Blue Grass, Green Skies: American Impressionism and Realism from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art | New Britain Museum of American Art
Exhibitions
"It must not be assumed that American Impressionism and French Impressionism are identical. The American painter accepted the spirit, not the letter of the new doctrine." - Christian Brinton, 1916
In 1874, a group of avant-garde French artists, including Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, organized the first exhibition of the “Anonymous Society of Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, etc.” in Paris. Although working independently, rather than as a unified movement or school, they came to be known as the Impressionists—a term first used to disparage their works as unfinished “impressions.” Defined by their loose brushwork, vibrant color palettes, and attention to capturing the ephemeral effects of light and atmosphere, these artists rejected established academic traditions and developed innovative approaches to depicting modern life.
Impressionism’s influence was felt globally, but perhaps nowhere as profoundly or as long lasting as in the United States. American artists working abroad had opportunities to see and study Impressionist works, but it was not until 1886—when the movement had lost some of its radical edge—that the first large-scale exhibition of French Impressionism was held in the United States. The New York Tribune reported that although Impressionist pictures were often criticized for their “blue grass, violently green skies, and water with the coloring of a rainbow,” Americans would nevertheless benefit from studying the “vitality and beauty” in these works.