What Is Impressionism In Art & Film? Definition & Examples

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Published: June 6, 2019 | Last Updated: June 6, 2025

What is Impressionism? Definition & Meaning

Impressionism is an art movement that began in France during the 1860s, defined by visible brushstrokes, open compositions, and an emphasis on capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere in everyday life.

Origins of the Impressionist Movement

Impressionism emerged in response to academic painting and the rigid formalism of the French Salon, the official government-sponsored art exhibition in Paris that dictated artistic standards and taste during the 18th and 19th centuries.

A reclining nude Venus on ocean waves, surrounded by cherubs flying in the sky — Alexandre Cabanel’s The Birth of Venus was a celebrated Salon painting, praised for its polished execution, mythological theme, and idealized nude. Its smooth surface, classical subject, and decorative appeal exemplify the standards upheld by the French Salon. Sensual but still mythological, and a textbook Salon painting that Napoleon III purchased.

Artists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Edgar Degas challenged the established rules by painting contemporary subjects outdoors, often en plein air, to capture the direct effects of light and color.

Edgar Degas’s early work combines academic realism with emerging Impressionist detail. While the floral still life bursts with color and texture, the woman’s reserved posture introduces a psychological tension. This transitional piece shows Degas’s shift toward everyday subjects and observational intimacy.

In the 1860s, Napoleon III’s modernization of Paris led working-class residents to the suburbs, replacing medieval neighborhoods with open boulevards, plazas, and parks. These urban changes shaped the Impressionists’ focus on everyday scenes and modern life, from street cafés to riverside leisure. Their work rejected the Salon’s academic traditions and embraced an independent, observational style that mirrored the city’s social shifts.

A hazy harbor scene at sunrise with blue-grey tones and an orange sun reflecting on the water — Claude Monet’s Impression, Sunrise captured the harbor of Le Havre with loose brushwork and a focus on light and atmosphere. The painting gave the Impressionist movement its name after a critic used the word dismissively. It emphasizes perception over detail, marking a radical shift away from academic precision.

The movement formally began in 1874 when a group of artists held an independent exhibition outside the official Salon. Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise (1872) gave the movement its name after critics used the term dismissively. Over time, the label stuck, and the group’s radical break from traditional techniques became a defining force in modern art.

Visual Characteristics of Impressionism

An abstract view of water lilies floating on a pond, with reflections of sky and plants blending into the water — Claude Monet’s Water Lilies series abandoned traditional perspective and instead focused on color, texture, and shifting light. This late work dissolves form into pure sensation, capturing the fleeting impression of a pond’s surface at a particular moment.

Impressionist paintings emphasize fleeting visual impressions rather than exact details. Artists used quick brushwork, visible textures, and a bright, natural palette. Shadows included colors, not just black or gray. Paint was often applied in dabs or strokes to suggest movement and spontaneity.

A young girl standing in a golden wheat field with a village in the background — Berthe Morisot’s Dans les blés uses loose brushwork and warm natural tones to show the countryside as a place of light and movement. The figure is barely outlined against the glowing field, emphasizing sensation over clarity, which are all hallmarks of Impressionist style.

Subjects included urban life, landscapes, working-class leisure, and intimate interiors. The emphasis stayed on how light altered perception through weather, time of day, and season.

Key Impressionist Artists

Claude Monet led the movement with his series of outdoor scenes, including haystacks, water lilies, and the Rouen Cathedral.

Two haystacks in a field, painted with warm tones under morning light, with distant trees and hills in the background — Monet’s haystack series explored how changing light and seasons affect color and perception. In this morning scene, the warm sun casts glowing highlights and violet shadows, reducing form to shimmering surface. It reflects Impressionism’s core focus on visual atmosphere.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir focused on human warmth and social scenes.

A reclining nude woman seen from behind, resting in a soft, sunlit landscape — Painted late in his Impressionist phase, Renoir’s Nu dans un paysage combines the movement’s bright palette and outdoor light with a more sculptural treatment of the human figure. The relaxed pose and textured brushwork reflect his shift toward classical influences while still rooted in Impressionist ideals.

Edgar Degas explored movement and gesture, often depicting dancers and bathers from unusual angles.

Impressionist painting of two ballerinas stretching at a ballet barre, by Edgar Degas — *Edgar Degas captured fleeting moments and repetitive gestures in motion. The smeared pastels and tilted composition focus more on movement than perfection.*

Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt, two of the few female members of the group, contributed important domestic and female-focused subjects.

Two women seated indoors beside a tea service, one sipping from a cup — Mary Cassatt’s The Tea captures a quiet domestic ritual, but the women’s expressions and distance suggest unspoken tension or introspection. The striped wallpaper and gleaming teapot frame the scene with decorative detail, while the loose brushwork and subtle body language give it a sense of emotional interiority.

French Impressionist Cinema (1918–1929)

Impressionism in film aims to show subjective experience (like memory, sensation, and fleeting emotion) through light, rhythm, and composition.

In the silent era, a group of French filmmakers developed a cinematic counterpart to Impressionist painting.

Directors such as Germaine Dulac, Jean Epstein, Louis Delluc, Abel Gance, and Marcel L’Herbier worked to represent internal experience rather than objective reality. They used rhythmic editing, superimpositions, slow motion, and blurred imagery to reflect memory, dreams, and emotional states.

