The enormous popularity of Impressionist painting today belies what the group of painters dubbed Impressionists stood for. During the 1870s and 1880s, a loose group of French artists, including Pissarro, Monet and Renoir, adopted a style of painting and subject matter that challenged the canonical art promoted by the French Academy and the Salons. The revolutionary nature of Impressionism emerged from anarchism and political radicalism, from a belief in science and individualism, creating a view of art true to modern life and to immediate visual perception. In the light of recently discovered documents -- critical reviews and letters between artists, writers and dealers -- Belinda Thompson illuminates the thinking and personal lives of the artists themselves, examining the factors and experiences that allowed Impressionism to develop when it did. She investigates the family background of the Impressionists, the importance of the art market and collecting, and the influence of the critical reception to their exhibitions. Her highly accessible and thoughtful account brings together the latest research on this fascinating and complex development in art.
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