How the Impressionists Learnt to Paint

The early years of four artists who staged a groundbreaking exhibition

Woman with a Parasol — Madame Monet and Her Son (1875) by Claude Monet. Oil on canvas. 100 × 82 cm. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., U.S. Image source Wikimedia Commons

I recently discovered that it’s exactly 150 years since the French Impressionists broke with tradition and held their first independent exhibition in April 1874. It was a seminal event: never before had a collective of unknown artists dared to act outside the confines of the state-sponsored Salon. Its ripple effect would steer art into a new age and influence generations to come.

When I heard about the anniversary, I started to wonder how the Impressionists actually came about: where did artists like Monet, Renoir, Degas and Pissarro come from? What was their early trajectory into art and what circumstances eventually brought them together?

By digging into the formative years of these artists it’s possible to pin down the Impressionists within a wider context of art history, and in doing so learn much more about the meaning and purpose of their epoch-making paintings.

Youthful beginnings

The four key artists I’ve mentioned — Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro — were all born within 11 years of each other. (Pissarro was born first in 1830; Renoir last in 1841.)