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Impressionism
By the 1870s a group of Parisian artists had become increasingly bored with the traditional, studio-based, graphic style of
most paintings. They were obsessed with light and its effect on landscape and objects at different times of day; painting
outside, they worked on several canvases at a time as the light changed throughout the day. Among these artists were Monet,
Manet, Pissarro, Renoir, Dégas and Sisley. In 1874 they held their first public exhibition, where their work was ridiculed.
One critic was particularly scathing about Monet's painting Impression of a Sunrise, and so the name of the movement was born.
Literary figures such as Zola and Flaubert supported Impressionism, feeling they could do with words what artists were doing
with paint, and gradually public opinion was won over.
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