How Impressive is Your Impressionism Knowledge?

If you like to play with brushstrokes and colors, indulge yourself in this hearty quiz about Impressionism. Let’s see how far you can challenge your arty wits!

Impressionism, as an art movement, picked pace in the late 19th century when a group of Paris-based painters independently exhibited their works comprising prominent impressionist elements.

Impression, Sunrise was the name of Claude Monet's 1873 painting from which the Impressionist movement got its name. Its unique style set the platform for a thousand more works to come.

As impressionists brought in their own distinctive style and rejected all academic norms, they liked to be called ‘independents’. Initially, they met and discussed art in cafés across Paris.

Claude Monet was the iconic French painter whose distinctive brushstrokes and play of light & shade paved way for the first modern art movement that also gets its name from his work – Impressionism.

Louis Leroy was a French journalist and art critic. On 25 April 1874, he wrote a review on the art exhibition that also featured Monet’s Impression, Sunrise, and coined the term, “Impressionists”.

The most common depiction in impressionist paintings was scenes from modern life. Moreover, the impressionists preferred painting en plein air, meaning outdoors.

Impressionist paintings have some peculiar traits – small and thin brushstrokes, open composition, accurate depiction of light and shade, and movement in forms of human perception.

In 19th century France, the Academy of Fine Arts dominated the art scene. Impressionist works seemed to ignore all rules of academic painting and so, were rejected by the mainstream in the beginning.

In 1863, the Paris Salon rejected Édouard Manet’s painting, The Luncheon on the Grass. Considered controversial at the time, it became one of the watershed paintings later, setting the stage for modern art.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) was a French impressionist whose works focused on feminine beauty and sensuality. With vibrant play of color and light, his works depicted people in candid postures.

In 1897, the first ever museum exhibition of impressionist art was held at Paris’ Musée du Luxembourg. This formally paved way for impressionism to be included in the world’s official art history.

Virginia Woolf was one of the prominent creators of impressionist fiction. Her novels focused on the character's impressions, feelings, and emotions rather than the outer appearance.

Has this quiz triggered your brain cells already? If it has, surely you are planning to delve deeper into the world of art. But before you do so, let’s take a look at your scores.