From low on a hillside, we look up at a light-skinned woman and boy standing in tall grass against a sunny blue sky in this vertical painting. The woman stands at the center of the composition, and the moss-green parasol she holds over her head almost brushes the top edge of the canvas. Her body faces our left but she turns her head to look at us. Her long dress is painted largely with strokes of pale blue and gray with a few touches of yellow. Her voluminous skirts swirl around her legs to our left. She holds the parasol with both hands, and her brown hair is covered with a hat. Long strokes of white paint across her face suggest a veil fluttering in the breeze. The tall grass she stands in is dotted with buttercup yellow and plum purple, and she casts a long diagonal shadow along the grass toward us. The young boy seems to stand on the other side of the hill, since the grass and flowers comes up to his waist. He wears a white jacket and pale yellow straw hat. His arms are by his sides, and he seems to look off into the distance to our left. A sunny blue sky behind the people is dotted with bright blue clouds. The painting is created with loose brushstrokes throughout, and they are especially choppy in the clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in royal-blue letters at the lower right: “Claude Monet 75.”
Claude Monet, Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son, 1875, oil on canvas, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1983.1.29

Impressionism

Impressionism is a style of painting that helped redirect art toward personal expression and artistic process. The movement originated in and around Paris in the late 19th century. Impressionists had stylistic differences, but they shared an interest in accurately capturing modern life and the fleeting effects of light and color.

