Impressionism in the South June 18, 2010

The impressionist art movement greatly influenced Southern artists well into the 1920s. The artistic style originated in Paris, France, during the 1860s and 1870s. Though most impressionist painters agreed with realist painters that an artist's emotional condition should be secondary to depicting the naturalism of a subject, impressionists favored depicting an immediate sense of a subject. They focused on light, air and color as one might experience it out of doors, using dabs of paint to stress a single instant in everyday life. As a result, many impressionists painted their canvases directly outside. The movement made its way to the United States late in the nineteenth century often by way of American artists who had studied abroad. Through the exchange of ideas among various artists, impressionism gained popularity in the South.