CHARACTERISTICS OF IMPRESSIONIST PAINTING

1.Characteristics of Impressionist painting emphasis on light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage of time).The Impressionists found that they could capture the momentary and transient effects of sunlight by painting en plein air.

2.Impressionist paintings do not exploit the transparency of thin paint films (glazes) which earlier artists built up carefully to produce effects. The surface of an Impressionist painting is typically opaque.

3.They used short, "broken" brush strokes of pure and unmixed color, not smoothly blended, as was the custom at the time.