  • Shown from the thighs up, a boy wearing a crimson-red waistcoat stands against swags of fabric painted with visible strokes in white, sky blue, harvest yellow, and sage green in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Painted with choppy brushstrokes, the boy has pale, ivory-white skin, blushing pink cheeks, pursed lips, faint eyebrows, and topaz-blue eyes that gaze down to our right. His shoulder-length, dark brown hair is tucked behind one ear under a brown wide-brimmed hat. His red waistcoat is worn over a long-sleeved, slate-blue shirt. The collar of his skirt is slightly flipped up on his right side, to our left, and a swipe of cobalt blue suggests a tie or scarf between the lapels. A band of sapphire blue could be a belt above olive-green trousers, and dashes of navy blue create shadows. His right hand, to our left, is planted on that hip. The other arm hangs straight and loose by his side, those fingertips almost brushing the bottom edge of the canvas. The boy’s body is outlined in dark blue. The drapery behind him falls in folds that sweep gently to our right. The background is painted with patches and swipes of cool blues and greens, and pale golden yellow. One swag of the drapery, over the shoulder to our left, is painted with a loose pattern suggesting leaves. One back post and a sliver of the curving back of a wooden chair peeks into the composition in the lower left corner.
  • A young woman with pale, peach skin wearing a white apron over an ankle-length navy-blue dress stands in a dining room in this vertical painting. The painting is created using loose brushstrokes throughout. The woman stands facing and looking out at us. Her auburn-brown hair is pulled up into a bun, and bangs sweep across her forehead. Her eyebrows are slightly raised, her deep pink lips are closed in the hint of a smile, and she holds her hands at her chest. Some details throughout the painting are indistinct because of the loose painting style but she might hold a mixing bowl. The high-necked bodice of the dress has buttons down the front, and the apron falls to mid-shin. A tall curio cabinet fills the space to our left and brushes the top edge of the canvas. It seems to be filled with white or silver serving pieces, and a white cloth is draped over one of the open cabinet doors below. A clock hangs on a wall over an oil lamp between the woman and curio cabinet. Light pours in through a tall window or French doors behind the woman to our right. Roughly painted forms suggest a house and landscape beyond. One chair is pulled up to a round table that is cut off by the right edge of the canvas. A decanter, perhaps glass, and bowl of peach and rose-colored fruit sit on the table. A small white dog with tan spots scampers at the woman’s feet near the chair. The artist signed the painting in brown in the lower left corner: “Berthe Morisot.”
  • Sculpted with rich brown wax, a young ballerina stands with her arms straight, hands clasped behind her back, and one foot in front of the other on a square wooden base. Her body is angled to our left in this photograph. Both feet are splayed outward, and her right foot is placed far in front of her left. Bangs cover her forehead, and she has a heart-shaped, upturned face with a squat nose and slightly pursed lips. Her heavy-lidded eyes are nearly closed and her hair is pulled back and tied with a wide, cream-white ribbon. She wears a fabric costume with a sleeveless, gold-colored bodice, a gray tulle skirt, and ballet slippers. Her body is sculpted from dark brown wax, and a layer of wax covers her hair, bodice, and ballet slippers.
  • A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”
  • Painted in mostly in jewel tones of topaz and aquamarine blue, and sage, spring, and pine green, a meadow is enclosed by a wooden fence, against a landscape of gently rolling hills under a vibrant sky in this horizontal painting. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes. Touches of white, cotton candy-pink, ruby-red, and azure-blue paint in the long grasses close to us could be wildflowers. A few swipes of straw yellow and pale and lapis blue could represent two people, standing and kneeling, in the field close to the fence. The rickety fence starts at the right edge of the canvas and extends into the distance, angling away from us to our left. Rolling hills beyond are a patchwork of emerald green and caramel brown, and are dotted with trees with full, dark green canopies. One brown building sits on the crest of a hill to our right of center. The horizon comes about halfway up this picture, and the turquoise-colored sky is dotted with white puffs of clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “Sisley 75.”
  • A young woman sits and a young girl stands at an open, wide, vine-covered gate in front of a park in this horizontal painting. Both people have pale, peachy skin. The woman sits at the center of the opening with her body facing us, and she looks at or toward us with dark eyes under dark eyebrows. She tips her head slightly to her left, our right, and her brown hair has been pulled up under an ivory-white hat with a dark feather that curves over her hair toward her ears. Like the rest of the painting, her features are loosely painted but her pink lips are closed. Her pale shell-pink shawl flares over her shoulders to her elbows, and is fastened with a black ribbon or tie at her neck. A touch of black at her waist suggests she wears a black sash, and her full skirt falls in layered tiers to the ground. Her hands rest in her lap, and she holds long-stemmed flowers with red, baby-blue, and butter-yellow blooms. Next to the woman and to our left, the girl stands facing our left in profile with her hands on the trellised gate, which has swung away from us, into the park. Her blond hair is held back with a black headband and she looks down, her face turned slightly away. Her long-sleeved, loosely fitting, slate-blue jumper has pale blue pinstripes and comes to her knees. She wears white stockings, and her black boots come up over her ankles. An open umbrella with a curved wooden handle rests upside down on the ground to our right of the woman. The interior is deep turquois blue and the exterior is parchment brown. The park is painted with tones of pale caramel brown for the ground, and sage green and tan for the trees. Tree trunks and branches are painted with a few lines in brown, and there is a hedge of pine-green bushes beyond the gate to our right. Sunlight filters through the trees to create dappled shadows on the ground. The artist signed the work as if she had written her name along the bottom rail of the gate door, near the lower left corner of the painting: “Eva Gonzalèz.”
  • We look down on a few dozen people walking along the sidewalks of a wide, sunlit bridge in this almost square painting. The scene is loosely painted, which gives it a hazy, sun-dappled look and makes some details indistinct. The people wear black, white, light blue, or pale green jackets and pants or long dresses as they walk in all directions. Some wear hats, and a few women carry parasols. The bridge opens into a wide boulevard close to us, as the sidewalks angle into the lower corners of the composition. Several horse-drawn carriages move across the bridge alongside the people. The deck of the oyster-white bridge is lined with black gas lamps. The river beneath shimmers with lapis and turquoise blue. The far side is packed with four and five-story buildings, which are mostly tan with rows of windows painted as blue rectangles. The rooflines bristle with chimneys. Another structure or boat sits on the water near the lower right corner of the painting, and a flag with vertical bands of red, white, and blue flies from a flagpole there. Opposite the flag, on the far bank, is a statue of a man on a horse, both on a tall plinth. The horizon comes about halfway up the composition, and the azure-blue sky above is dotted with puffy white clouds tinged with dove gray and mauve. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “A. Renoir. 72.”
  • We look slightly down onto the surface of a river in which three narrow canoes, each paddled by a single person, are being rowed toward us in this horizontal landscape painting. The rowers wear white shirts rolled up to the elbows, light blue pants, and straw-yellow, wide-brimmed hats pulled down over the eyes. They sit in the bottom of their boats with legs extended and the handle of the double-bladed paddle straddling the boat over their laps. The canoe closest to us comes almost directly toward us, angled slightly to our right as it cuts through the surface of the river, its tip extending off the bottom edge of the canvas. The second canoe is a couple of boat lengths behind and to our left of the closest canoe. The third is small in the distance, near the horizon that comes three-quarters of the way up the composition. The back end of a fourth canoe and a single paddle extends into the scene from the right edge of the canvas. The butter-yellow paddles are reflected in the pale sage green and sky blue of the river’s surface. The river is lined on both sides with lush trees and vegetation, which fills the top quarter of the painting above the horizon.
  • Facing away from us against a cherry-red background, the head and shoulders of a light-skinned woman wearing strawberry red, with her copper-brown hair piled atop her head, fills this vertical painting. Her body is angled to our right so her shoulders slope down in that direction, and we see the back edge of her right ear and the curve of her smooth cheek. Touches of coral pink outline the earlobe and sharpen the hollow below the top edge of the ear. Her hair is gathered into a bun on the top of her head, and curls flare out over her right temple. Her garment has puffy sleeves and a broad collar across her upper back. The neckline curves close to the base of her pale neck. The portrait is loosely painted, especially in the background, where black strokes are mixed into the red, and in the woman’s garment, where wide, visible brushstrokes create the impression of pleats and shadows. The artist signed the work in the upper left corner, “Carolus-Duran.”
  • An older man with ruddy, peachy skin stands in the lower right of this vertical painting holding a large, green, leafy cabbage. He is shown from the hips up and faces our left with his body angled slightly toward us. His head tilts down with his mouth open to gaze at the vibrant green cabbage held tightly in both hands. Fringes of gray hair sprout from under his peanut-brown, short-brimmed cap, and gray stubble frames his open mouth. His cheeks are hollow but he has a fleshy double chin. The collar of his white shirt is visible at the neckline of his long-sleeved, tan jacket. The jacket is covered by a seafoam-green apron touched with short strokes of navy-blue, teal, peach, and pine-green paint. He stands against several rows of round cabbages and other indistinct olive-green objects that might be more vegetables stacked up beyond him. The very top of the composition is filled with a band of tightly speckled mauve, peach, and white, with a few flecks of blue and green. The artist signed and dated the lower right with red paint, “C. Pissarro 1883-95.”
  • A pale turquoise footbridge arching over a pond lined with tall grasses and filled with petal-pink and butter-yellow waterlilies spans this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is loosely painted with touches of vibrant color. In the top third of the composition, the shallowly arched bridge nearly touches the top edge of the canvas, and it extends off each side. The shadows on the bridge are painted with eggplant purple. Bands of waterlilies gently zigzag into the distance on the surface of the water. The spring and emerald-green grasses growing along the banks fill the space around and over the pond, and they blend into a screen of trees beyond that enclose the scene. The green of the grasses and trees is reflected in the surface of the water, as is the underside of the bridge. The artist signed and dated the work with dark paint in the lower right corner: “Claude Monet 99.”
  • To our left, a young woman sits facing us on a low stone wall at the base of the vertical, black bars of an iron fence and a young girl stands facing away from us to our right in this horizontal painting. Both have pale skin. The woman looks directly at us with dark eyes as she holds an open book, a closed red fan, and a sleeping brown and white puppy in her lap. Her long auburn hair falls down over her shoulders. Her navy-blue dress is accented with white piping on the skirt, collar, and sleeves, and has three large, white buttons down the front and her black hat is adorned with two red poppies and a daisy. The girl wears a sleeveless white, knee-length dress belted with a marine-blue sash tied in a large bow at her back. The girl’s blond hair is pulled up and tied with a black ribbon. She raises her left hand to grasp the bar of the fence she faces. A bunch of green grapes lies on the low wall to our right. A plume of steam fills much of the space beyond the black fence, which spans the width of the painting and extends off the top edge. A few details can be made out beyond the fence, including a stone-gray building with two wooden doors to our left and a bridge along the right edge.
  • From low on a hillside, we look up at a light-skinned woman and boy standing in tall grass against a sunny blue sky in this vertical painting. The woman stands at the center of the composition, and the moss-green parasol she holds over her head almost brushes the top edge of the canvas. Her body faces our left but she turns her head to look at us. Her long dress is painted largely with strokes of pale blue and gray with a few touches of yellow. Her voluminous skirts swirl around her legs to our left. She holds the parasol with both hands, and her brown hair is covered with a hat. Long strokes of white paint across her face suggest a veil fluttering in the breeze. The tall grass she stands in is dotted with buttercup yellow and plum purple, and she casts a long diagonal shadow along the grass toward us. The young boy seems to stand on the other side of the hill, since the grass and flowers comes up to his waist. He wears a white jacket and pale yellow straw hat. His arms are by his sides, and he seems to look off into the distance to our left. A sunny blue sky behind the people is dotted with bright blue clouds. The painting is created with loose brushstrokes throughout, and they are especially choppy in the clouds. The artist signed and dated the painting in royal-blue letters at the lower right: “Claude Monet 75.”
  • We look slightly down onto a woman dressed in golden yellows, sitting in a pale green chair, with a nude child sitting in her lap as they both gaze into a mirror in this vertical portrait painting. Both the people have pale, peachy skin. The chair is angled to our left so the woman’s knees and child cant down toward the lower left corner of the composition, and the woman leans onto the arm closer to us. The chair is painted mint green and the rose-pink upholstery is visible on the seat and a corner behind the woman’s shoulder. To our right, the woman’s vibrant, copper-colored hair is pulled loosely to the back of her head. She has a rounded nose, flushed cheeks, and her full, coral-pink lips are closed. Her long dress has a low, U-shaped neckline. The fabric shimmers from pale, cucumber green to light sunshine yellow. The sleeves of the dress split over the shoulder and a second long, goldenrod-yellow sleeve falls from her elbow off the bottom edge of the canvas. An oversized sunflower, larger than the woman’s face, is affixed to her dress near her left shoulder, closer to us. She looks with dark eyes down toward the small, gold-rimmed mirror she holds in her right hand, farther from us. The child also holds the handle of the mirror with both hands, and in the reflection, the child looks back at us with dark eyes, a button nose, and pink lips. The child’s hair in the reflection is the same copper color as the woman’s, but the child on her lap has blond, shoulder-length hair. The woman rests one hand on the child’s left shoulder, closer to us. The child has a rounded belly and smooth, rosy limbs. The woman and child are reflected in a second mirror hanging on the wall alongside them, opposite us. Their reflections are very loosely painted. The wall behind the pair is sage green across the top and it shifts to fawn brown across the bottom. Brushstrokes are visible throughout, especially in the woman’s dress and hair, and are more blended in the bodies and faces. The artist signed the painting in the lower right corner, “Mary Cassatt.”

