for the naturalistic depiction of light and color. Its principal artists were Paul Cezanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh and Georges Seurat, so all four of them sit in the Post-Impressionism collection rather than this one. Paul Signac and the pointillists are filed there too.