Like their painter predecessors, French Impressionist filmmakers rejected dominant institutions and aimed to express subjective reality through experimental form. Just as painters abandoned the academic Salon in favor of self-organized exhibitions, directors bypassed mainstream studios to work in ciné-clubs and independent circles. Their goal was similar: show inner experience rather than surface realism.

Germaine Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Beudet (1923, Delphine Film) is widely recognized as a seminal work of French Impressionist cinema. Dulac uses techniques such as slow motion, superimpositions, and distorted visuals to convey the protagonist’s inner emotional state. While Dulac later explored Surrealism in films like The Seashell and the Clergyman (1928), The Smiling Madame Beudet is firmly rooted in Impressionist aesthetics.

Jean Epstein’s La Glace à trois faces (1927, Les Films Jean Epstein) exemplifies French Impressionist cinema through its use of fragmented narrative, subjective camera work, and innovative editing techniques. The film explores the psychological perspectives of three women involved with the same man, reflecting the movement’s emphasis on internal experiences.

Abel Gance’s La Roue (1923, Pathé) used rapid editing and montage to create psychological tension. While La Roue incorporates avant-garde techniques such as rapid editing and visual symbolism, it is primarily considered a part of French Impressionist cinema. Gance’s innovative use of montage and lighting serves to express the characters’ psychological states, aligning with Impressionist principles.

These films treated cinema as a visual impression, where light, texture, and movement shaped narrative.

Impressionism’s Broader Influence on Film

Beyond the silent era, Impressionist aesthetics continued to shape film. Directors began to treat light and composition as expressive tools. Visual atmosphere became just as important as narrative content. Cinematographers borrowed the painter’s eye, adapting natural light, color blends, and texture into camera language.

Jean Renoir, son of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, filmed A Day in the Country (1936, Les Films du Panthéon) at the family estate. Here is some rare behind-the-scenes footage from the shooting of the movie:

The film’s soft outdoor lighting, drifting camera, and relaxed rhythms reflect his deep familiarity with his father’s visual world. Dappled sunlight flickers through trees, and human figures merge with landscape, in other words, a cinematic translation of Impressionist composition.

Cinematic Techniques Inspired by Impressionism

Modern directors use several recurring techniques that echo Impressionist art. These include natural light, expressive color, and compositions that emphasize mood over clarity.

Natural Light and the “Magic Hour”

Terrence Malick shot Days of Heaven (1978, Paramount) and The Tree of Life (2011, Fox Searchlight) during dawn and dusk to take advantage of the golden hour light.

A woman stands in a field at sunset, facing a large Victorian house on the horizon — Néstor Almendros captured this frame in Days of Heaven (1978, Paramount) during the golden hour, when the sky glows like a Turner canvas. The silhouetted figure, warm haze, and soft contours mirror Impressionist ideals, privileging mood and fleeting light over sharp definition. **Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.**

Cinematographer Néstor Almendros used only natural sources, creating hazy, diffused frames where light becomes the subject. Sunlight filters through fields, glows behind faces, and softens every outline.

A woman in flowing fabric suspended underwater, lit from above by rays of sunlight — Light filters through the water like an Impressionist brushstroke in this scene from The New World (2005, New Line), where Terrence Malick uses natural light and slow, drifting motion to create a sensory experience. The frame dissolves edges and sharp detail, echoing the soft textures and atmosphere of 19th-century painting. **Image Credit: New Line Cinema.**

Malick’s floating camera and lack of strict blocking further mirror Impressionist painting’s loose, observational style.

Color as Emotional Texture

Wong Kar-wai and Jean-Pierre Jeunet use color the way Impressionists used oil.

In In the Mood for Love (2000, Block 2), Christopher Doyle’s cinematography layers emerald greens and deep reds inside narrow hallways and rain-soaked streets.

In Amélie (2001, UGC-Fox Distribution), director Jean-Pierre Jeunet and cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel craft a whimsical, romanticized version of Paris through saturated colors and stylized lighting.

A woman in a red dress crouches on a footbridge over a sunlit canal surrounded by green trees — In Amélie (2001, UGC-Fox Distribution), rich greens and glowing light create a whimsical, painterly atmosphere. Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel saturates the frame with color and shadow, echoing the ambient softness and visual charm of Impressionist landscapes. **Image Credit: UGC-Fox Distribution.**

The film’s vibrant palette and soft focus create a visual experience akin to Impressionist paintings, where color and light are used to express inner emotions and a sense of wonder.

Framing and Blurred Detail

Jean Renoir’s Partie de campagne (1936, Les Films du Panthéon) treats natural light and loose framing as compositional tools. Leaves flicker in foreground and background, and characters drift through fields rather than center them.

These directors use the camera like a brush, building each shot from sensation, not structure.

Summing Up

Impressionism began as a response to rigid artistic convention. Its influence spread into cinema through both direct adaptation and stylistic borrowing. From French silent films to contemporary features, the movement’s core values, light, color, and sensation, continue to shape how films look and feel. Whether through poetic editing or painterly framing, Impressionism remains part of how cinema sees the world.

Read Next: Curious how art movements shaped film?

Explore our full Visual Art Timeline to see how styles like Surrealism, Cubism, and Suprematism influenced cinema’s most experimental moments.

Or keep browsing our Film Movements & World Cinema section for more on the histories that shaped screen culture around the globe.

What Is Impressionism in Art & Film? Definition & Examples