Impressionists

   Name given to a group of avant-garde artists working in Paris and elsewhere, mainly in France, from the 1870s to the 1920s. Though frequently called the "French Impressionists", the Impressionists were actually an international group, and as well as the French painters Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissaro and Degas, major artists from the group included the Dutch painter Van Gogh, the English painter Sisley and the American Mary Cassat, among others. The name "Impressionists" was taken from the title of a painting by Claude Monet displayed at an exhibition of works by avant-garde artists in Paris in 1874. The name rapidly became used to describe a style of figurative painting concerned more with the effects of light and colour on objects and scenes, than with objective portrayal of these objects, scenes or people. The vivid techniques of colour and light effects pioneered by the Impressionists had a lasting impact on the development of art in the twentieth century; in particular they influenced the significant movements in European art, including pointillism and the post-impressionists such as Signac, Fauvism with the works of Matisse and Vlaminck, the Nabis such as Bonnard and Vuillard, and even Cubism.