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Impressionism

Painters in 1870s Paris who worked quickly, often outdoors, to catch light as it changed.

53 works · hang 6190 ·

The rooms are imagined; every work on their walls is real.

Walk this roomRehang this room

First room, north wall

  1. Self-Portrait, by Edgar Degas, 1857
    Self-PortraitEdgar Degas, 1857Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
  2. Shown from the knees up, a young girl with pale skin, wearing a coral-peach dress, sits facing and looking at us in this loosely painted, vertical portrait. Her knees are angled slightly to our left, and her hands rest in her lap. She has a round face and smooth, lightly flushed cheeks. She has brown eyes under arched brows, a delicate, snub nose, and her rose-pink lips are closed. Her hair, which is painted with broad strokes of caramel brown and moss green, is parted on one side and pulled smoothly back, presumably tied behind her head. Tendrils fall over her shoulders. Her dress is gathered around her neck and tied with a bow at the back. The loose sleeves fall to just below her elbows, and the dress is belted around the waist. A curving swipe of canary-yellow paint could be a buckle at the front. The fabric of the dress is painted with long, visible strokes of shell and rose pink, butter yellow, and ivory white, and a few touches of sage green and periwinkle blue for shadows. She wears a ring on the middle finger of her right hand. The space around her is loosely painted with strokes of electric and cobalt blue, with unpainted canvas visible at some of the edges. To our left, over the girl's shoulder, a wooden bird cage holds an emerald-green parakeet. The bird is streaked with royal blue along its back, and the area around its hooked beak is apple red. The cage has a mint-green bow and ribbon along the top. The artist signed the painting in green on the lower right corner: “Berthe Morisot.”
    The Artist's Daughter with a ParakeetBerthe Morisot, 1890Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  3. Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875–1895), by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1878
    Madame Georges Charpentier (Marguerite-Louise Lemonnier, 1848–1904) and Her Children, Georgette-Berthe (1872–1945) and Paul-Emile-Charles (1875–1895)Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1878Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

First room, south wall

  1. Shown from the chest up, a pale-skinned man in a suit sits in a high-backed chair, looking slightly to our right in this vertical portrait painting. His eyes and head are both turned slightly to our right, with only one ear visible on our left. His shoulder on our right and the right side of the chair are slightly cut off by the edge of the painting. He has a straight nose, high cheekbones, and pale pink closed lips. His eyes are dark, with small shadows beneath them. His black, wavy hair is parted on our right and cropped short on the sides of his head, with thick, defined waves on top. He has a light brown mustache that extends past the edge of his lips and flips up at the ends and a small, thin goatee. Beneath his chin, the collar of his white shirt is visible. The man wears an open suit jacket with a black vest, which folds slightly just below his chest, revealing a glimpse of his white shirt beneath it in a gap between buttons. The chair is only visible from the man’s shoulders up and ends at his forehead. It has a curved, round top back with a red frame and dark green upholstery. The part of the red frame on the right side of the painting has white and yellow highlights. The background is dark gray with visible brushstrokes. The artist signed and dated the painting at the top left, “F. Bazille. 1866.”
    Edouard BlauFrédéric Bazille, probably 1869Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. Jalais Hill, Pontoise, by Camille Pissarro, 1867
    Jalais Hill, PontoiseCamille Pissarro, 1867Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. In a dance studio, two ballerinas wearing knee-length tutus and ballet slippers sit on a bench and stretch to our right while four more pose at the back of the space, to our left, in this long, horizontal painting. The scene and dancers are loosely painted so many features are indistinct. All the women have light skin and dark brown hair. Each pale, robins’ egg-blue costume has a low-cut, tightly fitting, sleeveless bodice and a full skirt. Dabs of off white, teal, and blue suggest flowers lining the deep U of the neckline at the front and down the back of each bodice. Closest to us and nearly brushing the edges of the lower right corner of the canvas, one dancer sits on the end of a wooden bench and leans down between her legs, her feet widely planted. She rests her torso on an elbow folded onto one knee as she reaches for her left foot, farther from us, with her other hand. Her hair is pulled up and her face, looking downward, is deep in shadow. Sitting behind her on the bench, to our left, a second dancer lifts her right leg, toe pointing, as she pulls on her pale pink tights. Her other leg stretches straight, pointed toe brushing the floor, in front of her. This woman’s hair hangs loose around her shoulders. The pair is brightly lit from a source to our right, and an arched area of electric blue and mustard yellow behind them is difficult to interpret. The floor, which takes up about two-thirds of the composition, is painted with dabs of teal blue, pale fuchsia pink, and caramel brown. It leads us back to the upper left corner of the painting where four more four ballerinas stand in a line. The pair to our left stands with their backs to us, facing the wall with their right legs raised to shoulder height, toes pointed. The pair to our right faces us. They also stand with their right legs raised, creating a wide angle with their standing legs. All four ballerinas bend their arms gently at the elbow, and some tip their heads toward the raised legs. The rightmost dancer is illuminated by a pair of French doors at the back corner, at the top center of the painting. The wall behind the bench is streaked with mint green over honey brown, and the wall at the back of the room is leather brown. The visible, soft brushstrokes give the image a blurred, ethereal appearance in the dimmed studio. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “Degas.”
    Before the BalletEdgar Degas, 1890/1892Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

