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…