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A small brown dog and a pale-skinned little girl wearing a white dress sit in matching celestial-blue armchairs in this horizontal painting. To our right, the girl sits with her legs angled to our left. She slumps back with her legs spread, and her left elbow, on our right, is bent so that hand rests behind her head. Her other elbow is draped over the armrest. Her dark brown hair appears to be pulled back, and tawny brown eyes under faint brows gaze down and to our left. She has a small nose set in a round face and a coral-pink mouth closed in a straight line. Her white dress has touches of gray, soft pink, and powder blue with a wide plaid sash around her waist. The pine-green, black, and sapphire-blue sash is accented with overlapping vertical and horizontal lines of burnt orange, light blue, and mustard yellow. Her socks match her sash and come up to mid-calf, over black shoes with silver buckles. The small dog has scruffy black fur and a russet-brown face. It lies curled in the chair opposite the girl, to our left, with its eyes closed and ears pricked up. The rounded backs of the upholstered chairs curve down to become the low arms. The vivid and light blue fabric of the chairs is scattered with loosely painted strokes of avocado and forest green, peach pink, cherry red, plum purple, and white. Beyond the chairs closest to us is another armchair and an armless loveseat, both covered with the same fabric. They sit at the back of the room, in a corner flooded with silvery light coming through four windows on the right side. The furniture is arranged on a peanut-brown floor. The artist signed in the lower left, “Mary Cassatt.”