Second room, south wall

  1. Painting composed of short, dense brushstrokes depicts two domed stacks of wheat that cast long shadows on a field. The angled light indicates either a rising or setting sun.
    Stacks of Wheat (End of Summer)Claude Monet, 1890–91Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Loosely painted image of an open-air train station. On the right, a parked train gives off an enormous plumb of white smoke, making the scene look as though it were full of clouds. A huddled mass of barely discernible people crowd around the train on both sides of the tracks. Blue, green, and gray tones dominate.
    Arrival of the Normandy Train, Gare Saint-LazareClaude Monet, 1877Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  3. By the Seashore, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1883
    By the SeashorePierre-Auguste Renoir, 1883Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Second room, north wall

  1. A row of spire-like structures of different heights is silhouetted in azure blue against a soft pink, yellow, peach, and lavender-purple sunset and reflected in a rippling river in this nearly square landscape painting. Along the horizon, the buildings stretch from our right, almost fully across the canvas, and are painted with vertical brushstrokes in cool shades of blue. The sky behind the towers seems hazy with intermingling, pastel-colored clouds. The buildings are reflected in the river, which fills the bottom third of the painting. The surface of the water is painted with short, horizontal brushstrokes in azure blue for the buildings, and apricot, rose, and marigold orange for the sky’s reflection. A streak and smudge of olive-green paint on the water represents a person in a boat near the center of the painting. The artist signed and dated the work in the same olive color at the lower right: “Claude Monet 1903.”
    The Houses of Parliament, SunsetClaude Monet, 1903Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington
  2. A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?), by Edgar Degas, 1865
    A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers (Madame Paul Valpinçon?)Edgar Degas, 1865Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
  3. A work made of oil on canvas.
    Fruits of the MidiPierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago

Third room, north wall

  1. A work made of oil on canvas.
    The Place du Havre, ParisCamille Pissarro, 1893Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. Estérel Village, by Edgar Degas, c. 1890
    Estérel VillageEdgar Degas, c. 1890Courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art

Third room, south wall

  1. Painted portrait dominated by loose, large brushstrokes of a woman, seen from the back, wearing a gauzy white off-the-shoulder dress and black choker, blond hair swept up, examining herself in a mirror at left. The background is a feathered swirl suggesting floral pattern in cool pale tones of gray, purple, pink, and blue.
    Woman at Her ToiletteBerthe Morisot, 1875–80Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago
  2. From a high perspective, we look beyond two overlapping, emerald-green hills to a body of powder-blue water dotted with sailboats in this loosely painted horizontal landscape. Closest to us, the hills create a shallow V that spans the lower third of the composition, with the right-hand hill rising to more than halfway up the right edge. The hills are painted with dashes and long strokes mostly in seafoam, shamrock, and celery green, with some swipes of peach, goldenrod yellow, and royal blue. On the hill to our left, one woman sits and the other stands next to her. They wear hats, long-sleeved, fitted jackets, and long skirts in tones of dusky pink and dove gray. A touch of peach on the seated woman, to our left, gives the impression of a pale face. A red veil or scarf at the back of the other woman’s hat is lifted, as if in the wind. The water is painted with blended strokes of pale blue, light turquoise, smoky mauve pink, and touches of soft peach. The horizon comes two-thirds of the way up the composition, and the sky is painted with the same tones of blue, green, and peach to suggest a screen of clouds. Triangles and dashes of slate blue suggest about three dozen sailboats, rowboats, and one steamship in the rippling water. Squiggles of teal and sage green create reflections for some of the boats. The brushstrokes are visible throughout. In some areas, the paint is so thinly applied that the texture of the canvas shows through, especially in the sky. The artist signed the work in the lower left corner: “Claude Monet 82.”
    Cliffs at PourvilleClaude Monet, 1882Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington