Radicals in their time, the early Impressionists violated the rules of academic painting. They constructed their pictures from freely brushed colours that took precedence over lines and contours, following the example of … 展开

French painters who prepared the way for Impressionism include the Romantic colourist Eugène Delacroix; the leader of the realists, 展开

The Impressionists reacted to modernity by exploring "a wide range of non-academic subjects in art" such as middle-class leisure activities and "urban themes, including train stations, cafés, brothels, the theater, and dance." They found inspiration in the 展开

The central figures in the development of Impressionism in France, listed alphabetically, were:
• Frédéric … 展开

In the middle of the 19th century—a time of rapid industrialization and unsettling social change in France, as Emperor Napoleon III rebuilt Paris and waged war—the 展开

Impressionists, in varying degrees, were looking for ways to depict visual experience and contemporary subjects. Female Impressionists … 展开

• Frédéric Bazille, Paysage au bord du Lez, 1870, Minneapolis Institute of Art
• Alfred Sisley, Bridge at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, 1872, Metropolitan Museum of Art 展开