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We look across a wide river with buildings lining the opposite bank as two tugboats painted with stripes and strokes of cherry red, white, and cobalt blue steam along from right to left in this stylized, horizontal landscape painting. The paint is loosely and thickly applied throughout. The water is painted with layers of short, horizontal strokes and daubs of ice and royal blue, shell pink, bottle green, and the red, white, and blue of the boats to suggest reflections. One tugboat is just left of center and passes the small village on the opposite bank. Smoke rising from that boat’s stack create eddies of cobalt blue, marigold orange, and petal pink. The bow of a second tug enters from the middle right. The riverbank directly in front of us, in the lower left corner of the composition, is painted with dashes of mustard yellow layered with horizontal strokes of burnt orange. The village on the far side fills the top third of the painting and parallels the river. Its buildings are butter yellow with blue or pumpkin-orange roofs. A few tall, narrow, emerald and avocado-green strokes suggest cypress trees growing amid the village. Horizontal strokes near the river’s edge could be another line of buildings. The building’s reflections are suggested by short, parallel strokes of golden yellow, orange, and green extending into the river. The trees, buildings, and boats are outlined in black. The sky above the village is mint green layered with thick strokes of white, and swirls of azure blue and light pink. The artist signed the painting with black letters in the lower left corner, “Vlaminck.”

Fauvism

Saturated, unnatural colors and powerful brushstrokes made fauvist paintings radical—and widely criticized. Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck were among the artists dubbed “fauves” (wild beasts). While short-lived (about 1904 to 1908), fauvism was the first avant-garde wave of the 20th century.  

Shown from the chest up, a man with short, orange hair and green-tinted, pale skin looks at us, wearing a vivid blue painter's smock in this vertical portrait painting. His smock and the background are painted with long, mostly parallel strokes of cobalt, azure, and lapis blue. His shoulders are angled to our left, and he looks at us from the corners of his blue eyes. He has a long, slightly bumped nose, and his lips are closed within a full, rust-orange beard. He holds a palette and paintbrushes in his left hand, in the lower left corner of the canvas. The background is painted with long brushstrokes that follow the contours of his head and torso to create an aura-like effect.

Post-Impressionism

Post-impressionists took the impressionists’ recording of light and color in nature to more emotional and spiritual places. And each artist pursued unique subject matter and a distinctive style. Paul Cezanne was preoccupied with natural forms and spatial depth. Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh expressed themselves through bold color and brushwork.